In Good Hands - The Life of Dr Sam Stening, POW

In Good Hands is the biography
of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander
Samuel ‘Sam’ Stening, DSC, Royal
Sam joined the services at the outbreak
of war. He chose the RAN and served in the Indian Ocean and then in
the famous ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’ in the Mediterranean, where his ship, the
Waterhen, was sunk in June 1941.
Posted to the cruiser Perth for her final deployment to Java and sinking in Sunda
Strait on 1 March 1942, although wounded, Sam found himself plunged into
the POW doctoring experience upon his rescue by a Japanese destroyer.
This was only the start of a gruelling three and a half years of captivity, during
which he served in eight POW camps in Japan. With few medical supplies,
his ingenuity, and some surprising help from Japanese civilians, Sam battled
the effects of extreme weather, constant punishment, overwork, starvation,
and disease on his patients.
After liberation, physically and mentally exhausted by his experiences, Sam
drew on the strength of his wife Olivia and the support of his family to
re-establish himself in paediatrics, and rose to the top of his profession.
A stalwart of the Women’s Hospital in Crown Street, where an intensive
care ward was named after him, and of the Royal
Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sam helped gain
professional respect for his specialty, establishing
it as a ‘proper’ field of medicine, until his death
in 1983.