Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [84]
After the war Harris returned to Camp Lejeune and planned to get married and leave the service. Then he wrote me and said he’d decided to re-up. The marines sent him to Korea. During a battle he was surrounded, captured, and later executed. It was war, we knew it could happen, but no one deserves that. The poor guy.
AS 1944 TURNED into 1945, the Germans were close to defeat in Europe and the Japanese knew their end was near. The more desperate they became the more they relied on propaganda to motivate their troops and citizens, and to paint a better picture of themselves for the world.
At one point a film crew came to the camp and asked the huskiest guys to step forward. About fifty did. Not me, of course; skin and bones was not what they were after. They told the group to go to the beach and whoever did would get all the food they could eat. But first they had to put on American marine uniforms and take rifles with no bullets.
On the beach the film crew explained that they wanted to make a little movie. After the group went through some sort of exercise, everyone stood around wondering what would happen next. The Japanese pointed out tables set with fruit and rice balls and other foods, about a hundred yards away. They said, “Okay, we’re through shooting here. Like we promised you, you can have all you can eat. See those tables? There’s your food. The first one there gets more food.”
You’d have thought a starter’s pistol went off. The men were so hungry they literally raced to the food tables—and what footage that made! “American marines” running desperately, carrying rifles, losing ground, throwing down their rifles, running. Later, the Japanese spliced in ten little Japanese soldiers with rifles and bayonets so it looked like they were chasing the marines along the beach, forcing a coward’s retreat. And not a sign of the food anywhere in the movie, of course.
IN FEBRUARY 1945 sirens wailed again and the camp came alive. I ran out of my barracks and looked up to see the beginning of a raid, probably from a carrier ship. There were planes all over the sky: navy Hell Cats and Zeroes. Three F-4U fighters streaked over the camp and dived in on the Japanese navy airstrip about two miles south. Above, I could see Zeroes exploding, popping like little firecrackers.
Suddenly, a navy Hellcat flashed by, chasing a Zero. He was so close I could have hit him with a brick. The Zero finally veered over Tokyo, where he knew he had protection, and the navy pilot turned right and went out over the ocean. That was my first real taste of the victory to come. The Bird and the camp guards had all run outside to watch, and I could hear them saying, “Nippon skokey!” In other words, the Japanese air force is no good. “Dah may!”
Then I saw a B-29 in flames. The crew bailed out, but two Zeroes strafed the survivors all the way down to the water. That was a sickening sight, and I thought I could hear a cold moan of frustration and vengeance rise up from the prisoners.
I turned to Bill Harris. “It’s going to be a pleasure to watch them squirm when the pressure really mounts,” I said. “I think it won’t be long before our planes come over by the hundreds and turn Tokyo to rubble.”
Not a week later we heard sirens again, saw vapor trails, and smoke rising from the city as our bombs found their targets.
Had we cheered as we watched, the sullen guards would surely have shot us on the spot, but we satisfied ourselves with whispers and nudges and bets on when we’d finally head home. We knew from stolen scraps of newspaper that MacArthur had returned to the Philippines, headed for Manila. The German lines in Western Europe had all but crumbled in the face of irresistible Allied forces.
DESPITE OUR VICTORIES, the reality of my transfer was only a matter of time. But even as I wondered when I’d be forced to leave Omori, the entire camp got a big surprise: the Bird had been transferred.