There’s a book called “Return from the River Kwai” about a group of Australians who had built the Death Railway, then were sent to Saigon to board a transport ship which was later torpedoed by American subs. The book mentions how one of the subs, the Pampanito, with a crew of 80 packed in like sardines, rescued 80 Australians and made them as comfortable as possible while bringing them to Hawaii or some other friendly port.
How they were able to fit 80 extra men in the sub is something I still haven’t figured out, but some of the crew slept in torpedo tubes.
So I checked to see what ever happened to the Pampanito, and come to find out she’s alive and well and berthed next to the Jeremiah O’Brien liberty ship at Pier 45 in San Francisco.
I have been on board the Pampanito in SF. It’s amazing they could fit eighty in the first place, much less eighty more.