Michael Portillo meets 100-YEAR-OLD WWII Veteran who survived 16 DAYS stranded at sea

Norman Gibson was just 16 when he left school and joined the Merchant Navy in 1942. No one could have predicted what lay ahead.

Norman Gibson was excited when he enlisted in the Merchant Navy in 1942, eager to explore the world and carve out his own stories of heroism.

A former Maidstone Grammar School pupil, Norman never imagined that by 1944 he would be serving aboard SS Fort Buckingham in the Indian Ocean.

That's where tragedy struck on 20 January 1944, when the ship was torpedoed by the German submarine U-188.

Unable to launch a lifeboat, he and a fellow crewman jumped overboard and swam to a raft alongside nine others.

Norman survived 16 days adrift, before the Norwegian tanker MV Ora rescued the survivors.

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday, watch Michael Portillo's interview with the 100-year-old veteran as he recalls those perilous days at sea and the friendship he later struck up with an officer from the very U-boat that sank his ship.

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