Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (18 page)

Though I was twenty-six and Boyington was probably thirty, he and I became pretty close friends. Fortunately, by the time he arrived, the rules had loosened up a bit and we could talk to each other. He was braggadocious and liked to throw the bull a lot. I’d already heard about his problems at home and in the service, but since I was now his number-one outlet for conversation, he began to unload his marriage troubles on me. I tried to be a good listener as he unraveled the story of the incredibly painful divorce process that still tore him apart. “There are times when I don’t care if I live or die,” he said, “and that’s the way I feel when I’m up there shooting down those yellow bastards. Yet the moment we tangle I have this strong desire to win. You, being a runner, probably know what I mean.”

“Pappy,” I said, “that’s the deadly combination that makes you an ace—not caring and hating to lose. Maybe that’s why the divorce is so tough: you hate to lose.”

Taking it out on the enemy was one way to handle the pain, but it was only temporary. Same as climbing into a bottle. When you sober up, the problems are still staring you in the face.

Pappy was stubborn and wanted things his own way; he caused some trouble in camp and suffered the same mistreatment and starvation as the rest of us. After being caught smoking during a nonsmoking period, he was beaten pretty badly. It took a few bumps on his head, but he finally began in his own bulldog way to conform to the submissive POW lifestyle.

In his book,
Baa Baa Black Sheep
, Boyington wrote that the only
qualification to become a guard or officer at Ofuna was passing “a minus-one-hundred I.Q. test.”

My opinion, exactly. They were dummies.

A guard once called three of us to peep through a knothole in the headquarters shack at one of his buddies who was inside, masturbating. That same guard also had intercourse with a duck. A fuller description of their odd sexual experiment is in Boyington’s book. It made me sick and I had to turn away. All I’ll say is that the duck died.

Another time a guard called me into the kitchen. There stood a nice-looking Japanese girl, maybe twenty-five years old. She worked cleaning pots and pans. The guard told me to stand behind her. Then he moved behind me, reached around and grabbed her, and thrust his hips into me, forcing me back and forth into her. Man, it was embarrassing. The poor girl.

The guards and officers were third-rate guys because Japan needed their good men so badly on the front lines. Those who worked in the camps were mostly moronic farm kids and misfits not fit for combat. Not that they didn’t try to simulate the experience. One afternoon they brought in a B-24 pilot on a stretcher, with a crushed chest. After he died that night the guards staged a mock bayonet drill using the corpse as a target.

The Japanese did all they could to break our will and self-respect. They’d taunt us by saying, “Hey, we just invaded San Francisco!” or “Shirley Temple had an abortion and died!” or “Clark Gable got killed over Africa!” Brutal beatings, with fist or club, were the daily rule, not only for infractions of unknown camp regulations but for the merest suspicion that we might be contemplating any disobedience.

WE ALL PERFORMED
slave labor, usually in the kitchen and on cleanup patrol. The guards also needed someone to cut their hair and shave their faces—and what better way than forcing someone to do it? When I was a kid, we all got a quarter for a haircut at Tansy’s barbershop. I’d stand around and watch the barbers at work and eventually figured I could do it, too. So I started a racket: I would cut neighborhood kids’ hair for the quarter their mothers gave them so we could
go to the beach and use the money to ride the roller coaster and get a hamburger. This went on until one boy’s mother thought the barber did a “bad job.” Determined to improve and keep the business going, I hung out at Tansy’s every chance I had.

With all that experience, I thought I should volunteer to be the camp barber. It wasn’t out of kindness or to prepare for a postwar career. For each haircut and shave I’d get a rice ball: wet rice baked to a golden brown in the oven.

I never had such an easy job. I just clipped the guards’ hair as close to their scalp as possible. As for the shave: I’d never used a straightedge razor, and it scared the hell out of me, especially when one guard said, “You bring blood and…” But I couldn’t get out of it, so I practiced on myself first. I still nicked a few guys—without consequence—and soon learned how to use the razor.

The guards also asked me to shave their foreheads. I couldn’t figure out why. They had no hair there, nor on their chests, but they wanted their foreheads shaved down to the top of the eyebrows. Were these men masochists, or did they just like how the blade felt?

Every guard paid the rice ball, except the Weasel. He needed to show his superiority, and it made me mad. Whenever he came around, I’d say, “You didn’t pay me last time.”

“Yeah? I pay you later.”

So I’d shave him again—I couldn’t really refuse—figuring that maybe he’d keep his word. He didn’t. Finally, I got wise. The next time I cut his hair and shaved his forehead, I cut his eyebrows down real thin, just like a pencil line. He was relaxed, in another world, and didn’t pay attention. When I finished I asked for my rice ball and, as expected, he stiffed me and went back to the honcho shack. Suddenly I heard cussing and screaming, then laughter from the other guards. Next I heard two words I’ll never forget: “Marlene Dietrich! Marlene Dietrich!”

I expected a beating, but he
loved
it. The Japanese idolized American movie stars, and when his pals approved of his new style, he left me alone.

NOW AND THEN
Sasaki called me into his office. Interrogation was pointless, but that’s never what he seemed to want. He was nostalgic for the old days.

Although I could no longer muster friendship for him, I could sense it in him for me. At first he was self-confident and cocky, bragging that Japan would win the war. When they started losing battles—and he knew that we knew it after they’d captured Pappy Boyington and he told us the truth—Sasaki’s attitude changed. He even called Emperor Tojo a son of a bitch and cussed a blue streak. Perhaps he wanted to get on my good side. I don’t know. But always, when I’d ask why I, an officer, was still at a camp in which I was clearly out of place, he never answered.

Sometimes I told Sasaki about the men’s hopes for better food and less punishment. “Oh, Louie, you
know
him,” they’d say. “Tell him what’s happening here.” Sasaki would say, “Well, we’ll see what we can do.” Then he’d leave and a couple of days later we’d all be beaten. The next time I’d see him I’d complain about the beatings, and he’d say, “Well, they have to keep rigid discipline in the camps, but we’ll see what we can do.” That was always his way. Never “I,” but “we,” meaning it was always “unfortunately” out of his hands. Sasaki never had to take any responsibility for what happened. Or didn’t.

BOYINGTON RELAYED THE
information he brought back from his frequent interviews with Sasaki to two prisoners. The first was Geoffrey Lempriere, an Aussie lieutenant captured in the jungle near Rabaul, or New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea. A wealthy wool merchant in his private life, Lempriere hustled around the camp in a ragged black coat, acting as official chaplain. The second was my close friend Lieutenant Bill Harris, the six-foot-ten son of marine general Fielding Harris, who ran the marine air corps. They had captured Bill in the Philippines several years earlier, but he’d remained mentally sharp by reading every scrap of paper available and conducting vigorous memory exercises. As a result, all information, including newspapers that we could occasionally steal from the guard shack, we rushed
to Bill. He had a photographic memory, could look at a map and sketch it later with complete symbols for the rest of the group.

BY SPRING I’D
gained a bit more weight but was still weak and, as usual, hungry. I constantly thought of ways to pilfer rations, though I was aware and afraid of the terrible consequences; stealing food in wartime was punishable by death.

Sometimes Duva and Mead would walk by my cell after dinner and throw me a rice ball, knowing the serious trouble they’d catch if caught. Mead called the Los Angeles area home, so he knew about me from my USC running days. However, his kindness had little to do with special treatment. Because of my ordeal, I most needed the food. (As did Phil, when he was still at Ofuna. I’d always split my rice ball with him.) Otherwise, everybody was in the same boat. We all pulled together. When you’re trying to survive, you cooperate.

Eventually my desperation overcame common sense. I knew I had to take a chance, even with my life. I studied the patrol habits, and one night at about 1
A.M
. the camp was asleep except for a single guard, who had all three barracks to cover. The main passageway tying all the buildings together went through the kitchen. I snuck in and quietly stuffed my face with Japanese navy food. I lost track of the time until suddenly I sensed a presence to my left. I turned slowly, and there stood a guard we called Shithead. He was the worst of the bunch, a sneaky pipsqueak always trying to catch us at fault so he could report us and impress his superiors. I knew I was in deep, deep trouble.

He held his rifle at his side, butt on the floor, stepped out of the shadows, and faced me. I waited for him to raise the weapon, but he didn’t move. He just stared. It was bizarre. So I inched slowly away, our eyes locked together, figuring he’d take me out any moment, saying I had tried to escape. He certainly looked like he wanted to shoot me, but I kept backing up anyway, my eyes glued on him until he was out of sight.

The next day I waited, nervously, to suffer my fate. No one called me out. I’m certain he had reported my crime—it had to be Shit
head’s greatest trophy—but for some reason the commandant ignored or dismissed it. Why?

WHEN THE WEATHER
warmed, the commandant began to take his morning tea under the cherry tree in front of the barracks next to the road. He also read his newspaper there. An old gentleman, he only held a warrant officer’s rank. We called him “the Mummy.” His world was spare and he seemed detached.

One morning, while I swept the yard around him, I noticed him studying his paper, the
Mainichi Shinbun,
with a furrowed brow and great concern. Occasionally he muttered to himself. I realized I had to get that paper because it might hold valuable information.

I kept sweeping, looking for an opening. I worried less about the commandant catching me than about being spotted by the cook, Hata, or the Quack. Though not in any way responsible for camp discipline, both frequently administered punishments.

The commandant began to doze, and let his paper slip beneath his tea table. I edged closer, reached out, and snagged the paper with my broom, crumpling it as if it were trash. I swept it around the corner and to the latrine. There I undid the wad. I couldn’t read the Japanese scrawl, but it didn’t matter. I saw a map with arrows showing major troop movements.

I gave it to Bill Harris to decipher.

Harris read the text and said, “How do you spell the name of the island you were on when you came in from the Marshalls?”

“K-W-A-J-A-L-E-I-N,” I said. “Why? Have we taken it?

“Long ago, I think,” he said, “because we’re apparently launching attacks from there on all the other islands, leading right to Japan.”

Kwajalein taken! Where Phil and I had suffered, our forces now played gin rummy. We never had a doubt about winning the war. It just took time for our country, an industrial giant, to get rolling. But with the war split between two enemies and continents, we could understand the slower pace.

Harris returned the newspaper, and I took it outside to the trash pile. Meanwhile, he made a rough sketch from memory depicting the
Allied advances. Later he showed it to the ranking officers. The men in our little espionage group were overjoyed. We imagined imminent victory and speculated about when they might release us.

Our joy was brief.

Harris should have destroyed his map, but he hid it instead. The next day, when we were outside, the Japanese went through everyone’s stuff and found it.

The cry went out. “Line up! Inspection.”

The Quack called Harris out and started punching him, then grabbed a heavy cherrywood bludgeon and hit him repeatedly, knocking him out. We all wanted to jump in and stop the sadistic medic, but the guards had their rifles ready because they knew it was a serious situation. The Quack kept jumping on Harris even as he lay helpless on the ground. He totally lost control. It broke our hearts to watch and not be able to intervene.

Afterward, the Quack leaned against a bench, ecstatic, breathing hard, like a guy just finished having intercourse with a woman. We thought Harris was dead, and I hated the Japanese then even more than I had hated them on Kwajalein. I felt angry and helpless. Had it been possible I would gladly have torn the Quack to bits with my own hands and shot those who leered from the doorways and giggled behind the kitchen windows.

Meanwhile, the commandant had acted like he couldn’t care less. He’d let the beating continue uninterrupted. And Conga Joe walked up and down the line of men left standing at attention—two had fainted—belting anyone who blinked or looked suspicious.

No one could touch Harris. We had to let him lie there until, thankfully, he stirred. Then one of our ranking men got permission to take him back to his cubicle. I helped. We lay him facedown on his tatami mat and ripped away his clothing. When we saw the spare flesh of his back, now reduced to pulp, and his buttocks, all one purple-black bruise, it was hard not to cry. We were sure the Quack had crushed Bill’s vertebrae. Maybe still being alive wouldn’t be so great after all.

The next morning, rather than give his captors the satisfaction of having eliminated him, Harris, with the pride of an American marine,
walked stiffly to roll call. Afterward he returned to bed, where he stayed for days. Even when he could move again, it was months before he could focus mentally.