Zam Zam, A Missionary Odyssey

Zamzam a Missionary Odyssey

Zam Zam, A Missionary Odyssey is a 1992 documentary I produced for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America while I worked for Video Impressions, a production company in Aurora, Illinois. Jim Quattrocki did most of the camera work on interviews recorded in Massachusetts, Kansas and Chicago.

Zam Zam, A Missionary Odyssey is a tale of faith, hope and adventure on the high seas in the early days of World War II. It tells the true story of an Egyptian passenger liner that was shelled and sunk off the coast of South Africa in the spring of 1941 by the German raider ship Tamesis.

Aboard the Zam Zam were 140 American Missionaries representing 20 Christian denominations bound for various fields of service on the African continent. Featuring the film work of Augustana Lutheran Missionary V. Eugene Johnson, action photographs from Life Magazine photographer David Scherman and interviews with survivors, the Zam Zam recounts in dramatic fashion, first hand accounts of this historic event.

While going through some old archive footage for a video about the history of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania (see Tanzania Jubilee) I came across old news reel footage of the Zamzam. The interviews, recorded by Jim Quattrocki and I, tell the whole story.

Here are the interview transcripts from the documentary as a PDF file: Zamzam a Missionary Odyssey