A Day to Remember, Rejoice and Give Thanks

By JD Wetterling

 
USS Queenfish (SS393)

September 17, 2004, was POW/MIA Recognition Day, but Hurricane Ivan’s arrival in the Appalachians kept me from flying my flag in honor of some heroic friends from the Vietnam War. Something appropriately wonderful happened, though.  My dear friend Jack Bennett, a highly decorated veteran of a non-controversial war in the age of giants—WW II—and a born-again Christian at age 79, emailed me the story of a thank-you call he received that day from a former Australian POW and life-long friend. 

Sixty years ago this POW/MIA Day Jack, a submariner, met Arthur “Blood” Bancroft, a POW, in the raging seas of a South Pacific typhoon.  Both were swimming—more accurately Jack was swimming and Blood was hanging on for dear life, with rapidly waning strength, to a piece of flotsam. Blood had been a Japanese POW for two-and-a-half years when an American submarine sank a Japanese transport with POW's stuffed in its hold, though the ship was not marked as such, 6 nights earlier in the South China Sea.  The POW's were bound for the Honshu coal mines in Japan.  When daylight broke emaciated humans black from fuel oil in the water amongst the floating debris were calling out to the surfaced submarine, USS Pampanito, in what sounded like a strange tongue:  “Sive us.  Sive us.”  Then the lookout realized it was Australians shouting “Save us.”  There were more of them than the Pampanito had room for in a crowed sub, so Jack’s submarine, the Queenfish and her sister sub, Barb, hunting 400 miles away, were called to quickly come assist in the rescue. 

The Queenfish arrived at the desperate scene as a typhoon approached.  Lt. Jack Bennett, just four years out of Annapolis but still in superior physical condition, was put in charge of a small rescue party to go topside on the storm-tossed sub and gather as many survivors as he could.  From the violently bouncing deck of the Queenfish Jack hurled a line to the men in the water, but they were so weak from two-and-a-half years of maltreatment and malnourishment and 6 days in a violent ocean that they could not grasp the line, even though it lay across them.  Only a high-risk option remained.  Jack and bos'ns mate Bob Reed each dove into the water wearing a life jacket with one end of the rope tied around him.  Jack swam through the churning seas to each man and held him in a bear hug while the men on deck pulled them back to the sub.  Jack’s body served as the bumper between the sub hull and the pounding sea to protect the weakened POW till he could be pulled up on deck, then swam out after another survivor. Fighting off exhaustion, ingested sea water, and doubts of his own survival till darkness and heavy seas forced them to stop, his rescue party saved 18* living skeletons—weak, waterlogged POW’s on the brink of going permanently MIA—among them Blood Bancroft.   

There’s more to the story.  Blood had become a POW on March 1, 1942, when the Japanese destroyer, Fubuki, among others, firing torpedoes in the Battle of Sunda Strait (Java Sea), sank his light cruiser, the HMAS Perth.  While Blood was a starving POW building the Rangoon-Bangkok railroad and its bridge over the River Kwai, Jack was an officer on the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco.  In The Battle of Cape Esperance on October 11, 1942, seven months after Blood was captured, Jack was Officer of the Deck when two salvoes of the San Francisco’s main batteries (8 inch guns) sank—you guessed it—the Japanese destroyer Fubuki.  Jack avenged Blood’s capture by the Japanese before he knew him, returned to the States to successfully complete the demanding rigors of submarine school, returned to the South Pacific as a submariner, then saved Blood’s life in a typhoon while making him a free man again.  Blood was one of only four men from the HMAS Perth’s 328 initial POW’s to be recovered while a captive—353 men went down with the ship, 4 died on a nearby island before being captured and 106 died in captivity.

 It’s not hard to understand why an eternally grateful Blood Bancroft, famous Australian football star, and his wife, Mirla, called Jack in southern California from Perth, Australia on this POW/MIA day, the 60th anniversary of his rescue from drowning and dreadful detention as a prisoner-of-war.  They’d been expressing their gratitude to Jack in various ways for over a half-century—how they found one another after the war is another story. 

By God’s grace my brother in Christ, Jack Bennett, made it all possible.  I can’t praise our providential God any more eloquently than an enlightened Jack already has.  He ended his email to me relating this momentous phone call with this:

At a rather large garden party Arthur threw for me in Perth a few years ago I looked over the festive crowd and suddenly realized that if I hadn't saved Arthur's life the only guests who would have existed were Arthur's wife and sister.  His 6 children, his assorted grandchildren and great grandchildren would never even have had lives. A sobering thought of the decisive role Providence plays in our lives….  I was lucky to have survived myself—or should I say blessed.  I guess God used me again, this time to allow Blood Bancroft to live and raise a fine family.  So many details strangely tied in together in those desperate days while we were still losing the war in the Pacific. My life has been exciting and satisfying and still is [at 86]. I enjoy every hour of each day while I marvel at the astounding complexity of God's plan for us.  PTL.”

This writer marvels too, and can only add a humble, “Amen.”  

POW's saved by Jack 2.jpg (309576 bytes)      POW's saved by Jack.jpg (296030 bytes)      Pow's saved by Jack 4.jpg (227867 bytes)


         If you would like to read more about Jack Bennett, including how he became a Christian, read The Most Furious Sea Battle.   God willing, in the not too distant future you will be able to read a book, entitled BROTHER JACK, that includes these stories and more as God used three friends to regenerate an American hero’s heart in the autumn of his years.  

The author is grateful to the Queenfish veterans for supplying the above pictures for this story.  I'd be happy to post more if they exist.  Email then to JD Wetterling.   

* The following are the surviving POW's from the sunken Japanese transport, Rakuyo Maru, rescued from the South China Sea by US Submarine Queenfish SS-393:

Carter, Frederick, Driver,  #8l2905                    159 Butterthwaite Rd, Shiregreen,
 R.A.S.C. l96 Field Ambulance                            Sheffield, Yorkshire, England

Grice, Cyril, Gunner, 88th Field                          Doncaster, Yorkshire,England
 Regiment, R.A. ń   Deceased

Harrison, William, Gunner #977758                   Cator House Farm, Farmwell, Gatemoor
 9th Coast Regiment, R.A.                                     Durham, England

Hudson, Roy Ambrose, Bombardier,                    Edensor, Bakewell, Derbyshire,
 #l092740, 85th Anti-tank Regiment, R.A.          England                   

Jones, Herbert, Private, #7648536                      10 Little Moor Lane, Oldham,
 14th Section, R.A.O.C.                                         Lancashire, England

Winters, Harry, Private, ěCî Co.,                          Fulham, London, England
 5th Battalion, Bedford and Hartford
 Regiment, R.A. ń Deceased

Bancroft, Wm. Arthur, Able Seaman                   192 Subiaco Rd., Subiaco, Perth,
 F-3259, H.M.A.S. Perth                                      W.Australia

Beilby, Philip James, Private, WX                      45 Rockton Road, Claremont,
  12765m 2/4th Machine Battalion, A.I.F.          W.Australia

Bowhay, Stanley Bede, Private, NX                   120 McLachlan St., Orange, N.S.W.
 52537, 2/l9th Btn. (Machine Gun)                    Australia
 A.I.F.

Bunker, Harold Thomas, Private, WX                17 Parade St., Albany, W.Australia
 9223, 2/4th Machine Gun Btn.,A.I.F.

Cross, Frederick Victor, Private, WX                 No.6, Alice St., Geralton, W.Australia
 7268m 2/4th Machine Gunners,A.I.F.

Hinchy, George Frederick(?), Driver                  38 Darghan St., Cisbe(?), Sydney,N.S.,
 NX3l357,Btn.Division Headqtrs(?),A.I.F.          W. Australia

Lihou, Eric John, Gunner, QX937l                       Royal Terrace Hamilton, Brisbane,
 2/l0th Field Artillery, A.I.F.                                 Australia

Mills, Frederick Charles, Gunner                        34 Nelson St., Fairfield, N.S.W.
 NX3263l, 2/l5th Field Regiment,A.I.F.              Australia

Nunan, Lindsay Valentine, Private                       c/o Albemarle Hotel, Menindee, N.S.W.
NX55450, 22nd Aus.Inf.Brig.                              Australia
 Headquarters, A.I.F.

Pearson, Ernest Alexander, Driver                      No.9 Flat, Carlyle House, No.2 Kellett NXl208, 
2/3rd Res.M.T. Co. A.I.F.                                      St., Kings Cross, Sydney,N.S.W.
                                                                                 Australia

Smith, William George, Private                           c/o Solleys, Longreach, Queensland,
QX4556, 2/l0th Field Artillery, A.I.F.                 Australia

Wheeler, Raymond William, Private                   9 William St., Balaclava, S2,
 VX6l409, 2/l0th Ordnance Field                        Melbourne, Australia
 Workshops, A.I.F.

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