32 Shark Against Man 



my shoulder, slid into the raft. It took a bite out of C . One of the 



men and myself caught the shark by the tail and pulled him out of the 

 raft. C became delirious and died about four hours later." 



In the South Pacific, potential shark victims did their own field re- 

 search. Some rescued airmen claimed sharks could be driven off by 

 sea-marker dye, a brilliant yellow preparation used to stain the water 

 to facilitate rescue; others complained that sharks were attracted by the 

 dye. A4any men put their faith in water-purifying tablets, the theory 

 being that the chlorine in the tablets repelled sharks. 



At least two cases were recorded in which the survival manuals 

 themselves were used to shoo away sharks. An airman downed in the 

 Yellow Sea had nothing to do but pass the time reading a booklet attached 

 to his lifejacket. After reading the booklet, Survival at Sea, he tore it up 

 and threw the pieces in the water. A shark that had been following the 

 airman's dinghy darted after the paper and never bothered the airman 

 again. 



Over the South Pacific, five men bailed out of a crippled plane. They 

 had no life-raft, and, as they trod water together in their lifejackets, 

 sharks began circling around them. The airmen tried to drive off the 

 sharks by kicking at them. Then, in disgust, they tore up two survival 

 manuals and tossed the pieces away. The sharks left the men and swam 

 off to examine the manuals. A short while later, the men were rescued. 

 What happened to the sharks after digesting the message in the manuals 

 is not known. 



Dr. George A. Llano, an Air Force research specialist, and an inter- 

 nationally known student of shark attack, himself a life-raft survivor, 

 gathered these reports in an exhaustive study of airmen who ditched 

 their planes or who were shot down over the sea during the war. He 

 examined the reports of 2,500 victims of wartime sea survival experiences. 

 Surprisingly, only 38 reports mentioned actual contacts with sharks. 

 But, as Llano grimly remarked, "When sharks are successful, they leave 

 no evidence, and the number of missing airmen who may have succumbed 

 to them cannot be estimated." 



Llano told of one Navy officer who survived a shark attack during the 

 12 hours he floated in the water off Guadalcanal after his destroyer was 

 sunk. At dawn, he said, he was floating in the water when he felt 

 something "tickling his left foot." 



"Slightly startled," his account reads, "I . . . held it up. It was gush- 

 ing blood ... I peered into the water . . . not ten feet away was the 

 glistening, brown back of a great fish . . . swimming away. The real 

 fear did not hit me until I saw him turn and head back toward me. He 

 didn't rush . . . but, breaking the surface of the water, came in a 

 steady direct line. I kicked and splashed tremendously, and this time he 



