In their excitement, the men in the little motorboat could hardly tumble out a coherent story to the port authorities at Kavieng, New Guinea. They had crossed the 85 miles from Emirau Island, they said, to get help for some 500 prisoners of war, marooned there by German sea raiders. Help was needed quickly. Some of the castaways were badly torn by shrapnel and steel splinters. Seventy women and children were nearly exhausted. All of them were dirt-encrusted, hollow-eyed, half-starved.
By the time a rescue ship had picked up the tired, haggard little...
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