Who was first rescued from the sea?

Mrs. Ruth Li, a Chinese woman, is living in Hong Kong with her baby girl. The Japanese were attacking Hong Kong, but their ship sank during their voyage. Mrs. Li placed her six-year-old daughter on a bit of floating wood. Later the mother was rescued, but her little girl could not be found.
    Many months later, four thousand miles away, a group of American soldiers found a Chinese girl who was half dead. No one could tell how she had got there. She refused to talk or give her name after she came to life.
    When the New York Times told about the finding of the girl, Mrs. Li’s sister, then in New York, read the news and wrote to her sister about it. Could the girl be the lost child of Mrs. Ruth Li? The mother made the long voyage to find out. The girl was in- deed her own daughter.