- Item
- 1943-08-25
Part of Richards Studio Photographs
Seaman Basil D. Izzi, left, is photographed with Lt. Robert Mallett during a visit to the Seattle-Tacoma Shipyards on August 25, 1943. Seaman Izzi, who had survived a record 83 days on a life raft, spoke at the shipyards and helped present Suggestion Awards. The awards were presented to those employees who made suggestions that cut down production time or improved the quality of workmanship. Seaman Izzi, while serving as a gunner on a United Nations merchant ship that was torpedoed, went overboard and clung to wreckage before sighting and swimming to the life raft. He and four other sailors subsided on the raft, with provisions for only 16 days, by eating fish and birds that they caught and drinking rainwater captured on a canvas. They spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day on the raft. Only three of the sailors survived. By the time they were rescued, Izzi had dropped over 65 pounds. (Sea-Tac Keel, Vol. II, No. V, pg. 3; September 4, 1943 issue; TNT 8/26/1943, pg. 1)
Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp. (Tacoma); Izzi, Basil; Mallett, Robert;