On the job training

You do what you got to do: "Doc" Lipes Commandeers a Submarine Officers' Wardroom

Wheeler "Johnny" Lipes, had neither the formal training, the equipment, nor the urge to become a surgeon.

But when one of his ship mates came down with acute appendicitis 120-feet below the South China Sea, with enemy warships circling above - he had no choice. He had to do what needed to be done or his shipmate would die.

It was the first major surgery ever preformed aboard a submarine. And it was performed by a man who stepped up to the job.