Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [80]
I TOLD THE Bird I’d make the broadcast. A couple of days later two men from Radio Tokyo, both in their fifties, gave me a pad and pencils and said, “Write what you want to say.” While I wrote, other prisoners urged me, “Mention my name!”
The men from Radio Tokyo read my speech and said, “Oh, very good, very good.” Like Sasaki, they didn’t wear uniforms. Of course, they probably didn’t really work for the station either, but were propagandists like Goebbels was for Hitler.
On November 18, 1944, I rode with them to Radio Tokyo. We arrived early, and with time to kill they gave me a grand tour. The place was beautiful. “This is a new building,” they explained. “We have an American-style cafeteria; we will have lunch.” The food amazed me, but after the camp rations, I’d have been happy with a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. They also showed me hotel-style rooms with beautiful beds and white sheets. At Omori I slept on a plank where each night the bedbugs swarmed out of the cracks and over my body, and I’d wake up covered with bites.
I knew they wanted to seduce me with the promise of a better life to become a radio propagandist. I suspected they also wanted credit with our government for having rescued me and kept me alive. They could say, “Hey, we had your boy,” as if they’d saved me. I suppose the Japanese figured that one day soon they might need all the goodwill they could get.
Eventually, I was ushered into a studio and placed in front of a microphone. The program was Japanese Postman. My nerves kicked in for a moment, but I didn’t mind. For the first time in a long time my anxiety had nothing to do with starvation or deprivation or a beating. The announcer introduced me as “Louis Philby Zamperini”—my middle name is Silvie, so it was an innocent mistake—and cued me. I clutched my prepared text, took a deep breath, and read:
Hello Mother and Father, brothers and friends, this is your Louis talking. Through the courtesy of the authorities here I am broadcasting a special message to you. This will be the first time in one and one half years that you will have heard my voice. I am sure it sounds the same to you as it did when I left home. I am unwounded and in good health and can hardly wait until the day we are together again. Not having heard from you since my most abrupt departure, I have been somewhat worried about the condition of my family. As far as health is concerned. I hope this message finds all of you in the best of health and doing well. I am now interned in the Tokyo prisoners’ camp and am being treated as well as can be expected, under wartime conditions. The Jap authorities are kind to me and I have no kick coming. Please write as often as you can and, when doing so, send snapshots of everyone. In my lonesome hours nothing would be more appreciated than to look at pictures of the family. If you are forgetting, Pete, I would be very pleased if you would keep my gun in good condition for we might do some good hunting when I return home. Mother, Sylvia and Virginia, I hope you will keep up your wonderful talents in the kitchen. I often visualize those wonderful pies you used to bake. Did Miss Florence take a visit to San Diego? I hope they are sending her home. Give my best regards to Gordon, Harvey, Eldon, and Henry, and wish them the best of health. I send my fondest love to Sylvia, Virginia, and Pete and hope they are enjoying their work at the present. I miss them very much. Since I have been in Japan, I have run into several of my old acquaintances. You will probably remember a few of them. Paul Maurin is here