The Greatest Adventure of World War II

“How,” you might ask, “could a book published in 1942 claim to be ‘the greatest adventure of WWII?'” I wondered the same. The Raft is, however, a pretty epic tale of three men’s survival through 34 days in the meandering Pacific. I’m surprised I’d never heard the story before.

Summary

The account is retold by Harold F. Dixon, aviation chief machinist’s mate in the U.S. Navy, to war journalist Robert Trumbull over the course of a few days’ interview. On January 16, 1942, while Dixon, along with his gunner Gene Aldrich and bomber Tony Pastula, fly their bomber out for a routine scouting expedition, a miscalculation in winds causes them to miss their ship on the return flight and become hopelessly lost. They hail the ship with no answer, run out of fuel, and have to dump the plane in the ocean with hopes that their carrier’s search-and-rescue would find them quickly.

It doesn’t. The men are lost, considered dead, and left to their own survival devices in a rubber raft with virtually no resources or protection. Then men just barely survive the thirty-four days it takes them finally to spot land, and their story is one of determination, desperation, and ingenuity—sometimes along the very edges of sanity.

Veracity

There were times in this book that I did wonder at the veracity of the tale, or at least some elements of it. I think it was five days, for example, before they were able to get their first drinks of fresh water. And later in the book, Dixon mentions having built up a tolerance even to sipping sea water for hydration. I’ve read enough survival books to know that these claims might be stretching the truth a bit. After all, the high salt content of sea water is not only the opposite of hydration, but also a poison that can destroy the mind. I was skeptical from the beginning.

I was glad, then, to re-read in my perusal of the book that the men did in fact suffer from hallucinations, trances, and absent mindedness—if not downright insanity.

As I look back, I see that my own reaction to the starvation, thirst, confinement, and heat was no less unreasonable. One moment I would be solicitous and concerned for the boys; without warning my mood would give away to blind anger. At such times, I couldn’t understand why they did not jump to obey the instant I gave an order. Then I would curse irrationally, as one swears at a stone after he has stubbed his toe on it. (80)

That the men suffered a true ordeal upon the high seas and that they managed to survive 34 days in the Pacific, I have no doubt. Dixon fills his testimony with details of discomfort only one who’d lived it could note. This early, colorful complaint was my favorite and especially helpful in proving this to me:

None of us could sleep more than a doze; although the sea was calm, there were always tiny surface waves, looking innocent as a ripple in your bathtub, but each a sharp explosion when it hit beneath the boat with maddening regularity. We bobbled like a cork, and to me one of the most amazing phases of this adventure was that we never became seasick. Each little wave that struck the bottom of our rubber bubble of a boat was a jarring blow across the shoulders and the back of the head of the man lying inside. Imagine doubling up on a tiny mattress, with the strongest man you know, striking the underside as hard as he could, with a baseball bat, twice every three seconds, while someone else pours buckets of cold salt water in your face. That’s what it was like. (21)

Another aspect of the book that made me doubtful at first was the phosphorescent albatross meat on page 49. Is it really possible that meat could glow “like a flashlight” simply because of the bird’s diet? But the more I thought about it, sure. Bioluminescence is totally normal at sea, even in bacterial form. That such a bacteria could infest an animal that lives upon and feeds off the sea is totally plausible; and that this same bacteria could spread through the meat of a bird after it’s been killed, even more so. It might seem like a wild, fantastic scene, but I buy it.

The Prayer Services

Of course, my favorite part of the story is how all three men turned to prayer, song, and poorly-remembered Bible stories to help keep their spirits up. As Dixon recounts:

It was later that I came to realize how little we knew about the Bible. One night, after our prayer meeting, I told a little Bible story. Appropriately, it was the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The boys were tickled with it. In my youth, I had been brought up in a denomination of the church that holds regular Sunday school, so I drew upon a long memory. Of course, the stories were in my own improvised words. I hadn’t been to church for many years, so it’s easy to imagine how good I was at recalling the stories I had learned as a youngster. I hadn’t been inside a civil church since 1923, when I was back home after my first cruise. Aboard ship, the chapel services which I occasionally attended included everything but Bible stories. (55-56)

The men also tried to sing together whatever songs they knew, but their all-time favorite pastime was, of course, talking about food. They would regularly recount in intricate detail what multiple-course meals they’d eat, were they to host the crew for feasts in their hometowns. And I loved how they awarded the first man to sight land a meal at whichever restaurant he chose in whichever city he liked, cost unconsidered. Food is always a common theme for these stories of survival-through-starvation, and it makes me appreciate the snacks I eat while I read!

I’m not that fat.

Conclusion

This was an excellent book that I feel might have been forgotten with time. If you’re a fan of survival stories, this is a great one—short, exciting, and insightful. I pulled a few favorite quotes as well, like these:

The news was in the adventure, not the men – but men make adventure just as much as adventure makes men. (23)

But the sea is cunning. It can bide its time, and spring like a beast. The wind was its ally. (97)

Whether you love to read about WWII, survival, or endurance of the human spirit, The Raft is worth checking out.

©2025 E.T.

Check out some of my other favorite survival adventures:

• Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing (1959)
• Alive by Piers Paul Read (1974)
• Touching the Void by Joe Simpson (1988)
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1996)
• The Wager by David Grann (2023)