Surviving the Flier

Based on numerous interviews, letters, official reports and logs from the Navy, in addition to the unpublished memoirs of the main character, Surviving the Flier tells the story of the only submariners to escape their sinking submarine, elude capture by the enemy, and return home during WWII.  Submarines were the most dangerous branch of the Navy in WWII, killing one out of five men who volunteered. When USS Flier exploded and disappeared in seconds, only a handful of her men were given a second chance to escape those odds.  Determined to become the first to return home despite the enemy patrols scouring the islands for Allied soldiers and sailors, these men swam for hours in shark infested waters, built shelters and rafts, and stumbled on hidden intelligence networks and guerrilla warriors working to bring down the Japanese regime from the inside.Who they met and what happened to their boat would remain a closely-guarded secret for decades.  Even the f

No one had ever returned before.
But they would rather die trying the impossible than surrender.

Surviving the Flier is an incredible true story of survival. As World War II drew to a close, the USS Flier struck a mine and sank in thirty seconds while on patrol in the Philippines. Fifteen men survived the explosion, but only eight survived the seventeen hour swim to land. From there the survivors worked to elude capture by the Japanese, struggled to find food and water, and eventually managed to find their way back to Allied territory. The people they met and how they returned was kept top secret for years. Told from the perspective of the last living survivor, Al Jacobson, this book draws upon his memoirs as well as extensive research to portray as accurate a story as possible.