Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [64]
This went on for two weeks, until we arrived at Yokosuka Naval Base. By then the bottle was nearly empty, and I thought, Ah, the hell with it, and drank the rest.
On September 15, 1943, we docked. Two crewmen blindfolded us again and took us off the ship. The blindfold was loose and through a crack at the bottom I could see a Chevrolet hubcap. I recognized the model. It had a jump seat behind the backseat.
Phil and I had to wait for a ship’s officer to take us to our next destination. He arrived mad as a hornet. “Get in there!” he shouted, shoving me into the jump seat. I tried to maneuver, but my legs were too long and gave me trouble. He kept pushing. Finally, he hit me across the face a few times with his flashlight. My nose was a two-time loser.
To this day I believe with all my heart that he was the officer whose room I’d lived in and whose sake I’d finished. He didn’t have to wonder who drank it, or that I had paid for my indulgence.
OUR NEW HOME would be a prison camp named Ofuna, in the hills just outside of Yokohama. I felt a strange combination of joy and reassurance at the prospect of seeing Western faces again. For the first time since crashing, Phil and I would no longer feel completely alone.
At the camp I could smell the damp coolness of the coastal valley as we entered the gates and walked into a cinder-strewn central compound. Gray barracks bordered an open common area. Prisoners stood against the walls, huddled together for warmth, their faces long, silent, hungry. Even so, I looked forward to their company. I tried to attract the attention of one or two, but they would not speak. I soon learned that prisoners at Ofuna were not allowed to talk to one another.
That made me angry. I had finally arrived in Japan, dreaming of better treatment, and this was my payoff? Beyond the fourth wall, which closed off the camp’s far end, stood a large hill covered with bamboo and forest. I pictured trying to disappear into its darkness some night.
A guard prodded me into the barracks and my solitary cell. That night, in furtive whispers and at risk of a beating or worse, I learned the terrible truth: Ofuna was the secret, high-intensity interrogation camp run by the Japanese Navy, hidden from the populace and all relief agencies. There would be no Red Cross supervision, no improved treatment. No humanity. I wouldn’t be registered as an official prisoner of war. Men left the camp to be either executed or relocated. If you died there, no one would know but your brothers in arms.
The next day, after a hot bath, a guard escorted me into the headquarters building and ushered me to a door. “When you enter the room there will be a man sitting behind the desk,” he said. “You bow, stand at attention, and wait for orders.” Then he opened the door and shoved me in. The room was lit only by the afternoon sun. The man did not sit at the desk but stood in front of it, his back toward me. He wore civilian clothes. I bowed, as instructed, stood straight, and waited. He turned around and smiled.
“Hello, Louis,” said a familiar voice. “It’s been a long time since USC.”
I felt like I’d taken a sucker punch to the gut.
The man was my former classmate James Sasaki.
8
WE REGRET TO INFORM…
It hurt to see James Sasaki, not only because we’d been together at USC but because I thought he, of all people, had been around Americans long enough to know that we didn’t deserve the hatred and brutality his country had shown us.
“Sit, Louis,” Sasaki said, pointing at a chair. He perched on a corner of his desk and tried to explain what he knew I was at that moment desperately trying to explain to myself. “All the time I went to colleges in the United States,