Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [81]
I’d added the part about my gun so that if my family heard the broadcast, they would know it was authentic. I also mentioned Pete Hyriskanich’s name so his folks would know he was still alive.
Before returning to Omori I brought up the prisoners’ complaints about the Bird. I thought, Whoever these guys really are, they have authority to take me out of prison, so maybe they can help us. I explained that I’d never talked about this to the Red Cross for fear of a beating. They said, “Oh, well, we’ll see what we can do about it.”
“We” again. I should have known better.
ONLY DAYS AFTER my broadcast, the United States government sent my parents a telegram reading: “Following enemy propaganda broadcast from Japan has been intercepted”—with the text of my statement. They refused to confirm it had been my voice; that would have to wait. But at least the telegram made official what my parents had already been told by their friends who’d heard the program and recognized my voice. Of course, not that long ago the army had also advised my parents that I was also officially dead. It was nice to be sure.
My parents would later tell me that they’d never lost hope, but ironically, as part of their effort to support the war, the day after my broadcast they had been interviewed at their house by producer Cecil B. DeMille for a coast-to-coast live broadcast on CBS Radio. Hollywood had from the beginning signed on to support the war any way it could, and this was part of the Sixth War Loan Drive—a bond drive. Here are a few selections from the script sent to my parents:
DEMILLE: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Cecil B. DeMille and I’m speaking to you tonight from a modest American home where a gold star hangs in the window. This is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Zamperini and their children. They are a typical American family. In this home live the things our soldiers are fighting for.
One member will not return to this family because he treasured the simple and sacred rights of this home—more than his life. There are many mothers who wear gold stars in their hearts, mothers who have paid a price perhaps as high as that given by their fighting sons themselves. One of those mothers—I want you to meet—the hearthstone of this home—Mrs. Anthony Zamperini. Mrs. Zamperini, when did you learn that your son, Louis, was lost?
MRS. Z: Last Sunday. But Louis had been listed as missing in action since May of 1943. He was just twenty-five, Mr. DeMille.
DEMILLE: Your son was one of the first to enlist, wasn’t he?
MRS. Z: Yes, Mr. DeMille. He sent in his enlistment early in 1941, before Pearl Harbor. He had been to Berlin as a member of the Olympic Games team and he saw what was coming before we did.
And later…
MRS. Z: Louis did win many medals for his sports activities, Mr. DeMille.
DEMILLE: I know he did, but I’m sure that of all his medals you are proudest of his Oak Leaf Cluster and the Air Medal he won for gallantry in battle.
MRS. Z: That’s right. He won the Air Medal for giving first aid to five other wounded boys while their damaged bomber was returning from a raid.
And finally, after my sister Sylvia told how our dad came from Italy but owed much to America…
DEMILLE: That is a thrilling tribute to America, Miss Zamperini. Everyone in America is a European—or the descendant of a European. We become Americans when we leave behind us all the ancient prejudices and manners of the Old World and when we accept new ones from the way