Issue Details: First known date: 2012... 2012 In Good Hands : The Life of Dr Sam Stening, POW
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In Good Hands is the biography of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Samuel 'Sam' Stening, DSC, Royal Australian Naval Reserve.A paediatrician, like his three brothers Sam joined the services at the outbreak of war. He chose the RAN and served in the Indian Ocean and then in the famous 'Scrap Iron Flotilla' in the Mediterranean, where his ship, the Waterhen, was sunk in June 1941.

Posted to the cruiser Perthfor her final deployment to Java and sinking in Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942, although wounded, Sam found himself plunged into the POW doctoring experience upon his rescue by a Japanese destroyer.

This was only the start of a gruelling three and a half years of captivity, during which he served in eight POW camps in Japan. With few medical supplies, his ingenuity, and some surprising help from Japanese civilians, Sam battled the effects of extreme weather, constant punishment, overwork, starvation, and disease on his patients.

After liberation, physically and mentally exhausted by his experiences, Sam drew on the strength of his wife Olivia and the support of his family to re-establish himself in paediatrics, and rose to the top of his profession. A stalwart of the Women's Hospital in Crown Street, where an intensive care ward was named after him, and of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sam helped gain professional respect for his specialty, establishing it as a 'proper' field of medicine, until his death in 1983.(Back Cover).

Notes

  • Launched by Her Excellency the Governor of New South Wales, Professor Marie Bashir, on 24 February 2012 following the ceremony commemorating the Battle of the Java Sea - at 12 noon in the Occidental Hotel in York Street, Sydney

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Woollahra, Sydney Eastern Harbourside, Sydney Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Bellona , 2012 .
      Extent: xviii,334pp.
      Description: illus. (b & w)
      Note/s:
      • Foreword by Rear Admiral Ken Doolan AO RAN (ret'd), National President, The Retirned & Services Laegue of Australia.
      • Includes notes and glossary, bibliographical references and index.
      • Contains introduction by Ian Pfennigwerth, Port Stephens, New South Wales, January 2012.
      ISBN: 9780987227836 (pbk.)
Last amended 27 Aug 2012 09:40:54
Subjects:
  • c
    Australia,
    c
  • Serang, Java,
    c
    Indonesia,
    c
    Southeast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
  • c
    Japan,
    c
    East Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
  • 1900-1999
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