Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [78]
“You are all officers,” he said, carefully pronouncing each word. “You should work. You should be example for all camp. Work. Now you volunteer.”
No one spoke up. We were determined not to do any work for the Japanese.
The Bird stepped in front of the first man. “You. Volunteer!”
“According to international law,” he began, but he didn’t get far. Watanabe hit him with his kendo stick, a heavy cudgel the size of a child’s baseball bat. The next man had the courage to say the same. He, too, felt the kendo stick. Another simply gestured hopelessly. The man beside me found himself on the ground after a kendo strike to the throat. Then it was my turn.
“You!” the Bird shrieked. “You da?”
Well, I’m not a fool. The Japanese knew international law as well as I did, but clearly they ignored it. “Sure,” I said, in my most soothing voice. “What kind of work? I’d love to work. But only in camp, not outside. I’d be glad to help to improve conditions here any way I can.”
The Bird stopped, unsure of how to react, thinking slowly, the rage draining from his face. His eyes studied mine, then darted along the row of officers, to see if anyone had moved.
“Yes, of course. Awari—dismissed.”
We saluted and dashed for the barracks before he changed his mind. The Bird strutted to his office, smirking. The next day he turned one of the smaller buildings into a workshop where we could make goods for the camp. The officers often spent all day inside, shoulder to shoulder, stitching scraps of leather together for later use. We must have looked too happy, though. Eventually the Bird decided we were simply lazy. His punishment was as foul an atrocity as I’d ever witnessed, as did Tom Wade, who confirms this story in his book.
David James, a British businessman and interpreter, had lived in Japan for many years, but the government had imprisoned him on the irrelevant charge that he held a reserve military status as a captain. Apparently, James had even known the Bird’s family in Kobe, before Pearl Harbor; but rather than this winning him any consideration, Watanabe singled him out. For being at ease while the rest of us stood at attention, the Bird beat Captain James and forced him to stand in front of his office for several days and nights in early winter, saluting the tree planted in front of the door—not an easy task for a starving, sixty-three-year-old POW. After a few days, Dr. James collapsed, nearly insane, and spent weeks in bed recovering.
ONE EVENING I walked past the door of the little cubicle the senior American officers occupied, and they hailed me.
“Zamp,” one said. “The Norwegians managed to get their hands on another newspaper today. But if any of us are seen going over to their barracks, the Bird might get suspicious. He knows the Norwegians like you, though. Maybe you can do it.”
I knew the penalty for getting caught with contraband, remembering the episode with Bill Harris at Ofuna quite clearly. The Japanese did not want the prisoners to know how the war progressed, assuming our minds would turn immediately to espionage and to plotting against them. Of course, they were right, though every time they caught us with a measly scrap of paper we protested our innocence loudly.
“Of course I’ll get it,” I said. This began my regular job as runner between barracks, relaying important information or stolen papers to senior officers who secretly employed prisoners like David James to translate, or did it themselves. The Japanese papers, by this time—the winter of 1944/45—overstated their victories, but at least they contained accurate maps.
One story I read, in an English version of a Japanese newspaper, was so funny and unbelievable that for many years I never told anyone because people might think I was nuts, like someone who says he’s seen a flying saucer. (If you see one, keep your mouth shut!) Apparently, a Zero and a B-29 bomber were engaged at thirty thousand feet when the Zero ran out of bullets. According to the report, the Japanese pilot opened his lunch bag, grabbed a rice ball, cracked his canopy, and threw it at the