Lord tally ho blears biography of william

Each year on March 29, James Blears wakes up and opens a can of peaches. The annual breakfast ritual reminds him of the preciousness of life and the importance of never giving up, which may have had something to do with his success as the professional wrestler and promoter known as Lord "Tally-Ho" Blears.

A can of peaches was the first food he received after he was rescued in the middle of the Indian Ocean several days after the Tjisalak, a Dutch merchant ship, was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the waning days of World War II.

Almost all of the ship's 77 crewmen and 27 passengers survived the sinking and were taken aboard the I-8 submarine on March 26, 1944.

Blears, a 21-year-old radio officer, was one of five men who escaped the slaughter that followed as Japanese officers took the lead in killing prisoners.

"They were laughing," Blears recalls 57 years later.

"They'd just go up and hit a guy on the back and take him up front, and then one of the guys with a sword would cut off