7
The two-masted boat was a Japanese patrol ship. At first we lay low in the raft, but then I realized we had to get ashore quickly and hide. I rowed like mad for the nearest patch of green, but I was in no shape to make much headway. Before long they spotted us.
That was it.
The ship made a slow pass, about thirty feet distant. I could see the crew on deck, holding swords and rifles. One man trained a machine gun in our direction. Phil and I raised our hands weakly above our heads, and suddenly the thought of being alone on the ocean seemed more inviting than ever. Someone shouted in Japanese, but we didn’t understand. A crewman threw a rope at us but missed. Rifles were raised and a couple of men opened their shirts and motioned for us to do the same. Oh, God, I thought, they want to shoot us in the chest. I undid my shirt, closed my eyes, and waited. Nothing. I opened my eyes to see the same men waving. We waved back. Turned out they just wanted to see if we had hidden guns and now realized they had nothing to worry about from two hopeless and helpless skeletons. It was almost humorous and perhaps frustrating to soldiers who would have liked to capture bigger game.
On the second pass the boat got close enough to land the rope and haul us in. Then they reached down, grabbed us, and lifted us aboard. I tried to push myself up from the first hard surface I’d felt in almost two months, but I couldn’t stand. I could barely crawl.
A crewman salvaged our raft from the sea and threw it on the deck. What a mess. The yellow rubber had turned to gum and was ready to pop. Phil and I might have lasted another two weeks; the raft maybe two days.
Although the Japanese clearly had nothing to fear from us, they tied us to the mast, and a big fellow who wanted to prove his authority or vent his anger hit Phil across the face with a pistol. I knew I was next, but my mind was sharp and I had a trick up my sleeve: I kept my head forward. When he swung the pistol, I threw my head back. The gun missed me, but I nearly knocked myself almost unconscious when I smashed the mast with the back of my head. That seemed enough to satisfy our captors, and they acted more civilized. Someone gave us water and a few hard biscuits. Despite intense hunger, I ate slowly and maintained my self-control in front of the enemy.
TWO HOURS LATER the boat dropped anchor at Wotje, an island in—just as I’d predicted—the Marshall group. The idea that we’d actually drifted about two thousand miles and survived was mind-boggling.
We were taken ashore, blindfolded, in a barge. I knew we’d landed when I felt coral scrape the metal bottom. A soldier threw me over his shoulder. Another carried Phil. They dumped us in a truck and drove to their outpost. There they put us on a scale. Thirty kilos didn’t mean much to me, but I later learned it meant that I weighed about sixty-seven pounds—and that I’d lost a third more than that, nearly one hundred pounds.
On Wotje Phil and I were treated well by a kindly Japanese doctor, and got food and water, which we managed to keep down by eating carefully. A few of the Japanese officers spoke English. They quizzed us about what had happened.
“We were on a rescue mission in friendly waters,” I said. “We had motor trouble and crashed at sea.” Soon the conversation turned to other topics, including where I’d gone to college and my running career. Our rescuers/captors were most intrigued that we were still alive. They listened to our tale, clearly sorry for us, not at all like enemies. Our sharpness also astounded the Japanese; perhaps they’d expected two delirious, mushy-headed dummies who’d lost their brains, but only our bodies had wasted away, not our minds.
After taking our wallets and putting them into a container, one soldier counted forty-eight bullet holes in the raft. Everybody came by to inspect the damage and wonder about all those holes in the rubber and none in us. I told them, “On the twenty-seventh day one of your pilots strafed us. It was a Sally bomber.”
“Oh, no,” they said. “Japanese don’t do that.”
I pointed at the raft. “There are the holes.”
They still didn’t believe me.
Two days later Phil and I were put aboard a merchant vessel. The detachment commander said, “You will be taken to an island called Kwajalein. But,” he added, ominously, “I cannot guarantee your life after you leave the ship.”
The trip due west took almost twenty-four hours, and again we were well treated. The captain came to visit more than once. In almost perfect English he explained that he’d been to Seattle often. He talked about how he’d enjoyed his former life as a merchant marine, hauling international goods. He also tried to justify why Japan was at war. The country, he said, was poor, with too many people; since we were all part of the same world system, they were entitled to more land for their citizens.
As we neared Kwajalein, they brought generous portions of rice, soup, and daikon. My appetite had returned, but it backfired. I got sick as a dog and wanted to die. Two of the crew took me on deck to throw up and held me because there was no railing. Vomiting, I looked straight down about thirty or forty feet to the ocean, hoping they’d let me go.
ON KWAJALEIN I was blindfolded again and transported to shore like a sack of wheat. There four soldiers carried Phil and me to the beach, tossed us into the back of a truck, and drove to a building where they dumped us into separate cells. I skidded on my bottom until my back hit the wall. When I took off my blindfold my brain and my eyes fluttered with the unreality of it all. After nearly two months floating under vast open skies and infinite seas, I found myself locked in a cubicle the size of a dog kennel. The instant claustrophobia made me want to scream, but I was too weak. Instead, I lay down and looked at my body. Just six weeks before I’d been a vigorous athlete who could run a mile in just over four minutes. Now I was fleshless, skeletal. All my life I had kept my emotions tightly in check when it came to my own troubles, but I could no longer help myself.
I broke down and cried.
THE DETENTION BUILDING housed six wooden cells, three to a side. Each was six feet long, six feet high, and thirty inches wide. A ventilation slit on the rear wall was thickly coated with flies. Most tropical buildings stood a couple feet off the ground on stilts to avoid flooding during a monsoon, and the crawl space provided a slight breeze. But with no window, the heat was almost unbearable. Mosquitoes buzzed everywhere. A six-inch-diameter hole cut in the floor and a tin can underneath functioned as my toilet. I looked down and saw the can half full with maggots. Worse, they made me sleep with my head next to the hole and my feet near the door.
The guards shoved food through an eight-inch slot in the cell’s solid wood door. Appetizing it was not. I got whatever was leftover from the men’s mess—fish heads, boiled daikon—not otherwise fed to the pigs. Sometimes they’d reach into the slop bucket, squeeze together a gob of rice the size of a golf ball, and throw it at me. That usually meant an hour or two spent crawling around in the half-light, on the dirty floor, trying to find every grain while the guards howled with delight. Even then I’d have to spit out sand.
The rations were so horrible that I had constant diarrhea and dripped mucus from my rear end. Flies got into the mucus and laid their eggs. Some nights it was so bad that I had to curl up in the back of the cell with my naked butt hanging over the hole, leaking. I’d think I had it under control, then five minutes later it would start again, making sleep impossible.
Most people never understand how bad life can be for prisoners of war because no survivor talks frankly and in detail about these horrible experiences from the banquet dais.
I could tell from his groans that Phil suffered similarly two cells away, but the guards did not allow us to talk. Any attempt meant suffering a swift kick or a poke with a sharp stick. They also beat us regularly.
My new life was no new life at all. Better to starve me, or send me out to sea again on the raft. At least dying that way would allow me some dignity.
I FOUND A crude message carved into my cell wall. 9 MARINES MAROONED ON MAKIN ISLAND—AUGUST 18, 1942. Each name was listed. I knew the date and story well.
Two American submarines had approached Makin at midnight, carrying the Marine Carlson Raiders. Second in charge was James Roosevelt. They went secretly ashore in life rafts, crossing a dangerous reef, sank one ship in the harbor, and killed almost every Japanese soldier on the island. The idea wasn’t to take Makin but to dent Japan’s confidence and boost American morale. In retrospect it might have been a mistake because the Japanese refortified the island ten times over, making it more difficult for the next guys to land there.
During the battle, sixteen marines died. When Carlson left, he said to the native chief, “Here’s fifty dollars. Will you bury the marines?”
Evidently, nine other marines didn’t get back to their beachhead on schedule and make it safely to the submarines, which took off right on time, perhaps believing their comrades were also killed.
Those marines were captured by the Japanese and imprisoned on Kwajalein. At least one of them had lived in the cell I occupied and carved his legend on the wall so those who followed would never forget.
I carved my name underneath theirs, and the date of my arrival.
SOMETIME DURING THE first day, a Kwajalein native had poked his nose through the hole in my cell door and said in surprisingly good English, “Are you Louis Zamperini, the USC track star?”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Are you Lou Zamperini, the runner, the Olympian, from USC?”
“Yeah,” I answered, confused. There I was, way out in the middle of nowhere, and people still knew me. I shouldn’t have been surprised. In those days, between radio, newspaper, and newsreel coverage, international sports figures were as popular as movie stars.
The man—I never got his name—worked for the Japanese, probably as a laborer. He said he was a Trojan fan and began to tell me about my track records. “I follow all USC sports.” He knew every football player. Every score. We discussed the Rose Bowl, even the Olympics. He knew more than I did. Then he said, “My time is up. I am glad to meet you.”
“Before you leave,” I said, “tell me about the nine marines.”
“They were all executed,” he said, shrugging. “Decapitated with the samurai sword.” He fell silent for a moment, watching for my reaction. Then he spat out the rest. “This is what happens to all who come to Kwajalein.”
Later I learned that the marines whose names were listed in my cell had been awaiting transport to a mainland POW camp in October 1942, when the former Kwajalein commander, Captain Yoshio Obara, claimed he was directed by Vice Admiral Koso Abe, commander of all bases in the Marshall Islands, to execute the men. Abe said that he had received orders for this action via a dispatch from Truk Island, originating with the central authorities in Japan—but his claim was never proved. Abe also said that Commander Okada, from Central Command, who was on Kwajalein in 1942, had made the following statement to him: “From now on it will not be necessary to transport prisoners to Japan. They will be disposed of locally.”
I felt so rotten at the news of my eventual execution that my first thought was, Well, so what?
THE GUARDS DAILY taunted me and Phil. They jabbed us with sticks, spit on us, tossed hot tea in our faces. Sometimes they made us sing and dance—as if we could—for their amusement. Worst of all, they took great delight in drawing their thumbs across their throats, or slicing their flattened hands across their Adam’s apple and making a sound to remind us of our inevitable fate.
I wanted to live and I hoped I’d live, but the kind of faith I’d had on the raft had disappeared. I believed my date with death was set. Each morning I’d wake up and think, Is this the day? Where will they put my bones? What could I do? I just had to wait until they decided.
ON THE SECOND day, guards led me to the interrogation building. I hadn’t yet been fed, the better to make me vulnerable. On the way I passed two somber young girls, very out of place in a combat zone. They shuffled and stared at the ground.
I was shoved into a large room to face six dignified-looking Japanese officers, big shots dressed in white uniforms with gold braid and combat medals. They sat at a white table as if they were kings of the earth. A guard told me to sit facing the officers but far enough away that my filthy appearance and smell did not offend them. Biscuits, pastries, and beverages covered the table. Nonchalantly, each man lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my direction. Clearly their tactics were designed to tempt me to answer their questions.
I braced myself, not knowing know what to expect. I could never have predicted the first question: “Lieutenant Zamperini. How many girls do you have on your islands to satisfy your military personnel?”
What? Their icebreaker question was about sex? Was that really what these arrogant pipsqueaks wanted to know? I decided to contain my disgust and play along.
“We don’t have them,” I said.
“How do the men get satisfied?”
“They use their willpower and wait until they get home.”
My questioner chuckled and I’m sure he thought I was either a liar or a fool. Smugly, he continued. “Japan provides girls on every island to keep our men happy.”
The two girls I’d seen, obviously conscripted against their will, now made sense. The informalities over, the panel got down to business.
“What model B-24 you fly in?” one asked brusquely. I knew they had more than one of our crashed bombers, so it was no big deal to say, “B-24D.” The Green Hornet was borrowed; our regular plane was a B-24F model.
They produced a picture of a B-24E. “Where is radar on the plane? Draw a picture.” Again, a pointless question; they had the plane. They already knew. What they really wanted came next. “How do you operate the radar?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “That’s the radioman or engineer’s job.” I really did know, but it was my way out. They were not happy. I returned to my cell without a snack, drink, or cigarette.
A NEW GUARD asked my name. “Louie Zamperini,” I told him.
“Ruie Zamperini-ka.”
“No, just Louis Zamperini.” The L was a tongue-twister and the ka a quotation mark.
Another guard said, “Ohio.”
I said, “California.” I knew ohio meant “good morning,” but why should I give them the satisfaction?
I STARED OFTEN at the marines’ names carved into the wall. I memorized each one in case I had to recite them later for Allied intelligence. It was my small way of keeping hope alive. I considered these men my cell mates. I took a name each day and wondered about that person’s life. I asked myself, What did he look like? Where was he from? Did he have a girlfriend, or was he married? Did he have children? How would his family take the news of his death? I contemplated each man’s fear or emotions or resolve as the samurai sword came swiftly down, sending his head rolling. Was he buried on the island or taken out to sea? How soon would I join them?
ONE MORNING I heard a commotion and many voices. Suddenly soldiers lined up in front of my door. Was this it? My last day? Luckily—or unluckily—no. This was a submarine crew in for refueling, supplies, and shore leave. On a sub you never see the enemy; what a treat when they heard two POWs were on the island. Perhaps eighty men lined up as if at a movie theater. Phil and I were the feature. As each sailor passed, he cursed us, spit, threw rocks, jabbed us with sticks, and treated us like caged animals. I thought I was already in the worst shape of my life, but this dehumanization and torment proved me wrong.
THE NEXT DAY I was again taken to the interrogation room. I found everyone chatting and grinning. My face was still caked with blood from the free-for-all. I’m sure the ranking officers considered this a clever, strategic move. After the submarine crew had humiliated us, perhaps our spirits had broken.
The new topic: the number and location of airfields on Oahu. The Japanese unfolded a large map and asked me to mark the locations and the number and type of aircraft at each. They already had the major fields circled, a result of reconnaissance during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Again, my reward for cooperating would be food and drink. My face and body may have been battered but my mind was sharp. I figured maybe I could put one over on these self-righteous son of a guns.
Part of our strategy in the Pacific was to build phony air bases. We’d already put up three; I’d seen them myself: fake runways, mock-up aircraft with expert paint jobs that looked like real P-51s and B-24s on the outside, built of plywood and sticks instead. At first I evaded the question, pretending I didn’t want to tell. They kept at me and I let them harass me. Whatever I said could only hurt them. If they bombed Hawaii again, they wouldn’t bomb the real fields.
Finally, I went, “Well, uh…” and they thought they had me. With a bit more pushing, I “broke down” and said, “Okay, okay. There’s one here”—I showed them on the map—“one here, one there, and one there.” Boy, were they happy. They looked at each other like, “Ah, we finally won a victory over this guy.”
The victory was mine. I tricked these educated men and earned a biscuit and a little glass of soda in the bargain. More important, I proved to myself that I hadn’t lost my mind on the raft.
The panel dismissed me, satisfied. But before I could leave, an officer decided to show me my place. “Well, Mr. Zamperini, big track star, you got much publicity when you were missing in action. I want you to know that when you entered USC in 1936, I was graduating.”
I bowed humbly, mocking him.
A WEEK LATER a new guard came on duty. He motioned me to the door and whispered, “You Christian?” I nodded yes, dully, expecting the worst. He smiled and repeated himself. “You Christian. Me Christian!” His name was Kawamura, and he gave me a handful of rice and his ration of sugar candy.
Kawamura’s English was poor, but I managed to understand a few words about Canadian missionaries. Also, that he assumed all Americans were Christians. But the following morning another new guard took his pleasure by jabbing me with a stick until blood ran down my face. When Kawamura’s shift began he asked about the blood. Taking a chance, I told him who was responsible. Kawamura made an angry fist. I didn’t give it much thought. After all, I was their enemy.
I didn’t see either guard for three days, but when Kawamura returned he opened my cell door and pointed to the other guard, about fifty yards away. A bandage covered his head. Kawamura had beaten him. If not for his kindness, I might not have survived my “rescue.”
ONE MORNING THE guards took Phil and me to the infirmary porch and told us to lie down. Two doctors came out and injected us with a smoky fluid. “Tell us when you get dizzy,” one said. He scribbled notes, while the other held a stopwatch.
It took about five seconds. The disorientation and nausea were accompanied by the rapid appearance of red, itchy pimples. Had they injected us again I would have passed out. Instead I went back to my cell, where in addition to the usual discomforts my body burned throughout the night.
They repeated the experiment the next day.
Soon Phil and I came down with dengue fever.
Dengue fever is caused by one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical and subtropical regions. It comes on quickly, with a high fever, severe headaches, joint and muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, and a rash. The illness can last up to ten days, but complete recovery can take two to four weeks. Afterward, you’re immune to the specific virus but only partially protected from the other three. Dengue is commonly confused with other infectious illnesses such as influenza, measles, malaria, typhoid, and scarlet fever.
The good news about most dengue is that it rarely causes death; the bad news is that I felt so terrible I wished I was dead.
The first week was intense. I was already mentally, physically, and emotionally shattered. The fever made it worse. And yet, it was in one way a small blessing: disorientation made the time pass more quickly and made the fear of decapitation more tolerable. I just thought, Well, so I’m going to die. Now or later. Accept it. It was as if a guy had come up and said, “I’m going to shoot you in the head,” and I’d said, “So, shoot me.”
The fever lasted three or four weeks, during which another submarine crew arrived and we had to go through more of the same barbarous treatment. I just didn’t seem to notice or care as much this time.
PHIL AND I had been prisoners for nearly forty days, expecting each to be our last, when the interrogation panel summoned me for another session. They wanted to know the number of ships, troops, and planes transported to the Pacific through Hawaii. They probably expected me to finally break down, but I’d had enough. “We have spent forty days here, and more on a raft,” I said. “What could I possibly know? We are obsolete. My information was obsolete the day after I left my home base. Whatever you want to know, you already know. I can’t tell you anything else.”
No cookies for me that day.
ON THE FORTY-SECOND day the guards gathered outside our cell block and talked in low voices.
An officer burst in and said, “Tomorrow you will”—I held my breath—“be put aboard a ship and go to the island of Truk, and from there to Yokohama as prisoners of war.”
My God, I thought, we’re going to live through this.
WHAT HAD CHANGED their minds? Maybe they thought it better to save the life of a famous American athlete and Olympian than wantonly destroy me. But why? Did they think showing me mercy would help their cause? It made no sense.
Whatever the rationale, I didn’t argue. Who would? As an official prisoner of war, I was under the jurisdiction of international law. I wasn’t really sure what it would be like under Japanese authority, but I thought, At least they have to feed us properly and bed us down.
Phil and I left Kwajalein on a vessel that was part of the Japanese fleet and sailed due west for Truk, in the Carolines. We spent about a week in the harbor. Every time I went to the rest room, I looked out the window to count the ships. If I ever escaped, at least I’d have some information about this big Japanese naval base.
(Six months later, at 06:00 hours on February 17, 1944, in Operation Hailstone, the American Allied force attacked the Japanese naval and air force fleet in Truk Lagoon. More than seventy planes and forty ships were destroyed and hundreds of lives lost. The raid helped win the war. Today, Truk Lagoon attracts many divers because of the undersea wrecks and multicolored reefs and marine life growing on them.)
After Truk, on the way to Yokohama, my shipboard hosts couldn’t contain their excitement at seeing the enemy face-to-face. They rifled through my wallet and found an illustration of me in my running suit against a backdrop of the planes bombing Wake Island. It was a patriotic “Stars in Service” ad for the war effort that told about my participation in that raid. In big letters, at the bottom, it read: THEY GIVE THEIR LIVES—YOU LEND YOUR MONEY. BUY SECOND WAR LOAN BONDS. Evidently our Christmas Eve attack had killed many of the crewmen’s buddies, as I discovered when five or six sailors burst into the cabin Phil and I shared.
“Who’s going to win the war?” they shouted.
“America.”
That was all they needed to beat us, still skeletons, to the floor. They also broke my nose, which I had to set myself. Finally an officer came in, stopped the fight, and made everyone leave. He took me topside to an officer’s cabin. It was a nice room. For the rest of the trip I slept there on a long, padded bench.
I spent most of my time alone in that cabin. Occasionally an older sailor came in and thumped me in the head. He was a weird and funny guy. He’d say, “Thump you in the head for a biscuit?”
“Hey, go ahead.” For a biscuit, he could thump all he wanted. He’d thump me once, give me the biscuit, and leave. He did this every other day. I ate well; he felt better.
WE HAD A submarine scare on the way to Yokohama. Alert bells rang and I was suddenly afraid. I thought, Boy, I’ve had it now. Our navy is out there and they’re going to let these Nips have it—and me, too. After all this time I’ll be killed by my own people. But as much as I was frightened, I was thrilled, too. Sirens blared. Sailors screamed and ran for battle stations. This continued for about thirty minutes, but we were never attacked.
WITH NOTHING TO do but sit in someone’s cabin all day, waiting for a thump in the head and a biscuit, I decided to poke around. I didn’t search in vain; I found a magnum of sake hidden under another bench. Apparently the owner didn’t want anyone to know he had it. The bottle was open, otherwise I would have left it alone. I took one swallow and felt heavenly. I hummed inside. Glowed. I waited a day and thought, Well, they won’t miss another swallow.
This went on for two weeks, until we arrived at Yokosuka Naval Base. By then the bottle was nearly empty, and I thought, Ah, the hell with it, and drank the rest.
On September 15, 1943, we docked. Two crewmen blindfolded us again and took us off the ship. The blindfold was loose and through a crack at the bottom I could see a Chevrolet hubcap. I recognized the model. It had a jump seat behind the backseat.
Phil and I had to wait for a ship’s officer to take us to our next destination. He arrived mad as a hornet. “Get in there!” he shouted, shoving me into the jump seat. I tried to maneuver, but my legs were too long and gave me trouble. He kept pushing. Finally, he hit me across the face a few times with his flashlight. My nose was a two-time loser.
To this day I believe with all my heart that he was the officer whose room I’d lived in and whose sake I’d finished. He didn’t have to wonder who drank it, or that I had paid for my indulgence.
OUR NEW HOME would be a prison camp named Ofuna, in the hills just outside of Yokohama. I felt a strange combination of joy and reassurance at the prospect of seeing Western faces again. For the first time since crashing, Phil and I would no longer feel completely alone.
At the camp I could smell the damp coolness of the coastal valley as we entered the gates and walked into a cinder-strewn central compound. Gray barracks bordered an open common area. Prisoners stood against the walls, huddled together for warmth, their faces long, silent, hungry. Even so, I looked forward to their company. I tried to attract the attention of one or two, but they would not speak. I soon learned that prisoners at Ofuna were not allowed to talk to one another.
That made me angry. I had finally arrived in Japan, dreaming of better treatment, and this was my payoff? Beyond the fourth wall, which closed off the camp’s far end, stood a large hill covered with bamboo and forest. I pictured trying to disappear into its darkness some night.
A guard prodded me into the barracks and my solitary cell. That night, in furtive whispers and at risk of a beating or worse, I learned the terrible truth: Ofuna was the secret, high-intensity interrogation camp run by the Japanese Navy, hidden from the populace and all relief agencies. There would be no Red Cross supervision, no improved treatment. No humanity. I wouldn’t be registered as an official prisoner of war. Men left the camp to be either executed or relocated. If you died there, no one would know but your brothers in arms.
The next day, after a hot bath, a guard escorted me into the headquarters building and ushered me to a door. “When you enter the room there will be a man sitting behind the desk,” he said. “You bow, stand at attention, and wait for orders.” Then he opened the door and shoved me in. The room was lit only by the afternoon sun. The man did not sit at the desk but stood in front of it, his back toward me. He wore civilian clothes. I bowed, as instructed, stood straight, and waited. He turned around and smiled.
“Hello, Louis,” said a familiar voice. “It’s been a long time since USC.”
I felt like I’d taken a sucker punch to the gut.
The man was my former classmate James Sasaki.