Ian Pfenningwerth: The life of Dr Sam Stening POW
Posted on: Mon 23 Dec 2019
Part 1: Repeat from our 2018 interview with Retired Navy Captain, Author, Dr Ian Pfennigwerth about his biography of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Samuel ‘Sam’ Stening, DSC, Royal Australian Naval Reserve. Sam, a paediatrician, like his three brothers 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 Perth for 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. Ironically, Ian Pfennigwerth also served on a later HMAS Perth… as Commanding Officer.
Producer Helen Meyer
