Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [107]
Dupler never led close order drill again. Afterward, something seemed to go out of him. The old lesson was driven home: tempting as it was, you didn’t trifle with the guards. “There were times you’d just say, ‘Well, I don’t give a darn how it’s going to turn out, but I’m going to take one good healthy poke and then let the chips fall where they may,’” Paul Papish said. “But then I guess you think real fast, and you say, ‘There’s really no reason for doing it. You’re only going to bring nothing but grief on yourself.’ The Japanese believe very strongly in force punishment.” Most prisoners understood that their reckless pride might mean the death of a friend.
The idea that they could retaliate but chose not to in order to protect their friends was therapeutic in a way. “I never admitted that we were whipped,” Gus Forsman said. “I think that was one of the things, too, that helped us—not admitting to ourselves that we were beaten.”
At Bicycle Camp, suspicions flourished—along with budding resentment—that the officers of the 131st were keeping a stash of money for their own benefit. The rumors were correct. The officers had a bankroll of $150,000 intended for supplies and payroll. The Japanese never confiscated it. They allowed the artillery officers to buy food in native markets outside camp, supplementing the modest pay the Japanese gave the soldiers for working: 25 sen per day for officers, 15 for noncoms, and 10 for enlisted men.* The men seized the opportunity to buy tins of corned beef, pinto beans, meats, fruits, sweetened condensed milk—especially prized for its concentrated calorie content—coffee, tea, and sugar. The twice-daily main course of rice got a little more interesting with some spicing up.
The inequality led to grumbling, and an every-man-for-himself attitude was festering. The resentment grew intense enough that the 131st’s noncoms designated Master Sgt. E. E. Shaw to take the complaint to the officers. When Shaw threatened to pursue the issue after the war, he was summarily court-martialed and busted to private for thirty days. Maj. Windy Rogers intervened to keep his punishment from being worse. But the confrontation had its intended effect. Thereafter the funds were used to benefit all Americans in Bicycle Camp. They ate well for the duration of their stay there. And despite the near rebellion, a number of officers—most notably Major Rogers, Capt. Samuel H. Lumpkin, Capt. Ira Fowler, and Lt. Jimmy Lattimore—won the wholehearted respect of the enlisted men. Prisoners of other nationalities noticed the Americans’ inexplicable wealth and took to selling their own hoarded provisions to them. The Australians were usually able to charge a considerable premium and in this way the lifesaving wealth trickled down.
The source of the money was an officer who remained something of a mystery to the men in the camp, 2nd Lt. Roy E. Stensland. He was a Los Angeles native and a West Point man, a member of a team of carefully selected junior officers dispatched to the Dutch East Indies by General MacArthur’s headquarters to buy food and charter vessels to supply the Philippines through the Japanese blockade. Stensland went to Makassar with an 800,000-guilder letter of credit, but once the Japanese encroachment made it impossible to requisition ships to break the blockade, the mission dissolved and Stensland fell in with the 131st.
A well-funded liaison role was unusual for a second lieutenant, but Stensland was no usual officer. He rated in the top one percent on the Army’s scale for resourcefulness. More than a little hairy, with a thick frame and long arms, he was fearless and intimidating. “He’d remind you of a damn gorilla walking down the road,” said Marvin Robinson. “I mean, that’s his appearance. But he was all man.” The Japanese called him “King Kong.” His fellows in the 131st called him “Mr. Bear.”
More intriguing than Stensland’s physical stature was the fact that he seemed to live in an alternative dimension where the usual rules of offense