Tonight we have a story of solidarity, hope and eventual survival in the face of adversity. It happened more than 50 years ago, but when it was rediscovered last year, it caused a sensation. This is a story of a group of schoolboys who were stranded on a remote and deserted island for more than 15 months. It may remind you of the famous novel – Lord of the Flies, by William Golding – but as you will see, the outcome of this true story could not have been different.
The story begins in 1965. Mano Totau and five of his friends are studying at a boarding school in Tonga, an island in the Pacific Ocean. Bored, rebellious and longing for adventure – they stole a traditional whaling boat – and with reckless abandon they set off for Fiji.
Holly Williams: Did it have an engine?
Mano Totau: No, no engine.
Holly Williams: But Mano, is not Fiji about 800 kilometers from Tonga?
Mano Totau: A little less.
Holly Williams: Did you have a map or a compass?
Mano Totau: No. (LAUGH)
The teens may have been raised on the sea, but they soon realized they had made a terrible mistake. The first night a fierce storm tore the sails off the mast and ripped the rudder off the boat.
Their paralyzed boat drifted aimlessly for more than a week. 17-year-old Sione Fataua, the oldest in the group, told us they were convinced they would die.
Sione Fataua: No food, no water. We just drifted around with the wind. And after eight days we saw the island.
It was a volcanic island stretching out of the sea. As the boat approached, a wave sent it down the rocky shore and left it in pieces. The exhausted teenagers are struggling ashore.
Mano Totau: The only thing we do is grab each other and say a prayer, “thank you, God.”
The schoolboys later discovered that they had drifted a hundred miles from where they left off and landed on the island of ‘Ata – on maps, nothing more than an uninhabited spot.
It was so striking that an Australian television staff later brought the teenagers back to Ata to recount their experience. In the film, Sione, Mano and their friends show how they survived.
“The Castaways” movie: They were able to save an oar and a piece of wire, and with this they tried to catch what they hoped would be their first meal in 8 days.
They demonstrate how they ate the fish they caught raw and quenched their thirst by stripping the nests of seabirds – to drink their blood and their raw eggs.
Holly Williams: Any food, anything to drink.
Mano Totau: Any food. No matter how awful it is and how dirty it is, it is very nice thing to have it in that time.
When they get enough power, Mano and Sione recount, they climb to the wooded plateau of the island, where they find a clay pot, a machete and chickens, all left behind by a small Tongan community that lived on ‘Ata before they were snatched from their home by slave traders a century earlier.
But they said everything changed when they finally started a fire – and started cooking hot meals.
Holly Williams: How did you stop it from going out?
Sione Fataua: I say to the guys: everyone has a duty to the fire. You have to watch the fire and you have to pray for the night, and get up in the morning, it’s still going on.
The teenage runaways showed remarkable ingenuity – building a hut out of palm trees, setting up a garden with bananas and beans, and setting up a grid to watch passing ships. They even built a badminton court and a temporary gym. They lived in harmony most of the time – they told us.
Holly Williams: But come on, Mano. You were teenage boys. You must have had arguments.
Mano Totau: We did it, and we did not agree.
They cooled off by walking to either side of the island, Mano says, though sometimes things get out of hand.
Holly Williams: If there was a fight, how did you stop it?
Mano Totau: You hit him or something and say to him, “shut up, cool down, sit down, listen.”
Holly Williams: There were times when you were depressed, when you thought you would never see your families again.
Sione Fataua: It was difficult. And I was – pray God and – and I promise him, “if you could get me back, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”
For over 50 years, the true story of Sione, Mano and their friends was little known outside of Tonga … until Dutch historian and best-selling author Rutger Bregman came across it on the internet. He flew around the world to meet Mano and made the story the cornerstone of his new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History.
Rutger Bregman: And I just could not understand how it did not become one of the most famous stories of the 20th century. I just could not understand it, because it’s just extraordinary, six kids on an island for 15 months. And they survived, how?
Like millions of others, Bregman has the fictitious story of cleansed schoolboys, Lord of the Flies, taught for generations in high schools around the world.
The novel – which was later made into a film – is a nightmare report of a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island. They split into two rival tribes and degenerate into violence – leading to chaos and murder.
Rutger Bregman: It’s really an old theory in Western culture, that our civilization is just a thin veneer, just a thin layer. And that when something bad happens – say that there is a natural disaster or that you are suffering shipwreck on an island and you have the freedom to establish your own society – that people reveal who they really are. You know, people deep down are just selfish.
Holly Williams: And you say that the basic idea behind the novel, Lord of the Flies, is wrong? You say that would never happen?
Rutger Bregman: Well, if tens of millions of children around the world still have to read Lord of the Flies in school today, I think they also deserve to know it once in all of world history when real children on a real island suffered shipwreck. has, because it’s a very different story.
A story of cooperation, hope and eventual salvation. In September 1966, Australian lobster fisherman Peter Warner sailed near Ata after 15 long months when he spotted a burnt-out spot. As he approached, he was shocked when he saw a human figure.
Peter Warner: And this first figure is swimming towards us to do the Australian crawl, as I call it. And then five more corpses jumped off the cliff into the water and followed him.
They climb on board and tell the crew how they would run away from the boarding school and eventually suffer shipwreck. Peter sent radio to Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga, to check their story.
Peter Warner: And the operator said very tearfully: ‘That’s true. These boys were students at this college. They were given up for death. Funerals were held. And now you have found them. ‘ So it was a very emotional moment for all of us.
Holly Williams: So you knew you were going home.
Mano Totau: Yes
Holly Williams: How did it feel?
Mano Totau: Like walking through the door to heaven.
But heaven would have to wait – when they arrived in the harbor again, they were immediately arrested.
Holly Williams: So Peter Warner saved you and took you back to Nuku’alofa where everyone thought you were dead. And then you were arrested?
Sione Fataua: Yes. We are arrested for stealing the boat. (LAUGH)
Peter Warner told us that he paid off the owner of the stolen boat – and eventually sailed the runaway schoolboys back to their home island, accompanied by the Australian television crew who flew in to film their story. They captured the teens’ reunion with their families.
“The Castaways” movie: Our boys have returned …
Sione Fataua: My mother, she swam before I got out of the boat. I’m the first one to go to the beach, and give me a hug.
“The Castaways” movie: there has never been such a joy …
Peter Warner: The whole population of this island was on the beach and hugged the boys. Parents cried. Then the party started. Six days festival.
The story has never been forgotten in these islands, but when a British newspaper published a chapter of Rutger Bregman’s book last year, the story of the Tongan teenagers went viral – 7 million people read it in a matter of days. Hollywood studios started in a bid war for the film rights.
Holly Williams: Why were so many people around the world surprised and captivated by your telling the story?
Rutger Bregman: Maybe we should have heard that? Maybe especially now, in the midst of a pandemic? Is it that people were looking for a story that gave them hope about a different way of living, that a different society is possible? That it is not just violence and selfishness and greed within human nature, but that we can build on something else. Maybe that’s why.
It has been 55 years since the shipwreck schoolboys were rescued. They never doubted how or why they survived.
Sione Fataua: I think the culture where we come from. We’re close. Really close family. We share everything. We poor, but we love each other.
The teens had no interest in going back to the classroom, they first worked for Peter Warner, who set up a fishing industry in Tonga. As promised, Zion later became a minister – he is now the head of the Church of Tonga in America. Mano trained as a chef and moved to Australia. He and Peter Warner have been best friends for half a century – if they can, they go for a sail – moving back to the Pacific Ocean where their friendship began.
Holly Williams: Why do you get along so well, all these years after the rescue?
Mano Totau: I think we feel strongly in ourselves that we have something to help each other.
Peter Warner: Yes, and also–
Mano Totau: teach each other about it.
Peter Warner: And we also have a general belief that led you through the trial on the island, you know, love, compassion and …
Mano Totau: Yes.
Peter Warner: Justice, Unity.
Mano Totau: We both believe in the same thing.
The teenagers composed a song when they saw nothing on the island ‘Ata – Siosionoa – every day. It takes Mano back to a time when they longed for home, and before they could ever imagine that they story can have lessons for all of us.
Produced by Michael H. Gavshon. Co-producer, Nadim Roberts. Broadcasting group, Annabelle Hanflig. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.