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| Gaston, right, is welcomed back. |
For those of you unfamiliar with Grady Gaston, he was a native of Frisco City, Ala. who died in 1998. He is most famous for having 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 were not 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 today I provide you with the fourth portion of that official statement. This portion of this statement picks up after the death of Lt. Speltz in the third portion of Gaston’s statement, which can be read at http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2013/04/part-three-of-gastons-officials.html. The second portion of his statement can be read at http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2013/04/part-two-of-gastons-official-statement.html. The first portion of his statement can be read at http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2013/03/part-i-of-gastons-official-statement.html.
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PART FOUR:
Long before this, we had lost our jungle knives but there was only one thing to do from then on and that was try to find food and try to hold out until someone came to the cabin because there were rivers all around the area and several hills which I was too weak to try to climb. One day in roaming around the area I came upon a tree with an old spear and file in a sack hanging from it. I was glad to see the spear as it meant that if I did find anything I could at least cut it but the handle was gone and every time I tried to use it my hands would get cut so badly I could hardly stand the pain.
I came across a few sand crabs and found that I had to use part of the sack to protect my hands as when I would reach in the hole for them they would bite my hands badly. These did not last very long.
One day while across the river looking for passion fruit two dingoes (they are a wild dog similar to our wolf or coyote) came up to me. I grabbed a stick but knowing that if I hit one of them the other might attack me. I took a chance and just scared them away. They followed me for some time but finally disappeared.
The next day, while going down the beach, I found six of them eating from a calf that they had apparently just killed. By that time the only thing that mattered to me was food and here was plenty of it, so I scared them off with a stick I was carrying and proceeded to eat where they had left off. When I had finished I cut a leg from the calf and took it back to the cabin. This lasted for a couple of days. Several times on my walk down the beach, I had come across small bunches of minnows that had been washed ashore which I also ate.
Things went on just about the same for me from then on except that each day I knew I was getting weaker until about the middle of April, I had made a makeshift calendar on the wall of the cabin with the dates on it of Lt. Grimes, Lt. Dyer’s and Lt. Speltz’s deaths and before going in hunt for food I had written that if anyone came, and I was not there, they would know I was nearby because by now I had grown so weak I did not feel that I could last but a few days longer.
It was such a hard job for me to move to try to find food, every few feet I would have to stop and rest for a long time. On April 21, I had been searching the beach for fish and when I could not find any more I went into the woods in search of berries. While returning to the cabin, I saw a black boy riding a horse down the beach and at first I imagined I was seeing things.
I could not understand his language, but he turned and I followed him as best I could. We finally got back to the cabin where I found a white man and several more black boys. My heart just about jumped out of me with joy at seeing a human being. They had come to round up stray cattle.
The only food they had with them was some bread and cold beef but after a light meal of this, I felt that nothing in the world could have tasted better. It went down so fast I did not realize it, but had to be careful I did not eat too much. I was so excited at finally finding someone that I did not rest or sleep at all that night.
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To read the rest of Gaston’s statement, please visit this site next Saturday, when I will post the fifth 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.
That is an awesome survival story!
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