They had been rounded up by the missionary priest, Father Albert Lebel of Brunswick, Me., with the aid of Jack Read, the coast watcher on northern Bougainville. Waiting at a mountain village named Tsipatavai, or soon to arrive there, were 14 missionary nuns, four other women, three young girls, two priests, five planters and the Austrian manager of a plantation‐29 refugees. Phil Eckert, the communications officer, asked Ensign Davis, the commissary officer.ĭavis, Eckert and Bill Brockman were in for a surprise. “How many women can you take care of?” Lieut. Bull Halsey’s headquarters ordering him to proceed to Teop Bay on the northeast coast of Bougainville to evacuate some civilian personnel. was looking for a fat target but received instead a message from Adm. The next day, and for several days thereafter, the United States submarine Nautilus patrolled the coast of Bougainville. It was then they all learned that a submarine would be their means of rescue. On New Year’s Eve 1942, the priests managed to get the Sisters and 25 others to the beach in Teop Harbor. There were Marist missionary priests on the island and, knowing what the fate of the nuns would be if captured, they managed to hide the Sisters for months in the jungle. They made it to Bougainville where they learned how other missionaries in the Solomons had been tortured and executed. No matter what kind of day she was having, she always managed to record the day’s happenings.Īs the Japanese get closer and closer, Sister Hedda records how their lives morphed from working as missionaries to being filled with sheer terror. Sister Hedda Jager was the nun in charge of journaling their experiences. ![]() They had no idea that the Japanese wanted Buka for an airfield. The nuns had been deeply involved in a village on the island of Buka. The Japanese quickly occupied many of the islands in the South Pacific. One year after they arrived, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Also, they had to learn how to get around the jungle. These young women were new to missionary life, confronting an unknown culture for the first time, and did not speak the languages spoken on the various islands. They had arrived in the Solomon Islands in December 1940. Two of the Sisters were teachers, and two were nurses. But this mission was certainly nothing the men had been prepared for. Her exploits included a daring raid on Makin Island landing a party of Marine Raiders. She was being refit in Mare Island during the Pearl Harbor attack but was ready by the time the Battle of Midway occurred. She was launched on 15 March 1930 sponsored by Miss Joan Keesling, and commissioned on 1 July 1930. Her keel was laid on by the Mare Island Naval Shipyard of Vallejo, California. The Nautilus was originally named and designated V-6 (SF-9), but was redesignated and given hull classification symbol SC-2 on 11 February 1925. This is the story about the rescue of twenty nine refugees including four American nuns who became stranded behind Japanese enemy lines during World War II. ![]() The Story of the Nautilus and the Nuns – New Years 1943Įighty years ago this week, the submarine Nautilus shifted from her incredible role as a hunter killer to perform a mission of mercy.
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