Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [202]
Up the road ahead, he saw a crowd of men coming toward them. Since July 4 rumors had been circulating among the prisoners kept at Changi Jail that ten prisoners had been executed at Outram Road, possibly including some Americans. The rumors were never sorted out, but that evening Miles Barrett, Crayton Gordon, John Wisecup, and others saw how much worse life in captivity could have been. Fourteen lost souls representing a hidden piece of the war’s horrible, slow-to-emerge truth came limping in their direction. There was a mass embrace as they got introduced all over again.
Gus Forsman would not be convinced of his liberation until those aptly named four-engine Liberator bombers were visible overhead, this time dropping more than just Juicy Fruit wrappers. Crates of C-rations, cigarettes, and candy, the bounty of a victorious nation, spilled out and spouted parachutes. The volume was impressive, but what moved Forsman most was seeing on the ground, amid the windfall, a scattering of individual items, off-brand and different from the bulk. Apparently some of the individual aircrewmen had made their own personal contributions to the cause.
On September 7 an American flag flew over Changi Prison. “The last time that I had seen that flag was when that ship went down,” said Paul Papish, “the Stars and Stripes fluttering there at the mainmast.” Prisoners broke out their own hidden stashes of goodies, reserve stocks of condensed milk and tins of sardines and rusty cans of peaches and meat and vegetables, some of it hoarded since the innocent, early days at Batavia. They rooted through their bags, traded this and that, exchanged home addresses, set their mattresses afire, and raised hell, mostly because they could. Great and optimistic promises flowed from their joy. The Americans would visit Australia, see their Aussie friends, go into business together, start a chain of motels or something. At the end of the line, the men of the Houston and the men of the Perth, soldiers of the Lost Battalion and sailors alike, were bound as one crew.
The exodus led all of them home through Calcutta. John Wisecup and Robbie Robinson were flown there in a C-47 from Singapore. The ride by “gooney bird” over the Himalayas was an adventure. In the thin, volatile air the plane pitched and yawed and soared and plummeted, wings scarcely able to hold the sky. Down the centerline of the passenger compartment a line was strung tight so that a bucket could be slid to anyone who needed relief.
Wisecup and Robinson were in the air an hour when curiosity seized them and they explored their aircraft. In a small galley area between the passenger space and the cockpit, the two Marines found a box of Butterfingers. They ripped into it, gorged for a while, then returned to their seats. They couldn’t stop themselves from expecting a Korean guard to materialize somehow and punish their thievery with a bashing. When an authority figure did approach them, she was bringing even better fare. They had never seen canned rations before. They tore into them. A few minutes later, one of the aircrew returned to them and handed them a first-aid kit. They didn’t understand why until they looked at their fingers and realized they were dripping blood, split and slashed by the sharp edges of the tins.
At Calcutta, they shambled down the ladder, still somehow afraid that the rations hidden in their clothes would spill out and betray them. They expected to be searched, the contraband confiscated. But they got away with it; they were survivors, which meant they always had. Shown to the relative opulence of the 142nd General Hospital, they unloaded the rations and slid them under their mattresses. Someone came for them, saying they were wanted in the mess hall. They went there and found awaiting them a dinner of ham, steak, and eggs.
At Calcutta, most of the exfiltrated prisoners