Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (12 page)

Those cords saved our hides, plain and simple.

Parachute cord is nylon and very tough. I used one length to lash the two rafts together, through the topside grommets. Then I retightened the saltwater compress on Phil’s head, and Mac—who, miraculously, was uninjured—and I transferred Phil to the second raft and told him not to move.

“Zamp,” he said, as we made him comfortable. “You’re the captain now.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to reassure him. “Don’t worry. Take it easy. We’ll be picked up soon.”

THE LIFE RAFTS
were standard issue: sturdy inner tubes inside canvas covered with yellow rubber. Each one had two sections, meaning a separate inner tube and valve on each side. That was smart for safety reasons. If one side went flat, you’d still float. Each raft was about as big as a desktop inside, maybe three feet wide and six feet long. Two seats cut across the width, both molded in and filled with air. Underneath each seat was enough room to shove your legs in case you had to lie on the bottom during a storm to maintain a low center of gravity and keep the raft from turning over.

A supply kit came with each raft. After checking Phil again I started an inventory but was interrupted when Mac suddenly screamed: “We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you kidding? We’re
not
gonna die.”

“Yes, we’re all gonna die! You know we are.”

Though we never had time to radio a distress call, I absolutely believed we’d be saved. Our failure to land at Palmyra was itself a signal. The other B-24 on the search mission—it had split off to cover another area—was probably already on the ground in Palmyra, wait
ing for us. “
Hey
, we’re gonna get picked up today or tomorrow,” I said with certainty, looking at Phil instead of Mac. “Don’t worry. We’re not gonna die. We’ve rescued plenty of guys and now they’re out searching for us. We’ll be eating dinner with the marines tonight—or tomorrow night.”

But Mac kept screaming. I tried reverse psychology. I threatened to report him when we got picked up. Neither worked, so I did what I had to do: I cracked him across the face. Mac flew backward, surprised yet somehow content. He regained control and, for the moment, kept his fears to himself.

Look, no one wants to crash, but we had. I knew the way to handle it was to take a deep breath, relax, and keep a cool head. Survival was a challenge, and the way to meet it was to be prepared. I’d trained myself to make it. I was in top physical condition. Except for his head gash, Phil was in good shape, too. We played three or four sets of tennis almost every day at the officers’ club. Mac was also young and healthy, but his mind didn’t seem ready to take the kind of great punishment that might await us. I worried about him.

I noted the time and location of the crash, the ocean currents and the trade winds. Then I returned to the inventory. I found the patch kits—the same stuff you’d use to fix a bicycle tire: sandpaper, patches, rubber dope. We had air pumps that came in their own little cases. We had a flare gun, and dye to mark the water so planes could find us. Also a mirror made of chromed brass, and a pair of pliers with a screwdriver handle. That’s all. Not even a net to catch fish.

And I couldn’t find the most important item.

Where was the knife?

Frustration began to eat at me. “Where’s the knife?” I grumbled. I almost swore, but I knew that was a sign of a person losing his cool. Yet, what a blunder. I swear I almost started to search for the raft’s trademark to see if it was made in Germany or Japan. Some dummkopf had put in pliers when everyone knows that no matter where you are, on land or sea or in the air,
you need a knife
.

We had no knife, and I couldn’t make one appear out of thin, warm salt air.
As for provisions, between the two rafts, we had six bars of chocolate and eight half-pint tins of water. Designed as survival food, the chocolate bars were big, divided into six sections, and meant to last about a week. The instructions were to eat only one section a day, and to take thirty minutes to do it. The chocolate was fortified—it said so in big letters on the package—with all the vitamins, minerals, and protein anyone in an emergency would need.

I took the water and chocolate from Phil’s raft and placed it in mine. It didn’t seem like a lot, but that didn’t bother me. We were only two hundred miles—or ninety minutes—north of Palmyra, and eight hundred miles south of Hawaii. I was sure that the search-and-rescue planes would find us soon.

WHEN LIFE INSTANTLY
and drastically takes you completely by surprise, the first reaction is confusion. If one minute you’re following a normal routine in an airplane, motors roaring, and a couple of minutes later the plane crashes and you’re on a raft, lost and adrift in a vast, loud silence, the disorientation is, at best, intense. Then a new world unfolds. You need time to understand and figure out what’s happening. Fate had thrown us into 65 million square miles of salt water and stillness. I couldn’t hear the wind; I couldn’t hear birds; I couldn’t hear waves. I felt like one minute I’d been watching television and the next I’d suddenly found myself on the moon.

With Phil patched up and Mac subdued, I finally had a moment to settle back and think, but I found no peace of mind. I thought of the eight other crewmen and the sharks that never slept, but that was too horrible to contemplate. Instead I tried to figure out how we three had survived. That was easy: we’d all been on the right side of the plane. Phil, because he’d switched seats with Cupernell. I’d been at the right waist window, and Mac had been behind me. The impact threw Mac free when the tail snapped off, but I could hardly imagine how Phil had made it. Anyone familiar with a B-24 cockpit knows how tough it is to get in or out on a
good
day. Phil should have been dead. The cockpit must have split apart when the nose hit the water.
Because he was on the right side and up higher than Cupernell, who probably died instantly, the force pushed Phil through the opening, tearing his scalp on the way.

That left me. More than Phil or Mac, I should be dead. I began to focus on my miraculous escape from an impossible situation, and I had one simple question: “How did I get loose?” I relived every moment trying to find a logical answer. I went through it repeatedly. My ears had popped, I felt the unbearable pressure on my forehead, I lost consciousness…then my eyes opened and I was free. But how? Again: my ears popped, I felt the pressure…I was free. It made no sense. If the water pressure had knocked me out at a certain depth and at that point I was still sinking, why didn’t the increasing water pressure keep me out? Not to mention that the tripod was bolted to the deck and wrapped in metal wire.

I had no choice but to believe that something strange and wonderful had happened, and I was at a loss to understand it.

Memories surfaced of all the times since childhood I’d narrowly escaped death or horrible injury. Then I thought of a letter I’d sent just that morning to Payton Jordan, a friend in navy preflight school who’d been a USC sprinter and would later become an Olympic coach. I’d stuffed it in my pocket, intending to mail it, when we got the call to report for the rescue mission. I discovered it just before takeoff and tossed it out the window to one of the ground crew. “Mail this for me, would you, please?” The letter began with the words “I am still alive and kicking around, why I don’t know.”

As undesirable as my situation was now, I was still alive, and although I still didn’t know why, it was better than the alternative.

I soon tired of reviewing the movie of my life, but with no other pressing engagements, I relaxed, tried to focus on the sea’s soothing motion, and just let sleep come.

I AWOKE WITH
the words
Lucky Louie
stuck in my head. From high school on I’d always accepted the nickname with a certain smugness. Now I desperately needed it to remain so. Neither Phil, Mac, nor I were regular churchgoing guys; we never prayed before heading into
combat. But because we’d survived the crash I had to at least consider the possibility of some kind of divine intervention. Just to be on the safe side, I thanked God for saving our lives. My buddies prayed with me. Of course, on life rafts that’s what you mostly do: you pray.

FOR THREE GUYS
used to looking down at the ocean, we now found ourselves always looking up. Hours passed, the sun slid toward the horizon, the air grew damp, our stomachs growled. No rescue plane had appeared, so I portioned out some chocolate and resigned myself to a night at sea.

In the dark it quickly grew cold, and the chill penetrated our bones, making it almost impossible to sleep. Using the sea anchor, a hollow, collapsible piece of canvas a lot like the feed bag you put over a horse’s mouth, we scooped six inches of water into each raft and let our bodies warm it like a blanket. It worked. We finally drifted off into an exhausted, deathlike slumber.

The next morning we dried out in the sun and scanned the sky hopefully for planes. No one wanted to spend another night on the ocean.

For breakfast I figured we’d each have a little more water and some chocolate. We had enough for a week if we took it easy, but when I went for our rations the chocolate was gone.

I didn’t understand. I’d secured our supplies the night before, and the ocean had been calm; the chocolate couldn’t have washed overboard. I knew I hadn’t eaten it, and Phil, in the other raft, was too weak to move.

The obvious hit me: Mac.

“What did you do?” I hissed.
“What did you do?”
Phil stared at me. Mac said nothing, but his eyes opened wide and his expression turned pathetic. Almost funny.

“Why?” I asked.

Again, no response. But what could he say? Mac had no excuse for his actions. “I don’t know
anyone
who would do something like
that,
” I said. “We’re three
together
; we must cooperate and pull
together,
work
together
.” I wanted to crack him in the face again, but I didn’t. I turned away, disgusted. Mac was a weakling, a kid who’d broken something
and didn’t want to take responsibility. What could I do with someone like that, kick him in the head? Sure his problem was psychological, induced by stress, but we were all under stress. Mac seemed helpless. He was numb and he knew he’d done wrong, no question. But why get angry? Besides, I truly believed we’d be picked up in a day or two. For a moment I even worried about him: Who knew what eating six bars of fortified chocolate would do to your insides?

I partly blamed myself for not anticipating his panic and his impulses. Mac never took proper care of himself. On the base he skipped our physical-fitness program. He chain-smoked. Drank. Spent his nights in Honolulu doing who knew what. He also missed meals. We had pretty good food in the dining room, but he’d come in, eat whatever was sweet, and leave. You couldn’t make him listen. Several cups of coffee and three pieces of pie? No problem. Mac had developed a sweet tooth long before he met our chocolate. I should have known I couldn’t trust him. Instead, I was like the guy who puts his hand in front of a rattlesnake expecting not to get bitten. Only a fool does that.

Everybody in the service gets the same combat training. We go to the front line with the same equipment. When the chips are down, some will panic and run and get court-martialed. Why? Because we’re not all brought up the same. I was raised to face any challenge. If a guy’s raised with short pants and pampering, sure, he goes through the same training, but in combat he can’t face it. He hasn’t been hardened to life.

It’s important to be hardened to life.

Today kids cut their teeth on video games. I’d rather play real games. This generation may be ready to handle robotic equipment and fly planes with computers, but are they ready to withstand the inevitable counterattack? Are they emotionally stable? Are they callous enough to accept hardship? Can they face defeat without falling apart?

Mac was good at his job because he had lots of practice, but I shouldn’t have expected any more from him on a human level. I still can’t imagine what he was thinking as he gobbled the chocolate,
knowing that the next morning we would wake up and find it gone. I only knew that I couldn’t let it throw me.

THE SECOND MORNING
the skies were overcast, making us harder to find. We waited, not saying much. Phil, at least, didn’t seem any worse off than the day before. I wondered how far we’d drifted. At about noon I heard the familiar yet faraway thunder of Pratt & Whitney motors overhead. I grabbed the flare gun just as I saw a B-24’s nose break through the clouds. She was so low I could recognize her as one of our own squadron. I wanted to place a flare by the pilot but didn’t because I was afraid I might hit the plane. Instead, I aimed where the waist gunners and tail gunner would see it and fired. The bomber made a ninety-degree turn and I shouted, “She sees us!”

Even Phil managed a smile.

But she hadn’t seen us. At first I thought, “Those stinkers; they’re not at their positions!” Yet, even to someone looking from as low as one thousand feet, our raft was a speck that blended in with the whitecaps. Then the clouds closed and the plane disappeared in the distance. I figured they’d try again the next day. For now, we were alone.

Well, not exactly alone. A couple of sharks had arrived. Occasionally they nosed the raft to test its strength, hoping—as only sharks can—for material flimsy enough to soon surrender us to their relentless hunger and waiting jaws. We were hungry, too, but we had to ignore it. Better just to sleep. Mac and I scooped a few inches of water into the rafts, and once again we all huddled down for the night.

YEARS LATER I
learned from a crewman on our sister B-24 that we’d been officially reported missing at 04:30 the next morning. By dawn, the plane was out searching for us and did so for a whole week, until it had to return to Oahu for maintenance. By then we were presumed dead.