Elizabeth Fowler, 95; Spent 10 Days Adrift With 34 Men in WWII

Elizabeth Fowler, 95, who wrote a book about her 10 days in a lifeboat with 34 men during World War II, died May 30 in a West Orange, N.J., convalescent home of causes associated with aging.

Born Elizabeth Japp in the U.S. to English parents, she grew up in the U.S. and England.

Later finding herself in an unhappy marriage to Dr. Frank Fowler and stationed in Africa, she talked her way onto a cargo ship carrying palm oil from what is now Ghana to New York. She planned to rejoin the young daughter she had sent to live in Connecticut during the war.

Fowler was knitting on deck one evening in 1942 when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat.

The young woman and 34 men escaped in a 26-foot lifeboat, floating in the Atlantic for 10 days and enduring hunger, thirst, cold, rain and circling sharks.

Her bedraggled dress was later displayed in the window of Lord & Taylor in Manhattan, and several women’s magazines wrote about her remarkable endurance and survival.

She published a book about the experience, “Standing Room Only,” in 1944. The Saturday Review of Literature called it “almost unbearable reading at times,” but added that it was impossible to put down.