Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [68]
AFTER THREE MONTHS, Phil left for an officers’ camp in south Honshu, where he was trotted out as a display piece for the Red Cross and other international agencies. It was plush, with no punishment. All anyone did was garden to grow their own food. We had no time for final words, but I was glad for Phil, even though I’d miss him. Unlike Ofuna or Kwajalein, his new home did stick to a few international rules for prisoners of war because it was a show camp for the Red Cross.
IN SPRING 1944 Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, the famous flying ace of the Marine Corps “Black Sheep Squadron” and, earlier, volunteer with the Flying Tigers in China, showed up at Ofuna. He’d crashed in January, during a raid, and been captured by a Japanese submarine. After a brutal interrogation they moved him to Truk, and eventually to Ofuna.
They put Pappy in the small cell next to mine. Of course, I knew who he was, and he had read that I was missing in action. Boyington had shrapnel in his thigh and was almost a cripple. I used to massage his leg every morning to loosen up the tendons so he could walk. Later, the Quack claimed he could find the shrapnel with a magnet and cut it out. I don’t know what he used for a painkiller, but he did what he promised.
Though I was twenty-six and Boyington was probably thirty, he and I became pretty close friends. Fortunately, by the time he arrived, the rules had loosened up a bit and we could talk to each other. He was braggadocious and liked to throw the bull a lot. I’d already heard about his problems at home and in the service, but since I was now his number-one outlet for conversation, he began to unload his marriage troubles on me. I tried to be a good listener as he unraveled the story of the incredibly painful divorce process that still tore him apart. “There are times when I don’t care if I live or die,” he said, “and that’s the way I feel when I’m up there shooting down those yellow bastards. Yet the moment we tangle I have this strong desire to win. You, being a runner, probably know what I mean.”
“Pappy,” I said, “that’s the deadly combination that makes you an ace—not caring and hating to lose. Maybe that’s why the divorce is so tough: you hate to lose.”
Taking it out on the enemy was one way to handle the pain, but it was only temporary. Same as climbing into a bottle. When you sober up, the problems are still staring you in the face.
Pappy was stubborn and wanted things his own way; he caused some trouble in camp and suffered the same mistreatment and starvation as the rest of us. After being caught smoking during a nonsmoking period, he was beaten pretty badly. It took a few bumps on his head, but he finally began in his own bulldog way to conform to the submissive POW lifestyle.
In his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Boyington wrote that the only qualification to become a guard or officer at Ofuna was passing “a minus-one-hundred I.Q. test.”
My opinion, exactly. They were dummies.
A guard once called three of us to peep through a knothole in the headquarters shack at one of his buddies who was inside, masturbating. That same guard also had intercourse with a duck. A fuller description of their odd sexual experiment is in Boyington’s book. It made me sick and I had to turn away. All I’ll say is that the duck died.
Another time a guard called me into the kitchen. There stood a nice-looking Japanese girl, maybe twenty-five years old. She worked cleaning pots and pans. The guard told me to stand behind her. Then he moved behind me, reached around and grabbed her, and thrust his hips into me, forcing me