14

FORGIVENESS

After my first talk in Modesto, offers to share my story poured in. I knew my journey from delinquent to Olympian, from POW to drinking, from nightmares to conversion—my testimony—was an attention getter—“And then what happened?”—so I accepted the invitations as evidence of God’s plan and an opportunity to test my new faith by following it.

I drove to most engagements, sometimes took the train or flew. Now and then Cynthia and Cissy came with me. When invited to speak, all expenses were paid and an honorarium provided. God knew my needs and took care accordingly. I also faithfully gave 10 percent back to the church.

ONE NIGHT, AFTER speaking in a little church in Burbank, I saw my old friend Harry Read standing in the back, behind the last pew.

“I thought I’d drop by and see what all the fuss is about,” he said.

His visit was a great surprise, and not just because my old college buddy was in a church, of all places. Harry had entered a boat race eight months earlier and had moved to Hawaii. I didn’t know he was in town.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

On the ride to Hollywood he recalled the months he’d spent in the islands. “I tried to charter my boat but couldn’t do it, so I had lots of time on my hands. I filled it with the easy life: parties, beautiful gals, drinking—you know the routine.”

I did. But Harry sounded more puzzled than happy.

“You know, Louie, despite the good times and beautiful scenery, I got bored. I wasn’t…happy. Something’s wrong, but I just can’t figure it out.”

I could have spoken then, but I let him ask a few questions about my new life instead and hoped he’d get the message on his own. Besides, I couldn’t tell from his expression whether what I’d said in church had impressed him or revolted him, or if he’d even heard me.

A week later Harry attended another meeting—not mine—and when the preacher extended an invitation to accept Christ, Harry stepped forward. Later he told me, “I just wasn’t sure, Louie. Knowing you the way I do, I just couldn’t believe it. But I’ve watched you and that convinced me.”

Harry threw himself into his new life. He moved to Oceanside, where he had an equipment-rental business, and sometimes we’d get together. He married a beautiful model and asked me to teach them running so they could stay in shape. Years later Harry got kidney cancer. When he had only a week or two to live, I drove to see him and we prayed together.

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT is that we preach the gospel to every creature, but neither God nor the Bible says anything about forcing it down people’s throats. If you go to the door and get rejected, you’re supposed to kick the dust off your shoes and move on, not try to kick down the door. Back when the Jesus freaks roamed Hollywood Boulevard accosting passersby, I thought their pressure tactics gave Christianity a bad name. I believe what the Bible says: many are called, few are chosen. That’s one of today’s big problems: we’ve got too many die-hard fundamentalists the world over. You can see the hate in their eyes when someone doesn’t agree with everything they say. A dangerous few go to terrible lengths, even violence, to spread their beliefs. I’ve met many people who rejected Christ, yet it’s always some guy trying to spread the Word who gets mad and madder because he believes he has to score a conversion, like it’s a game he has to win.

In the beginning I struggled with my own eagerness to spread the Word and sometimes tried too hard. But after a few frustrating and occasionally embarrassing encounters, I finally accepted the truth: the Bible says you can’t convert anybody. All you can do is plant the seed and water it, and God will grant the increase according to His will.

IN MID-1950 I attended a huge annual Christian conference at Winona Lake, Indiana. Every night I stood on the dirt-floor auditorium and listened enthusiastically to the messages of missionaries and evangelists from around the world.

Only when Bob Pierce, who established World Vision and had just returned from the Orient, spoke did I have reservations. Bob had become a war correspondent and had a radio program that dealt with the problems of Japan and other Asian countries.

“Why,” he asked, in his forceful way, “are no missionary teams going to Japan? You’ve scheduled many teams for Europe”—I was part of one, ready to leave within twenty-four hours—“yet only one team for the Orient! We need more.”

Pierce was very upset, and I couldn’t stop feeling that he was speaking directly to me. Whether or not he was, it made sense; if anybody ended up in Japan, I’d be the one. Not that anyone had asked—and if anyone did, I already knew I definitely didn’t want to go.

A few years earlier I’d made that much clear to Time magazine when I’d said, “I’d rather be dead than return to that country.” I couldn’t stand Japan. The war memories—like the times we had to fertilize the potato and carrot crops with our own human dung, and then eat the result—just made thinking about a return trip worse.

In Japan poverty was still a way of life. I wanted to do missionary work where my surroundings were more Americanized, more democratic. I had friends all over Europe and knew I’d have a good time there. Had I not become a Christian, I might have eventually gone back to Japan just to find the Bird, if he was alive, and make him pay for what he’d done to me, but since I’d forgiven everyone, the country no longer held my interest. At least that’s what I told myself.

When Pierce finished I snuck out before anyone could talk to me. Yet walking back to my hotel room, I could not escape the conviction that until I had actually faced the Japanese again and seen the reflection of my supposedly new self in their eyes, I would never know for sure whether or not I had dispelled the past. So I got the idea that perhaps I should come face-to-face with some of my former captors, now interned at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison, and forgive them. Only then would I be complete.

In the lobby I met some buddies who wanted to have a prayer meeting. When it was my turn, I said, “Lord, I feel this terrible conviction that I have to go back to Japan, but I’m not sure. It’s burning in my heart.” Then I came up with a clever way to shift the responsibility for the decision elsewhere: “Being a new Christian, Lord, I’ll need a good swift kick in the pants to understand your will.” In other words, show me an unmistakable sign—and quickly—or I’ll leave with my team for Europe, as planned.

On the way to my room I walked by a conference room just emptying. A young minister, a complete stranger, stopped me. “My name is Eric Folsom,” he said. “I’m an evangelist from Tucson. I heard you speak. Perhaps you’d tell your story at my church?”

“Certainly,” I replied, handing him my card. “Write me when you get back and let me know when it’s convenient and we’ll work it out.”

“By the way,” he said, “Did you hear that challenge on Japan?”

“I did. But I’ve got to get to my room and—”

“It thrilled me to hear Bob Pierce’s message.”

“Me as well,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve got to get to bed…”

Folsom put his hand on my arm. “Just a minute, Louie.”

“What’s the matter?”

“As we’ve been talking, God has burdened my heart to give you five hundred dollars to start you on your way back to Japan.”

I didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him, but the truth was inescapable: I had asked God to give me a sign, and He had obliged me. Folsom explained that he didn’t actually have the money, but he promised to send it to me in California the moment he got home. (I found out later that he went back to Arizona and sold his car!)

Less than a hour later, a singing group of about six people knocked on my hotel-room door and said, “We heard that challenge on Japan, and you’re the logical person to go back there. We want to give you our tithe money.”

Another sign.

Before turning in for the night, I wrote a letter to Cynthia and Cissy:

My little lonesome ones,

Your daddy is thoroughly befuddled. So many things are happening back here that I am in a constant nervous state. I have been praying for the Lord’s guidance on these missionary trips, and doors seem to be opening in all directions. Tonight I got a very distinct lead. The Lord is really here.

Cynthia, the Lord has kept me here for my own good and yours. Our main interest is the Lord’s will first and I believe that getting a house is part of the Lord’s will. Pray hard and long and often about Japan, the juvenile program, that television show, and our house.

The only plane I can take stops in Los Angeles for ten minutes at 11:30 Sunday night, then takes off for Frisco. I’ll try to call you from Lockheed Terminal during our stop. I’ll try like mad to get home by Tuesday night. I guess I missed my dental appointment, so make two for me any morning.

I sure do miss your cold little feet.

Yours in His service,

Love, Louie

In Los Angeles, Youth for Christ International’s vice president said he’d help me make the money I needed to fully finance my trip to Japan, and he booked me on a speaking tour up and down the West Coast. I also became the director of their juvenile-delinquency program. In Washington State I met a team of young evangelists bound for the Orient, and we agreed to travel together for two months. They also raised money for me.

My non-Christian friends said, “Well, I sure wouldn’t do it. It takes a lot of guts.” The Christians understood. At least this time no one thought it was a publicity stunt.

I flew on a Northwest Airlines clipper prop plane to Hawaii, where we stayed overnight, and then to Wake. I’d bombed Wake and knew its every nook and cranny but had never actually set foot on the island. During the trip I had severe second thoughts about going and spent most of my time resenting my decision to return. I just couldn’t accept the reality of what was happening. But my confusion didn’t matter. The trip was God’s will, and I knew it. God doesn’t say we have to be happy in His will, He just says that we should be obedient to His will and joy will follow.

For the moment, I had to take that—and all else—on faith.

I STEPPED OFF the plane at Tokyo’s drab airport on a cool, gray October day in 1950, and was immediately reminded of hundreds of similar days when I’d been imprisoned, not knowing how much longer I’d have to endure to survive. Again I asked myself, What am I doing here? Again, I knew the answer. I just didn’t like it.

I cleared customs and met my missionary hosts and interpreter. A team from Life magazine’s Tokyo bureau stopped me in the terminal. They’d learned that I wanted to visit Sugamo Prison, where many of the men who’d guarded and mistreated me—along with the other war criminals—were held. They wanted to get inside for a story but had been denied. After hearing their report I didn’t know if I could get in, either, but I promised to talk with the chaplain at the army’s General Headquarters on their behalf, and mine, and keep them posted.

Driving into Tokyo, I could immediately see that the city had changed. Where I remembered charred building skeletons and pitiful, hungry people, a bustling metropolis now grew, with wide boulevards and residents seemingly full of energy and enthusiasm. I saw open-fronted stores filled with huge daikons, hanging meats, and jars of colored candy. Vendors pushed carts through the streets. Little shops sold paper and tea. New factories stood next to the firebombed ruins of the old, and swarms of small houses covered areas the B-29s had once left in cinders. The city appeared infused with hope instead of hate. I wanted to feel that way, too, and remained inwardly watchful for any trace of bitterness and enmity, especially when I thought of those who had beaten me with their fists and worse.

My schedule was full. Various Christian organizations had arranged meetings and public testimonials. Military chaplains asked me to visit their installations. Universities and civic groups arranged lectures. Newspapers donated reams of print to my arrival and appearances.

All I had to do was manage my money well. After buying my plane ticket I had only a few dollars left, which, when supplemented with some donations collected during our layover in Honolulu, totaled about fifty dollars. Fortunately, fifty dollars then was like five hundred dollars today. I could get a steak dinner for twenty-five or thirty cents, and usually we were fed in Japanese homes or at communal meals with church groups. Because the army had neglected to collect my official I.D. card when I separated from the service in 1946, I could even go to the PX, where food was cheap. Sleeping accommodations were another matter. We slept where we slept, often on pads at cheap hotels. However, between the hospitality and the anticipation of my public appearances—I had no idea I’d be so well received—I slowly began to enjoy my stay.

FROM MY MANY postwar appearances I had long ago established my standard talk. I had learned to condense the story to thirty minutes because most people don’t want to listen for longer than that. Even though I’d recently made a decision for Christ, I didn’t change the content of my lecture much or load it up with the Word of God. I believed then, and still do, in going very light on Scripture, saving that for the end, and letting listeners take from my total experience what they need and what works for them.

The only difference was that I’d never told my story to a Japanese audience before, and I wondered how they’d react. Could they handle the harsh detail and my memories of hate and anger? I decided to do what I did when I spoke to the occupation troops on Okinawa: just tell the truth—about Kano, the good guard; about the Bird; about my life being spared on Kwajalein and how I’d never been able to figure out why.

Whenever I finished a talk, my group passed out tracts and pamphlets, and we were struck by the eagerness with which people accepted them. In America much of our material was tossed on the auditorium floor, left for the janitor. The Japanese discarded little.

One afternoon I was about to leave my hotel for a speech at Waseda, one of Tokyo’s biggest universities, when the school president called and said he had to cancel my appearance. “I’m sorry,” he explained, “but there’s a little trouble on campus.”

“Little trouble” was an understatement. The Communist movement was strong in postwar Japan, and over a thousand students and an equal number of policemen were at that very moment engaged in a bloody battle that lasted six hours. One hundred forty-three people were arrested, and thirty-four students and eleven policemen were injured, some critically.

I spoke at four factories instead, and three days later we decided to try Waseda again. The university president made it clear that I’d come at my own risk. “I’ll announce the event,” he said, “but I can’t guarantee anyone will attend.”

The stage at Waseda was about five feet off the floor. I was preparing for the assembly when students began to arrive. Many wore bandages; they were the radicals. That frightened me, yet again I didn’t pull any punches talking about the Bird and the torture. Everyone listened politely, and when I finished the interpreter gave the invitation to become a Christian. Suddenly a sea of students surged forward, many of them wearing bandages. It occurred to me that they might not be rushing the stage to accept Jesus. I admit that even after two years in prison camp I still found it difficult to look in a Japanese face and know whether the owner is happy or mad or about to kill me.

I turned to the interpreter and said, “Hey, what do they want?”

He asked one guy with a bandaged head, turned back to me, and said, “They want to become Christians.” Our usual harvest was fifty or sixty. That night nearly three hundred renounced all other gods and ideologies, even communism. Beautiful!

TOKYO HAD BUILT a huge new civic auditorium, which held about sixteen thousand people. The night I appeared, eighteen thousand jammed inside and another five thousand waited outside in a heavy downpour. To reach everyone, I did a double program. Again I told the story, and again people came forward to accept Christ.

Afterward, a shriveled old Japanese lady approached me, bowed, and got right to the point. “I’m a Christian,” she said, plainly, “and the reason your life was spared on Kwajalein was because my son was an officer in authority there.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“My son’s words saved your life,” she repeated matter-of-factly.

I had so many questions, but I asked only this: “Is he still alive?” I knew that when the Allies bombarded the island, the enemy had been wiped out.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “He manages a department store in Tokyo.” She gave me the name, and I went directly there.

THOUGH I WROTE it down, I’ve lost the piece of paper and today I don’t remember the name of the man who saved me on Kwajalein, though I have his picture. It’s the sorriest, silliest thing. Nonetheless, we met and talked through an interpreter for nearly an hour, and I got the whole story.

“When you crashed at sea,” he explained, “you made headlines in America. We knew who you were because of the Olympics and USC. Everybody did.”

Americans today might not understand, but the Japanese then knew more about American movie stars and American athletes than we did. An American athlete could walk down Hollywood Boulevard and never be bothered. In Tokyo he’d be recognized. “When you were picked up at Wotje, we were beside ourselves,” he continued. “The officers on Kwajalein wanted to interrogate you. One had even gone to USC.”

“I know. We met.”

“After they decided you were of no more use to them, an execution date was set. All prisoners on Kwajalein were beheaded.”

“I know that, too.”

“But I went before the panel and made a suggestion. I said, ‘I have a better idea. Louie-san Zamperini is a famous American runner and an Olympian. Because of that and the publicity when he disappeared, it would better serve Japan’s purpose to send him to Tokyo as a prisoner of war, to make broadcasts. The panel agreed and contacted Vice Admiral Abe, who had given the original order that no prisoners leave Kwajalein alive—and he gave his consent.”

And so my life was saved. So simple. My destiny had been determined on Kwajalein.

I thanked him profusely and told him that the mystery of why I’d been spared had bugged me for years. “Now I know the truth, and I’m very grateful.”

We posed for pictures and shook hands all around.

MY TEAM AND I extended our travels outside Tokyo, to the other islands—and to Hiroshima. Sections of the city were still highly radioactive, but on the outskirts of town, houses had been already been repaired.

I was met by Mayor Oye, a devout Christian who had lived in a concentration camp during the war for his preaching. He didn’t seem in the least bitter, particularly about his imprisonment. “I have no reason to complain,” he chuckled. “I had the largest congregation I’d ever had—and they couldn’t leave!”

As a gift, he presented me with a rifle hit by the atomic bomb while in the hands of a soldier. It had melted and curled, and I couldn’t believe he had given me this symbol of horror and defeat. Talk about forgiveness. I was touched.

I talked to burn victims in the rebuilt hospital, going from bed to bed with my interpreter. One guy showed me his back, burnt from the blast, and said, “I feel honored that this happened to me, to save millions of lives.”

Honored? Save lives? Was he crazy? No. Though thousands were lost in the atomic-bomb blasts, students of the war know the statement makes sense. Still believing in the “divine wind” of old, the Japanese would have waited for a miracle and never surrendered, forcing us to storm their shores. The fierce, prolonged battle for Okinawa had been an example. In Ofuna, James Sasaki had told me that if the Allies ever invaded Japan, 10 percent of the 75 million population would die—plus untold numbers of the invading forces, most of whom weren’t real soldiers but part of the Youth Corps: teenagers taken out of college, trained for the final assault, likely destined to die. After the war, when some people condemned the A-bomb, a former Youth Corps kid wrote to the newspaper saying, “Hey, I was one of those guys who got six weeks of training on how to handle a gun and a bayonet. I knew I was going to die. Without the bomb we might have lost half a million men in the invasion (code-named “Downfall”), and the Japanese ten times that.”

I ALMOST RAN out of money on the way back to Tokyo, but during lunch at a hotel outside Hiroshima, a navy ensign who’d heard my talk introduced himself. Before leaving Hiroshima I’d discovered I wasn’t allowed to ship home the rifle I’d received. The ensign said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You come out to the ship with me, talk to some of the guys, and I’ll not only give you two hundred and fifty bucks so you can stay in Japan, I’ll take your rifle home and give it to you when you return.” He was as good as his word, and I extended my stay.

The money allowed me to go into the Japanese countryside. After living at Ofuna and Naoetsu, I felt more at home there than in the cities. The men and women who now struggled along dirt roads carrying their loads of dried fish and bean paste seemed like old friends. On an overcast, cold and miserable day we stopped an old man pulling a loaded two-wheeled cart through a barley field. He listened to us long enough to know we were talking about God, then he looked up and pointed at the sky and said, “I worship the Sun Goddess.” Just then the clouds parted and the sun shone through, warming us all. He smiled and said, “Is there anything better?” What could I do but smile back? When I handed him a Christian booklet, he bowed and thanked me, then trudged on his way, enjoying the sunshine.

IN TOKYO I received word through a missionary couple that a former Japanese navy recruit who had heard me speak had approached them with a question: “I was one of those who beat Zamperini on the ship to Yokohama and broke his nose,” he’d confessed. “Do you think he has truly forgiven me?”

He was assured I had but urged to ask me in a note. I replied in a way that left no doubt about my pardon, but as I scribbled I thought, Writing is easy. Would it be as easy to say it in person?”

The time had come to find out.

LIFE MAGAZINE HAD kept in touch with me every few days, asking if I had made any progress toward being allowed to visit Sugamo Prison. I hadn’t and said I’d try again. But first I wanted to visit the camps where I’d been confined. Call it training, a prerace warm-up.

At Ofuna I walked the long narrow road, now slippery with rain, to discover that the camp was still there. Scavengers had stolen the wood fence, probably for lumber or fuel, and two barracks had been replaced by planted fields. A third barrack housed squatters, one of whom slept in the arbor where the Mummy had read his paper. The cemetery, where we’d said good-bye to so many of our buddies, had been burned over.

Today Ofuna is a resort. Then it was just a painful memory.

Omori was much the same story, except that as I drove across the bridge to the man-made island, I was more afraid than sad. Would I remember the thrill of watching B-29s streak toward Tokyo, bomb bays pregnant with destruction? Or would I see the Bird’s leering frog face and feel the sting of his buckle hitting my head?

The island was a shambles. The fences had vanished, but the deep holes once filled with human excrement remained. I tracked through the weeds and looked in the window of a collapsing barrack to find the same two planks where I’d slept. Three tramps now called it home, and poverty-stricken Japanese families huddled in the cubbyholes for warmth, picking at the sand fleas that still swarmed unchecked.

I saw the room where we were allowed an occasional bath while an inquisitive audience of girl cooks giggled and pointed at our physical merits or shortcomings.

I stood in the barn with the holes in the wall where I saw another POW shiver for days, surrounded by ankle-deep snow, for stealing rice. I remembered Kano, the kindly guard, who’d risked his life to bring him blankets in the night.

I wandered through the courtyard, memories coming hard and fast: me, a virtual skeleton forced to run, stealing newspapers, beatings, depression, death, and the Bird—watching, never missing anything, grinning as he unburdened his rage on yet another prisoner. My chest tightened at how real it all seemed. Soon I would see my guards face-to-face. My forgiveness was so authentic and total that I looked forward to seeing each of them. I longed to look into their eyes and say not only “I forgive you,” but to tell them of the greatest event of forgiveness the world has ever known when Christ on the Cross, and at the peak of his agony, could say of his executioners, “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”

I took one more look as I left and to my surprise was overcome with a wave of…nostalgia? I had lived here. It had been my home. I missed my former buddies. Hell, I even missed the guards.

And the Bird? For so long I had wanted to kill him. Now only a mental picture of Watanabe as a lost soul remained. Maybe if the military would let me into Sugamo, I could find the Bird and talk to him. I had already helped myself; maybe I could even help him.

I crossed the bridge to the mainland and turned my back to the past. All that remained was the most difficult part, the test: Sugamo.

ENTRY TO SUGAMO was highly regulated. It was almost impossible to get a pass, since none but the captives’ immediate families and those who had specific and worthy business were allowed inside the wooden walls.

I called the GHQ chaplain again, and he told me my only hope was to appeal directly to General MacArthur at SAC headquarters. “That’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it?” I said.

“Maybe,” he responded, “but he’s the one who asked for ten thousand Bibles and twenty-five hundred missionaries. Give him a ring.”

When the fellow I reached in MacArthur’s office gave me a little runaround, I played my best and only card: “I’m calling because my former guards are there,” I explained, “and because MacArthur asked for twenty-five hundred missionaries and ten million Bibles.” I let that sink in for a moment. “I know I’m only one, but I’m here and I’d like to get in.” MacArthur was apparently in the same room, and the guy put his hand over the mouthpiece and talked to him. I waited and waited. Finally he came back on the line and said, “Okay. Tomorrow at ten A.M. you can visit Sugamo Prison.”

ON A COLD, dreary morning I stood under the archway with the red letters SUGAMO across the top. Before I walked through the gate, my imagination ran wild. Who would be there? Sasaki? Shithead? The Weasel? Kono? The Bird?

The colonel in charge of Sugamo welcomed me cordially. “Your guards are here and the overseers of your prison camps are here,” he said, and assured me that he’d be pleased to have me speak to every prisoner, if possible. He said to talk openly and not hold back. He also told me a bit about the camp, which housed 850 prisoners, every single war criminal in one place. He said this was the only way to control them, and they had to be close to Tokyo because of the war-crime trials.

“The inmates vote for their own officers, and those elected run their affairs as a model village,” he explained. “Food is their own kind and there is plenty. We don’t practice physical coercion or punishment. All the prisoners are missing is their freedom and self-respect. But many are getting those back, too, month by month.”

A bell rang out, signaling the meeting. I stood on a platform and watched the men quietly file in. I wondered if those who knew me recognized my face, now older and fuller, but I couldn’t see their faces well enough in the stage-light glare.

I gave my usual talk but never with more conviction. When I came to the part about how I’d been treated in Japanese prison camps, I again thought to temper the details and emotions so as not to appear too angry, but I didn’t because otherwise my forgiveness would lack true meaning.

Afterward, I invited the men to become Christians and asked for a show of hands. Sixty percent raised them high. “This will in no way shorten your sentence,” I explained. “I am not a part of the army and not part of SAC headquarters. It will not help you that way in the least.” Then I asked for hands again. Some who had been tempted or misunderstood withdrew, but many others in search of a new life persisted.

The colonel said, “Those of you who were Louie’s guards and heads of his prison camps, he’d like to speak with you. You may come forward if you wish.

Without hesitation they did. The moment had finally arrived. I waited onstage, watching men walk down the aisle and faces emerge from the mists of memory. I recognized each vividly: Sasaki, Admiral Yokura, Conga Joe, Shithead, Weasel, Hata the cook, Kano, and others.

But not the Bird.

Without even thinking I jumped off the stage, ran to the group, and threw my arm around the first guard. He pulled back at my friendliness; I don’t think he understood my intention. My sign of affection was unfamiliar in Japanese culture. It was probably also the last reaction he expected from me.

The colonel ushered us into a small room. There I continued to press the issue of salvation, and a few made a decision for Christ, but others didn’t understand or rejected my invitation, particularly the Quack, the medic from Ofuna who had so badly beaten Bill Harris. He remained a committed Buddhist.

During my talk I had praised guards like Kano, who had treated us kindly, like human beings. And yet here he was in the room, a prisoner. I couldn’t understand why. When I asked, he explained that despite letters written by former POWs attesting to his kindness, he had been confused with the sadistic Kono and sentenced to several years. I told him I would try to help.

I also spoke to James Sasaki, who that day decided to become a Christian. “I don’t understand how you can come back here and forgive us,” he said. “Your Christianity must be real, but I don’t understand it.”

“It is real,” I said, “and if you continue in your faith, you will one day understand.”

I had many questions for Sasaki. Why, I asked, had I spent fourteen months at Ofuna, a high-profile interrogation camp, when I wasn’t high-profile? “You were being prepared. We decided to hide you away for a year and a month until your government officially declared you dead,” he explained.

“Why did you have to wait?”

“The element of surprise.”

“Surprise at what?”

“Your voice making broadcasts.”

“Is that why, when I stole food at Ofuna—a crime punishable by death—and the Weasel—a guard who would turn on you if he saw you spitting on the ground—caught me, you never did anything and I was spared?”

“Yes. I kept it quiet. But we made your life as miserable as possible—also at Omori—so that when you were offered a better life at Radio Tokyo, you would accept it.”

“That was Watanabe’s job?”

“Yes.”

“But I didn’t cooperate.”

“I know. And you were sent to Camp 4-B.”

Camp 4-B. The freezing hellhole. In my mind I heard the sound of granulated snow crunching beneath the Bird’s boots as he faced me with a wicked grin the day I arrived. I remember my knees buckling at the thought of never being free of him.

“What about Watanabe?” I prodded. “Is he here? Is he alive?” According to testimony from surviving POWs, the Bird had been listed by General MacArthur as a class-A war criminal, the twenty-third most-wanted. I had expected to see him in the audience, or at least discover that he had been tried and executed.

“Missing. There is still a reward, twenty-five thousand dollars, but we believe he committed hari-kiri,” Sasaki simply said.

I didn’t want to believe that. Despite his cruelty and bluster I thought Watanabe was too chicken to commit hara-kiri. After the war Frank Tinker and I even came up with a possible scenario: Watanabe always wanted to be an officer. Perhaps he had left Naoetsu two days early, escaped to Korea, and become an officer in the North Korean Army, and gotten killed there.

So much for wishful thinking.

I had come to Japan with forgiveness in my heart. I just wanted to look the Bird in the eyes, put my arm around him, and say “I forgive you.” Yet, even in apparent death, as he had in life, the Bird still managed to confound me.

I LEFT THE prison having promised Kano, James Sasaki, and Admiral Yokura that I’d try to help their cases for early release. Yokura had told me, “Louie, I do not understand your democracy. I have done nothing wrong, and yet I am sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.”

To the best of my knowledge, that was true. During the war-crimes trials our government had hired a lawyer to defend the Japanese. He didn’t want to do the job until he saw some defendants being “railroaded” by judges in a hurry to sentence prisoners left and right. He stayed in the country and still had access to the files, which he let me see. Admiral Yokura’s file indicated he was a kind, personable guy. I’d met him at Ofuna and again at Omori. When I read the transcripts of his trial, it shocked me. The evidence showed him innocent of every accusation. On the next-to-the-last page it said, “Innocent”—and yet the final page read, “Sentence: 10 years.” It didn’t make sense.

I wrote a deposition to General MacArthur indicating I had read Yokura’s case history and, “by your own courts he was found absolutely innocent of any crime. Yet, on the last page he’s sentenced to ten years. That evidently is an error. Please read the last two pages and come to some conclusion.” The attorney had my note delivered to SAC headquarters, and eventually Yokura was let out of prison.

I also wrote that Kano was not Kono. Kono was the Bird’s sycophantic right-hand man; he was a bastard. Kano was a nice guy. He took chances with his own life by helping us. Kano was also freed.

Sasaki was my only failure. Shortly after my liberation I had completed an affidavit on his behalf and thought the matter done. After seeing him at Sugamo I wrote to MacArthur—and then his successor, General Matthew Ridgway—that Sasaki (and Yokura) “were not war criminals in any sense of the term, not only to my personal knowledge but also to the knowledge of many of the other personnel who were imprisoned with me and subsequently in the Ofuna Prisoner of War Center. Since my return I have met some of the former prisoners of war and all have experienced the same shock and surprise that I did when learning that these men are now serving prison terms.” But I couldn’t get to first base with SAC for Sasaki, and neither could the attorney. And no one would tell us why. “Handsome Harry” had to wait until 1952’s general amnesty to go free.

THIS TIME WHEN I landed in Los Angeles there was no welcoming committee, no speeches, no fanfare. I simply went home to my wife and child. Happily. I may have been doing the Lord’s work—and more successfully than I had imagined—but I had missed them terribly. I also knew that I had finally come full circle. Except for continuing to tell my story and spreading the Word, a great part of my life was over: the delinquency, the running, the war, the imprisonment, the drinking, the nightmares, the greediness and desperation, the unhappiness. I was completely satisfied with my test of forgiveness and more than ready to move on.