BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: Lucky Thirteen

Thirteen torpedoed British merchant seamen scrambled from their swamped lifeboat into a half-ship they found floating in mid-Atlantic. They wolfed the canned chicken, hardtack and liquor they found, but their "SS Stern" settled slowly. When its deck was barely awash they had a farewell party They drank their fill and hornpiped to the jangling tones of a portable phonograph. None of them remembered much after that until a passing ship picked them up.

Others were not so fortunate. Axis U-boats still scour the central Atlantic in packs, trying to break up Allied...

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