Dick and shipmates were cast into an open lifeboat, sailing or drifting for 32 days, running out of food and with only enough water to stay alive.
Striving to reach the west coast of Australia, they were hampered by wrong information, faulty flares and confusion.
Under the hot Indian Ocean sun, he remained focused, often recalling his Los Angeles childhood before the war.
After weeks afloat and putting 12 hundred miles behind them they could not be sure the rescue submarine was friend or foe.