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| Gaston, seated left, gives statement. |
For those of you unfamiliar with Gaston, a native of Frisco City, Ala. who died in 1998, he endured an epic struggle for survival after a military plane crash in the Australian wilderness during WWII. In the early days of the war, Gaston served as the radio operator aboard the “Little Eva,” a B-24 Liberator bomber that was based out of a remote airbase in Queensland, Australia. On Dec. 2, 1942, while on their way back from their first mission, their plane was disabled during a severe thunderstorm.
As the plane began to run out of fuel, Gaston and other members of the crew parachuted from the plane moments before it crashed in a remote area of the Australian wilderness. Up to that point, Gaston had never parachuted out of anything, much less a moving plane hundreds of feet off the ground, but miraculously he survived the jump. Others weren’t so lucky.
Once on the ground, Gaston found himself in a group of four, who began making their way west toward the coast. Over time, the men slowly began to starve to death and eventually only Gaston was left alive. An extensive search was launched for the plane and the crew, but Gaston wasn’t found until April 23, 1943 when an Aborigine found him walking on the beach. Barely alive, Gaston had survived 141 days in a wilderness that would have killed experienced bushmen and Aborigines in similar circumstances.
Gaston’s ability to survive was mostly due to the fact that he was willing to eat things that his companions would not. With no way to start a fire, he ate whatever he could catch with his bare hands, including raw snakes, frogs, fish and sand crabs. He also fought off wild dogs, drank impure water and lost 70 pounds. He would later describe his experience, which led to him being featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” as “141 days of hell.”
Not long after his rescue, in May 1943, Gaston provided the military with an official statement of what happened to him and his colleagues in the Australian jungle, and tonight I provide you with the first portion of that official statement. As you read the statement below, try to put yourself in Gaston’s place and think about what you would have done had you been in his position.
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It was about nine o’clock in the evening, Dec. 1, 1942, after having completed a bombing mission somewhere in the Southwest Pacific that we were returning to our home base in a B-24 Liberator when we ran into a terrific storm. Shortly after entering the storm our radio and many other instruments were rendered useless and but for the exceptional ability of our pilot, 1st Lt. Norman R. Grosson, Cincinnati, Ohio, we would probably have crashed long before we did. In trying to avoid the ferocity of the storm, Lt. Grosson tried to circle it but after that failed he then went to about 20,000 feet in order to try to fly over it.
All these maneuvers seemed to no avail when suddenly we were out of the storm but since our instruments were of no avail there was not much could be done except to come to a lower altitude and try to ascertain our position. After coming quite low we dropped our flares but could no determine our locality. During these tactics our gasoline was growing continually lower and finally when only about 300 gallons remained in our tanks, Lt. Grosson gave the order for everyone to put on their life vests and parachutes in preparation for a jump and at the same time he started to climb higher in order to gain enough altitude for everyone to have a chance to jump clear of the airplane.
At 9,000 feet the order was given and after looking around I felt sure that there were no other people in the airplane other than Lt. Grosson and myself at which time I jumped. At the time of jumping we did not know whether we were over land or water but upon landing with a considerable jolt I found that my parachute had caught in several trees and that I had landed in the center of the cluster. After resting for a few moments I climbed one of the trees from where I could see the airplane burning and could hear ammunition exploding.
Just about that time I heard someone calling “Hello” – “Hello,” after which I kept up an answer until Lt. Grimes, our bombardier, joined me. In the meantime, Lt. Speltz, our co-pilot, heard our voices and soon he joined us. Being about three o’clock in the morning of Dec. 4, we decided it would be of no use to try to locate the airplane, therefore, we used our parachutes as beds. We slept until sunrise, at which time we decided to try to find the coast.
After traveling for some time, we ran into Lt. Dyer, our bombardier, and after taking inventory, we found that he had the emergency rations from his parachute, and I had the emergency rations from mine, which amounted to four bars of chocolate candy, our jungle knife, one fish hook and line and a few matches in a waterproof container.
With four of us accounted for and together we walked the rest of that day and until about 10 o’clock the next morning before reaching the coast. We had not found any water until this time and finally when night fell we were in quite a bad condition for want of a drink. After settling for the night, Lt. Grimes finally found a stagnant water hole with alligators and other types of strange things swimming around in it, but we were so glad to see water that anything else did not matter.
After resting for the night, I cut the top part of my life vest off which enabled us to fill it with water. We then traveled on, but after about 1-1/2 days, we were again out of water.
We continued to follow the beach north to northwest during which time we sucked leaves and chewed on green bark in order to quench our thirst. We had two 4.5-calibre pistols with us and finally after trying several times on the fourth day we managed to kill a young bullock. We cut off as much meat as we could carry and after finding a suitable place we built a fire, cooking the meat on the end of sticks.
That was our first meal and, of course, we ate all that we could hold. By this time we were only thinking of lessening the weight we had to carry, therefore, we did not carry any meat with us, in fact, we discarded everything possible in order to lighten our load and after another day we had to throw away our pistols as they had rusted to a point where we could not use them. During our travel down the beach we ran into several rivers.
We tried to get around one or two of them, but they didn’t seem too narrow enough for us to walk across we decided to swim. They were all infested with alligators and crocodiles, but luckily we did not get hit by any of them. Many times we waded through mud and slush almost waist deep and at times had to crawl through the dense jungle growth.
We had been fishing every night and at times had quite a bit of luck, but soon we found ourselves with only one fishhook left. We were growing weaker all the time and after deciding to make camp for the night we threw out our fishing line, but this time and extra large fish took hold of it carrying away our last chance of fish for food. From then on we tried using one “Safety-pin-hook,” but had no luck as they would always get off before getting them out of the water.
After traveling for a considerable distance, we finally came upon a large fish, apparently a swordfish, lying on the beach. Lt. Dyer came upon it quietly and after jumping on his long bill, I took my jungle knife and killed him. We had only about two matches left, so we ate him raw, but at that stage anything tasted good to us.
During this time, we had found a few patches of “Passion fruit” and a few “cockerels,” but after a while we soon tired of them. They tasted good to us, but contained very little nourishment.
On Dec. 13, a flight of three B-24s came directly over us and after using everything possible of signals they went on their way without seeing us. They were about 1,000 feet high at the time, that was about the most discouraging moment we had, since we could see men looking out of the windows, yet they could not see our signals.
On Dec. 24, we sighted a small paper bark shack and at once made a dash for it, hoping we would find someone but to our dismay it was empty and had been for a long time. After looking around, we found a watermelon vine with a few small melons on it. That was our meal for the night. It being Christmas Eve, we gathered around singing carols and making our Christmas prayers.
It started raining that night and kept it up for several days, during which time, Lt. Speltz, whose feet were in such bad condition, decided that he would stay there while the rest of us tried to find our way out of the jungle. We started out but upon reaching the Robinson River, we found that it had risen so high from the heavy rains that it was impossible to swim across.
We then tore our shirts into strips and tied a few logs together for a makeshift raft. Holding to this we managed to get across the river. We soon spread out in the woods to hunt for food and after while Lt. Dyer called to me and told me to cross another river we had found. While waiting for Lt. Dyer, to come up, Lt. Grimes started to wade and swim across with all his clothes on.
When I reached shore I could see that he was in trouble, “just about to drown.” I went in after him but the current was so swift that when I got within about 20 yards I found that I was just about helpless and at that time, Lt. Dyer called for me to come back to shore where we just had to sit and watch Lt. Grimes be carried out to sea.
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To read the rest of Gaston’s statement, please visit this site next Saturday, when I will post the second portion of Gaston’s official statement about the “Little Eva” incident. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can read his entire statement at the following address, www.dropbears.com/a/aviation/docs/SgtGradyGaston-LittleEva.pdf. If you’re interested in more details about Gaston’s ordeal, I’d also encourage you to read “The Crash of Little Eva: The Ultimate World War II Survivor Story” by Barry Ralph, which was originally published in November 2004 by the University of Queensland Press in Australia.
In the end, how many of you remember Grady Gaston? Do you have any memories of Gaston that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.
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