"Most sailors can't swim."

About a dozen of the U-boat sailors survived and swam towards the merchant ship.

"Those sailors didn't swim ashore," he said.

One brave sailor, Louis Yrebot, swam at great peril with a small line to shore.

Many sailors could not swim, so being lost overboard was a fate they all dreaded.

Losses like this were inevitable when few sailors could swim,' and the modern-swimming strokes were undeveloped.

"If a ship's coming in from a port known to have plague of some kind, the damned Hollanders make the sailors swim ashore naked."

The sailors swam ashore near the village of Shanga - my ancestors were there and saw it themselves.

Several sailors swam through the blast hole to escape the flames.

Few sailors could swim.