Seadragon (SS-194) During World War II, a great human drama unfolded in one of the slim, steel ships that roamed beneath the seas. It had little to do with the enemy, yet life and death were involved as certainly as if the vessel were under attack. Days out of Freemantle, Australia, and just after sinking an enemy freighter, a member of the crew of the USS Seadragon was stricken with acute appendicitis. An operation was imperative. Rising to the emergency, Pharmacist's Mate Wheeler B. Lipes, who had qualified only as a lab technician, assembled makeshift surgical tools, ether and a supply of alcohol drained from the sub's torpedoes. Then, he undertook "the big gamble" with the other man's life. Two and one-half hours after he began operating, some of the time under depth charge attack, Lipes successfully completed his surgery.