Lucky 73

Captured in 1942, a group of Allied prisoners of war were forced to spend fifteen months constructing the Burma-Thai Railroad. On September 6, 1944, the POWs were loaded onto floating concentration camps—hellships—for transport to Japan. Little did they know how quickly their situation could go from very bad to much worse. These same prisoners soon found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time when Pampanito and her wolf pack attacked a Japanese convoy whose passengers included more than 2,200 Allied POWs. Most of those aboard the Japanese convoy died, but when they returned to the coordinates a few days later, the crew of the Pampanito was astonished to discover survivors in the water. This is their story.