Against The Odds

The rations at the Los Baños P.O.W. camp are now down to just 400 calories per day. Every day, the nurses tend to patients who die from starvation. They don’t know how much longer they can hold on. Unbeknownst to them, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Muller of the U.S. Army launches his plan to liberate the camp. But it’s complex and dangerous, with many moving pieces. It’s very likely it could fail...

Conditions at the Los Baños camp are deteriorating. More and more prisoners have been transferred there, leading to overcrowding, and rations have been cut to under 1,000 calories per day. Prisoners are resorting to desperate acts to survive as they’re pushed to the physical and psychological brink. The nurses are also malnourished and struggling to care for their fellow prisoners. ...

Desperate to get away from the sadistic commandant in charge of their P.O.W. camp, the twelve Navy nurses, who call themselves the Twelve Anchors, agree to transfer to a new camp. It’s called Los Baños and it’s located deep in the jungle, 40 miles outside of Manilla. But when the nurses arrive, they realize this new camp has no medical supplies, not enough beds for prisoners to sleep on,...

After Japan invades the Philippines, the twelve Navy nurses find themselves imprisoned at a military hospital turned P.O.W. camp. They make the best of it, continuing to tend to their patients, confident that the American military will quickly defeat Japan and liberate them. But as the weeks drag into months, with no rescue in sight, the nurses are transferred to another camp. They soon disco...

It’s the Depression and twenty-three-year-old-Dorothy Still is desperate for a job. She joins the US Navy as a nurse, and by 1941, she’s given a dream posting at an American base in the Philippines. Dorothy lives in a beautiful location, with easy work, and a thriving night life. But after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the Philippines becomes Japan’s next target. Dorothy and eleven other...

As the hikers slowly regain consciousness, they realize the worst has happened: they’ve been struck by lightning. By chance, a pair of EMTs finds their way to the summit in time to help. But they soon realize that if they don’t get the men off Half Dome and airlifted to a hospital fast, they won’t make it till morning.  Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Against the Odds ad-fre...

On the evening of July 27, 1985, a group of friends decided to ignore gathering storm clouds and warnings as they climbed to the top of Yosemite’s famous Half Dome. Climbers Adrian Esteban and Tom Rice reached the summit first, soon joined by three others as a thunderstorm raged. They decided to shelter in a small cave-like enclosure — a decision that would prove deadly.  Audible subscribers...

In 2012, Chris Lemons had a bright future ahead, with a fiancee and a good job fixing oil infrastructure on the ocean floor. One night in September, he went to work on a pipe about 300 feet beneath the North Sea. But, an accident left him alone and cut off from his lifeline – with only a small emergency supply of oxygen. On this episode of In Their Own Words, Chris shares the story of surviving fo...

After Bart Pieciul is mauled by a bear in the Alaska wilderness, his friends have to use all of their outdoor knowledge to keep him alive. The three men are stranded in the mountains for hours, waiting for a Coast Guard helicopter to airlift Bart to the nearest hospital. As the temperature drops, they’re desperate to prevent their friend from succumbing to blood loss and hypothermia. And they have...

The residents of Haines, Alaska are used to living alongside bears. The region surrounding their small town has one of the densest bear populations in the world. But as climate change curtails the bears’ natural food sources, encounters between bears and humans are becoming more common, putting everyone on edge.   Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Against the Odds ad-free...

Early settlers to the Midwest were accustomed to harsh winters, but the blizzard that hit the Great Plains on January 12th, 1888 caught thousands of pioneer families off guard. The storm was especially brutal for children trying to find their way home from rural schoolhouses. Author David Laskin joins host Mike Corey to talk about how he pieced together the stories of the blizzard, and how the eve...

By the morning of January 13th, 1888, the blizzard had passed, and a frantic search for survivors began. Farmer Johann Albrecht looked for his missing son, and Wilhelm Woebbecke hunted for his foster daughter Lena. Every search party knew they were racing against time to find survivors before they succumbed to hypothermia.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privac...

As the blizzard raged, its winds blew up to 60 miles per hour. Those caught out in the storm faced white-out conditions. With few landmarks on the flat prairie, even residents who knew the area well found themselves disoriented. Children like Walter Allen and Lena Woebbecke became lost in the furious storm, desperately trying to make it to safety. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest p...

On January 12th, 1888, residents of the Dakota Territory and Nebraska woke to an unseasonably warm day. Farmers took advantage of the mild weather to tend to chores and children headed off to school in light jackets. But longtime residents like Sioux tribe member Charley Stabler recognized signs that a major blizzard was coming. As the storm hit, schoolteachers faced agonizing decis...

In the 1800s millions of people moved to the American midwest, drawn by promises of cheap, fertile land. But they were caught unprepared in January 1888, when a cold front swept down from Canada and caused a brutal blizzard that left thousands of schoolchildren stranded in drafty, uninsulated schoolhouses. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more...

More than a week into their ordeal, Fitz and Holly FitzGerald are trapped deep in a jungle swamp. Jaguars scream in the night, insects ravage their skin, and starvation is taking hold. With no way out by raft, they’re forced to swim through caiman-infested water to survive. And as the weeks drag on, they must summon every last ounce of strength just to stay alive. Be the first to know about Wonder...

Fitz and Holly FitzGerald set out on their handmade raft, the Pink Palace, drifting down the Madre de Dios under sparkling sunlight. But when night falls, everything changes. After a tense encounter at the border, a violent storm hurls them off course, into a flooded maze of dark water and trees with no way out. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and mor...

In 1973, American newlyweds Fitz and Holly FitzGerald travel to Peru, hoping to ride a riverboat down the wild Madre de Dios River on their way to Bolivia — and ultimately, the Amazon. But from the start, nothing goes as planned. Watching their dream slip away, the couple makes a fateful decision: they’ll push forward on their own, on a homemade raft, into one of the most remote stretches of jungl...

The kidnapped children and their bus driver are trapped underground in the back of a moving truck, and they’re running out of food and water. They decide the only way out is to dig their way to the surface. Meanwhile, the amateur criminals who hijacked the school bus are trying to deliver a five million dollar ransom demand to the California government. Soon, the tables are turned, and the kidnapp...

In the summer of 1976, three masked gunmen hijack a school bus full of children in rural Chowchilla, California. The twenty-six kids and their bus driver are driven to a quarry and buried alive. Back in town, no one has any idea where the children went, who took them, or why. The local sheriff and the FBI launch a massive manhunt to track down the kidnappers and locate the children, but the trail...

In 1984, a young fisherman named Gudlaugur Fridthorsson — better known as “Laugi”— headed out to sea off the coast of Iceland in a small fishing trawler. But the first night of the trip, their boat capsizes, leaving Laugi and his crewmates stranded in frigid waters miles from shore.   Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at...

In 1984, a young fisherman named Gudlaugur Fridthorsson — better known as “Laugi”— headed out to sea off the coast of Iceland in a small fishing trawler. But the first night of the trip, their boat capsizes, leaving Laugi and his crewmates stranded in frigid waters miles from shore.   Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at...

In December of 2023, Matt Reum spun off a freeway in Indiana to avoid something in the road. His pickup truck rolled down a hill and landed under a bridge where no one could see him. Matt spent the next six days – including Christmas Day – pinned inside the wreckage of his truck, praying that someone would find him. On this episode of In Their Own Words, Matt shares the story of his fight for surv...

By the early afternoon, the water started to recede back out to sea. But the destruction left in its wake was devastating. Communications were down, roads were washed out. First responders raced to rescue stranded survivors and doctors stretched their supplies to the limits to treat the thousands of victims pouring into local hospitals. Back on shore, fisherman Wimon Thongtae began the search...

As the force of the waves lessened, survivors faced a new problem: they were trapped in the mass of debris the tsunami generated. Stuck between a swirl of cars, building remains, and dead bodies, the survivors resorted to extreme measures to reach safety. Dozens of tourists were stranded at the Emerald Cave with no way out. At sea, Wimon Thongtae began the treacherous journey home to Nam Khem...