Sea of Sharks: A Sailor's World War II Survival Story - hardcover

Caught off Okinawa in the fiercest typhoon in history at the end of World War II, Elmer Renner, then a young officer aboard a minesweeper, recounts the horror of his ship sinking and being cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Having survived the full fury of the storm in winds exceeding 100 miles-per-hour and the loss of life jackets and provisions, Renner and eight other sailors clung to a small raft for days, battling thirst, hunger, shark attacks, and eventually madness. In a day-by-day account of the physical and psychological torture they endured, this book chronicles what happened in fascinating detail. The authors describe the men's panic as distant ships seemingly ignore their desperate calls and the sea turned blood red when one of the men lost his life to a shark and another slipped silently into the unforgiving Pacific. Close to madness, the remaining survivors made a pact to practice cannibalism shortly before spotting three Navy Corsairs in the sky above them, assuring their rescue not long after by a sea plane. This remarkable tale of survival is also a story of the pain of betrayal for Renner continues to be haunted by the fact that a crewman who swam ashore for help did nothing to aid in their rescue and that the Navy prematurely gave them up for dead.