On April 5th, 1943, three Brazilian fishermen spotted something unusual on the horizon, about nine miles from shore. Turning their boat to investigate, they were astonished to discover an emaciated Chinese man in a rickety wooden raft, dancing, singing, and waving a tattered shirt over his head. Despite being horribly sunburnt and ravenously hungry, the man was in remarkably good spirits.
It wasn't until a few days later with the help of a translator that they learned that the man's name was Poon Lim, and that he'd been lost at sea for 133 days. This is his insane story. [music] Poon Lim was born on March 8th, 1918 on Hainan Island off China's south central coast.
Despite the first World War being in full swing and a global flu pandemic ravaging the world's population, Lim's family lived a relatively peaceful life, fishing in the Beibu Gulf north of the island. Unfortunately, by the late 1920s, a Japanese invasion of China was seeming more and more likely, and the family's future was anything but certain. Lim's father feared that his sons might get drafted into the army to fight the foreign invaders, and was convinced that conscription would mean certain death for them.
This prompted him to move his family to Malaysia, where they quickly settled in once again, sustaining themselves by fishing. However, as Lim grew up, he wasn't satisfied by this lifestyle. To him, it was boring and unfulfilling, and so when he was old enough, he became determined to do his part to fight Japanese imperialism.
He would eventually leave his family and this peaceful life to volunteer to serve as a cabin boy in Great Britain's Merchant Navy. Life at sea was Lim's first real taste of freedom, but unfortunately, this turned out to be far from what he expected. He and the individuals of Asian descent he served alongside were generally relegated to the worst jobs with the lowest pay, and they were subject to constant harassment and discrimination from English officers and sailors.
By 1937, Lim had run out of patience and moved on to find better opportunities elsewhere. He spent a few years working as a mechanic in Hong Kong, but then with yet another Japanese invasion on the horizon, he was once again drawn to the sea in late 1941. In a few short years, he'd already managed to avoid several Japanese onslaughts, but despite his luck so far, his fate was already set in motion when he became a steward aboard the 420-foot, 5,400-ton armed trader known as the Benlomond in early 1942.
This ship was a transport ship that regularly brought supplies to allied forces around the world during the second World War. On November 23rd, 1942, the vessel was on the last leg of a two-week journey between Cape Town, South Africa and Suriname. And from there, it was scheduled to make the 1500-mile trip North to New York City.
Even though the Benlomond was armed, the ship's defenses were limited to relatively small-caliber weapons, and everyone on board knew that they didn't stand much of a chance in a direct encounter with a hostile warship or submarine. The Benlomond was also painfully slow. But to top it off, that day, its ballast tanks were filled with thousands of gallons of seawater to balance it out in the rough seas.
Worse yet, the vessel was traveling by itself along a well-known outlet supply route, regular patrolled by German submarines. Right on cue, the Benlomond was spotted about 2:00 PM by a 250-foot German submarine. The captain of the submarine immediately sent a message across the ship, and the battle-hardened crew sprang into action.
Moments later, two massive almost two-foot diameter torpedoes launched from the tubes in the submarine, and began hurdling toward the slow Benlomond just a few hundred meters away. Both torpedoes struck the ship's hull just below the waterline, and due to the suddenness of the attack, tragically, nearly all of the 54 men on board were killed in the explosions, or went down with the ship moments later. By some stroke of luck and all of the chaos, Lim was able to grab a nearby life jacket, jump into the ocean, and swim away from the sinking ship.
Unfortunately, despite surviving this initial disaster, he was now alone in the Atlantic Ocean. Disoriented and in shock, Lim treaded water for hours before nearly succumbing to exhaustion. Then, right before he was about to give up all hope, he floated by an unoccupied 8'x8' wooden raft that had somehow survived the chaos.
With night closing in and no other people in sight, Lim's nightmare journey was just beginning. In a straight line, he was about 250 miles from the nearest land to the south, but trapped in a slow westerly current, he was being pushed toward the north coast of Brazil more than twice as far away. In the days following the ship's sinking, Lim sat in the raft, staring out into the endless ocean, and realizing that the only way he was gonna make it through this, was if he kept it together and used what little he had to survive.
Thankfully, the raft was equipped with a small survival kit, which included a flare gun, two electric cooking pots, a broken flashlight, a few chocolate bars, a bag of sugar cubes, and 11-gallon jug of fresh water. In the beginning, Lim assumed that it wouldn't take long for the Merchant Navy to figure out that the Benlomond had been sunk, and since its route and schedule were known, it seemed likely that a full-scale rescue operation would be launched without delay. On the other hand, in the back of his mind, he also knew that resources were scarce and that in the scheme of things, the loss of such an insignificant ship probably wasn't much of a priority.
To prepare for the worst, he began rationing his limited resources and refilling his jug with rainwater whenever he had the chance. At the very least, thankfully for Lim, he had spent his entire childhood training as a fisherman, and so he knew that the ocean was capable of providing all the food he needed until a rescue was mounted. After a quick inventory of his gear, he fashioned fishing line from some copper wire, and hooks from nails he removed from his raft.
For bait, he made dough balls from biscuit crumbs that he then packed around his makeshift hooks before dropping them over the side. It wasn't long before Lim pulled up his first fish. He then filleted with a sharpened tin lid and devoured it on the spot.
He then used the innards, skin and head to catch even more fish, but because he had no way of knowing how long this ordeal would last, he dried some of the meat in the sun to save for later. At the very least, it seemed that even though the food might not be plentiful, he had some way to catch food while he was waiting for rescue. In the days that followed, and then the weeks after that, Lim was constantly battered by fierce storms and strong winds.
And often, his precious supplies and dried fish were washed or blown overboard, as the little raft tipped back and forth in the massive waves. At some points, Lim became so hungry, dehydrated and dejected that just staying awake took every ounce of energy he could muster. Then, things took another unfortunate turn when the fish that had been so abundant, vanished without a trace.
As his food and water supply started to run low, he was forced to catch the seagulls that circled his little wooden raft. Being a little hesitant to eat the seagulls raw, he made leathery jerky from the meat and waited to consume it until it was fully dried out. Again, he also used the inedible parts of his bait, and the blood is chummed to catch fish and even a number of small sharks.
Oftentimes, he'd p something into the raft, and then would have to fight for his life on its slippery wooden floor until he was able to club the fish over the head. During all of this, his hunger and thirst got progressively worse. He was horribly sunburned, and he was almost constantly seasick.
But horrifyingly, this pales in comparison to the frustrating encounters he had with potential saviors. First, a large freighter passed within a stone throw of his raft. The crew even came on deck to look at him, but they had no visible reaction to his frantic calls for help in English, and the ship continued on its course as if he'd been invisible.
After some of the poor treatment he'd endured on the Benlomond, Lim assumed they'd made no attempt to rescue him because he was Chinese, though it's more likely that they thought he was a Japanese sailor. It was also well known that crews of lurking U-boats often place fake survivors in the water to lure would-be rescuers into the range of their torpedoes. And as a result, many merchant ships were strictly forbidden from attempting rescues, regardless of the nationalities of the men in the water.
Next, a group of US Navy planes flew directly overhead. One even dropped a buoy near him, which made it seem like they planned to return to find him. Unfortunately, a storm swept in and washed the buoy away before the crew could return, and he was lost again.
The only other contact he had with the outside world was when he was spotted by the crew of a German U-boat. This might have even been the one that sank the Benlomond. The crew took a break from shooting at seagulls from the sub's deck to gaze at him as he drifted by, but again, they simply passed by without any attempt to help him.
After all of those close encounters, Lim's hope was shattered, and he was almost certain he'd die a painfully slow death, either by dehydration or starvation. These were his darkest moments on the little raft. Miraculously, these were almost immediately followed by faint flicker of hope, when he noticed that the water that had been so clear and blue for much of ordeal, had become noticeably greener and more opaque.
From his days as a fisherman, he knew that this meant that the water was shallower, and that he was closer to land than he'd ever been. Finally, on April 5th, 1943, a hundred thirty three days after the Benlomond sank, he saw what he thought was a small fishing boat bobbing in the distance. In a matter of hours, his ordeal was over, and he was rescued by those Brazilian fishermen.
In total, Lim spent almost five months or 19 weeks in the Atlantic Ocean. He'd lost nearly 20 pounds, and was suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. He spent a month resting, eating, and regaining his strength in a hospital in Brazil.
But considering what he'd endured, the doctors agreed that he was in surprisingly good shape. When his story got out, the humble fisherman from Hainan Island became an international sensation almost overnight. Eager to capitalize on Lim's newfound stardom, the British consul arranged for him to travel to London in the fall of 1943.
After making brief publicity stops in Miami and New York, Lim was awarded a British Empire Medal by King George VI for his service in the Merchant Navy. In addition to that, the Royal Navy incorporated some of the survival techniques he'd used as a castaway in a new manual that was ultimately distributed to sailors and airmen. Next, Lim set out on an international speaking tour in which he recounted his harrowing tales of survival to fascinated audiences around the world.
Later, he decided to settle in the United States, but was initially denied citizenship, because the quota for Chinese immigrants had already been met that year. Thankfully, Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington State, championed Lim's cause, and he became a citizen after an official act of congress increased the quota by one. When he was told that no one in history had ever spent more time in a raft in the ocean than he had, Lim famously replied, that a was record he hoped no one would ever break.
He spent most of his remaining years in Brooklyn, New York, and passed away in 1991 at the age of 72. Hello everyone. My name is Sean, and welcome to Scary Interesting.
I know this one is a little shorter than usual, but it's one that I think just deserved to be released on its own. It's also one that I think is lesser-known about than some of the other famous lost at sea stories. At least it's one that I've never heard before.
If you enjoyed it and you have a suggestion similar to this that you want to hear on the channel, feel free to send them to me by the email in the description. If you wanna support the channel, give this video a like and subscribe if you aren't already, so you don't miss any of the weekly videos. Thank you all so much for watching, and hopefully, I will see you in the next one.
