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A young Kiwi officer is badly wounded in the legs in a battle at sea.
In the next few minutes, amid the chaos and terror, Philip Wallace Smith of Mt Albert will do something extraordinary.
The year is 1942. It is 6.30am on Wednesday, March 4, 500km off the south coast of Java.
Singapore has fallen to the Japanese and Temporary Sub-Lieutenant Smith is in a convoy of ships escaping across the Java Sea to Australia.
HMAS Yarra is escorting his ship, HMS Anking, and two others to Fremantle when a squadron of three Japanese cruisers and two destroyers appear in the early morning sun.
The allied ships come under brutal fire; all are sunk.
The first to go down is Smith's ship. Within 10 minutes the Anking is gone, but Smith reaches one of the few life boats able to be launched unscathed as the Japanese guns keep blasting.
As Smith's lifeboat becomes more and more crowded and he sees men fighting for their lives in the water, he makes a heroic decision.
He dives into the sea to make room for someone else, swimming away from the lifeboat to a lonely death.
For this act of sacrifice and courage the Kiwi volunteer naval reservist, who went to war instead of taking up his Rhodes Scholarship, is awarded one of the military's highest posthumous honours, the MiD, or Mention in Despatches.
His name and his act of courage fade with the passage of time, and few now remember Philip Wallace Smith.
But in West Auckland this week, an old lady cried for him anew.
Jean Smith is 76 and married Philip's little brother Joe after the war.
Joe was also badly injured in the war but would never talk to his wife about what happened to him or to his beloved big brother.
Last week, Jean finally found out what happened to Philip. She found an old cardboard box of grainy black and white photos and naval documents which reveal the true heroism of the handsome brother-in-law she never met.
The box belonged to Joe, who died last year, yet in their 53 years of marriage Jean never knew it existed.
When she sat down and began reading the documents, she cried and cried.
Among them is a letter from the Navy to Philip and Joe's Mum, Emily.
The author wanted Emily to understand how brave Philip was.
A still tearful Jean reads from one of the letters: "Only one of two awards is allowed to be made to those who are killed or reported missing presumed killed as the result of the action for which the award is made.
"Those are the Victoria Cross and Mention in Despatches. You will appreciate, therefore, that the posthumous award of Mention in Despatches is in actual fact an award of high order, ranking next to the Victoria Cross, and is generally considered very much higher than Mention in Despatches when the recipient is still living."
Jean rang the Herald about her find. "I just couldn't believe it," she said.
"I just thought, 'Phil, you poor man.' These soldiers were so brave, we don't know the half of it. I just thought 'Gosh, this all happened but nobody knows'."
A few still remember, though, like it was yesterday. Philip is survived by siblings Trevor, 82, in Rotorua and Gwen, 90, in Palmerston North.
Yesterday, Trevor told us an officer who was on the Anking with Philip visited his mother and Joe years ago and told them of Philip's heroic deed.
Trevor said that while Joe never used to say much, Trevor always knew what happened to Philip.
He, too, is tearful all these years later. This brings back harsh memories, he says. "Phil was wounded in the legs. As far as I know, they weren't incurable ... It's just he was like that."
THE LUCKY AND THE UNLUCKY
A wartime clipping gives the bare details of Philip Smith's award.
The rest of the men on Philip Smith's lifeboat were eventually rescued by a passing Dutch vessel.
Survivors from the other ships were not so lucky.
Some spent weeks lost at sea on a small boat, some died of their wounds, some starved to death.
One boat reached land after 21 days, but several men were drowned during an attempt to beach the craft.
HMAS Yarra put up a ferocious fight to save the other ships.
Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Robert Rankin, ordered a smoke screen be set so the other ships could get away.
It didn't work.
Because Commander Rankin and his men fought to their deaths to save the other ships, some in Australia believe he should have been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
