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During the Second World War, German U-boats sank dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico. When Ray Downs was 8 years old, he and his family were on one of those boats. He remembers being woken by explosions, and then going underwater, not knowing if he would ever come up again.
(Image: After a sudden U-boat attack, Ray Downs (bottom left) and his family floated in the wreckage of a sunken ship for 18 hours. Credit: Courtesy the Downs family)