The year is 1942 and WWII has left many nations in times of destruction and survival. As warfare ensues on the fronts of many countries, there is a small wooden raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Its only passenger is 25-year-old Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor who had been aboard a British Merchant Navy Ship.

Lim, a Chinese native, boarded the ship (the Benlomond) on November 10. His hope was to aid the British who had requested help from other nations. But, the real journey ahead was nothing he could’ve expected.

Poon Lim Drifts Away

To his satisfaction, Lim seized the opportunity to work with the crew of the British ship as a steward. They left from Cape Town with hopes of reaching Suriname, a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. Thirteen days into their voyage, a German U-boat made contact with the Benlomond. The ship had no chance of survival, and sank 1,200 kilometers east of the mouth of the Amazon river. 

Lim had been thrown into the sea rather quickly and spent his next hours battling to stay afloat. After 2 hours, he finally saw his chance for rest. Lim spotted a raft and made his way over to it. Tired from his unexpected exertion and soaking wet, he finally pulled himself aboard the “Carley Float Life Raft.” He took in his surroundings and was pleased to find the raft was pretty well stocked. He thought to himself that this was more than enough to last him a short trip. He had no idea, he was on a path of solitude for 133 days and what lengths he would have to go to to survive.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Poon spent his first days the same way I do on vacation. He ate, drank, and tanned with no cares in the world. After all, someone had to be coming to save him. In order to not lose track of time, he tied a knot in a rope signifying the days. He also tied a rope to both his wrist and raft, so he could ensure he would not be bucked from it within the night.

Days passed before he ran out of water. Poon had to come up with a solution quickly. Using both his rain jacket and a canopy, he was able to collect rainwater. His mentality began to change and he was seriously worried help was not coming. Lim even started counting full moons instead of knots. 

The next challenge Poon would face was the hunger. Biscuits and sugar lumps aren’t exactly the diet my doctor tells me to follow, but they were able to sustain him for a while. When the supply went, he knew he needed to find a way to fish. With no weapons, he improvised. Lim was able to make a fishing line out of rope, nails from the raft, and a spring from a flashlight onboard to create hooks. His efforts were effective, and he was able to catch and then eat the raw fish. Not exactly my preference of sushi though.

Realizing his strength was vital for survival, Poon began to tread the ocean waves twice a day. He needed to maintain his muscle mass. Soon the small fish and rainwater were not enough. During one of his fishing attempts, Poon actually caught a shark. Pulling it onto the boat, it began to attack him. He took a water container and bashed it to death. Poon was able to harvest the meat using a knife he had made out of a lid from a tin of meat.  Other ways Poon survived included eating seagull jerky that he made by using sunlight to dry the meat and drinking the blood when water supply was scarce. 

Glimmers of Hope

Lim’s trek was not without hope and disappointment either. During his months at sea he saw both boats and planes with promises of rescue. But at the end of the day, still no one came. The boats completely disregarded him, possibly due to his Asian descent. Once, American planes had spotted Poon and actually dropped coordinates to deploy a rescue team. However, a storm pushed Lim and his meek raft away from the location and the planes were never able to get to him.

Poon Lim Lives Life on Land

On April 5, 1943, 133 days after the Belomond had sunk in the ocean, a frail Poon Lim was pulled aboard a Brazilian ship off the coast of the country. The crew, only speaking Portuguese, was not able to communicate. However, they did give Lim provisions they had. Poon had been the only survivor of the shipwreck, and news of his story quickly spread. He had lost 20 pounds and spent the next 2 weeks in the hospital. He was famous, but at what cost. 

On October 1943, King George VI awarded Poon with the British Empire Medal. Poon would spend his next years traveling and sharing his survival techniques. He would later emigrate to the United States and be awarded citizenship despite the quota on Chinese immigrants being at max. Poon remained a citizen until his death at 72 in 1991. 

To this day, Poon Lim holds the world record for time spent surviving on a life raft as a castaway adrift at sea. When he was told about the record, his only response was “I hope no one will ever have to break it.”

The post One Guinness Record You Won’t Want to Beat: The Survival of Poon Lim first appeared on History In Memes.

Like most families, Juliane Koepcke and her mother, Maria Kopcke, spent their Christmas Eve traveling.

So on Christmas Eve, 1971, Juliane and her mother boarded LANSA Flight 50. a plane that could carry up to 99 people.

Their desired destination: Panguana, a research facility near Pucallpa, Peru. Juliane had spent 3 years studying the environment alongside her parents. With the anticipation of the holidays looming in the horizon, Juliane braced for what should have been a rudimentary hour flight.

Fifteen minutes before the projected landing, mother nature decided she had other plans. A thick blanket of black clouds encased the plane, reducing all visibility to zero.

Then, bam! With a swiftness, a lightning bolt not only illuminated the sky, but it sent the aircraft into a nosedive. Juliane remembered the strike, the sounds and weight of every passenger’s fear, and the calmness of her mother uttering “now it’s all over.” It was pure chaos, until it was nothing. Juliane said she can still recall the silence that followed the crash as she woke on the muddy ground of the Amazon rainforest, alone. 

2 Mile High Club

Juliane opened her eyes to find no flight attendants offering beverages, no pilot announcing their arrival, not a single other person. She immediately assessed her injuries. The confusion that she felt was a dead giveaway to a concussion. Additionally, her collar bone was broken from the impact, and she had large wounds traversing both her calf and shoulder. It would come to light following the crash that Juliane fell approximately 2 miles out of the sky onto the cold ground beneath her. 

Juliane wrote: “I lay there, almost like an embryo for the rest of the day and a whole night, until the next morning.” After the sun had risen, Juliane’s sedimentary attitude was replaced by a burning desire to find her mother. So, with lollipops from fallen luggage in hand she began her voyage through the notoriously dangerous jungle. 

From Juliane Koepcke to Tarzan 

​It was almost as if Juliane’s parents had spent their lives preparing the 17-year-old for this moment. Her mother Maria was a scientist who specialized in research of tropical birds. Her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, was a renowned zoologist. Between the two, they had provided Juliane a great advantage to surviving such a brutal environment. She was able to hear native bird calls and sounds of wildlife that indicated she was in the general region of home.

Juliane made her way across both bodies of water and intense self-made trails until she noticed a species of vulture her mother had taught her about. The birds were eerily circling a part of the forest. She tried to keep her optimism as she grew closer and closer to their marked location, with the daunting knowledge that these birds specialized in detecting death.

The image that followed is permanently etched into her memory. She saw three passengers, still strapped to their seats, that had not been so lucky in the crash. These casualties would be the first of many to Juliane’s knowledge. Even with the gruesome discovery, Juliane would not stop her fight for rescue. She navigated the Amazon for 10 days before not only her body began to give up, but her mind as well.  

The Sweet Sweet Sound of a Peruvian Fisherman

​On the tenth day, Juliane finally received some karmic return. Juliane found a small hut just past a riverbed she had been following. The hut must have looked like a top tier, 5-star hotel in that moment. She wandered inside and found a bottle of petrol. She quickly poured it into her large shoulder laceration and spent her next moments cleaning maggots out of her wound. Absolutely exhausted and feeling safer than she had in days, she decided to spend the night there.

Juliane was woken up the next day by a sound that startled her, the sound of people. She managed to make her way outside of the refuge and to the Peruvian fisherman nearby. Utilizing her Spanish, she was able to communicate that she was a survivor of the LANSA flight 508 plane crash. Juliane would eventually learn that she would be the only one to mutter those words, a lone survivor. Finally, days after Christmas, the best gift Juliane could receive was her in her grasp… salvation. 

The post How Teenager Juliane Koepcke Survived a Plane Crash and 10 Days Alone in the Amazon first appeared on History In Memes.