18. The Anatahan Castaways
In June of 1944, a Japanese convoy was sunk off Anatahan, a small Marianas island about 75 miles north of Saipan. 36 soldiers and sailors swam to Anatahan, where they were taken in by the Japanese head of a coconut plantation and his wife. American forces invaded the Marianas shortly thereafter, seizing the main islands and bypassing the smaller ones such as Anahatan. The Japanese on Anatahan ended up cut off and isolated from the outside world. Conditions grew dire on the resource-poor island, and the castaways barely survived by consuming coconuts, lizards, bats, insects, taro, wild sugar cane, and any edible that they could find.