When I came over into the light with the soup bowl where the slightly inebriated guard was waiting to pour, his eyes seemed to pop out as he exclaimed: “Toxon, toxon!”
“I can’t find my cup, this will have to do,” I lied again. Without the slightest intention of saying: “When” before he stopped pouring, I watched him. If it had been left up to me, I wouldn’t have spoken until I saw that he was starting to overrun the bowl and waste some, but when the bowl was over half full he stopped, and as he left the kitchen, he cautioned: “Don’t tell anybody I gave you sake.”
I assured him: “Thank you, Haitison, don’t worry, I won’t.” And he left me by myself.
I didn’t know what their regulations were in regard to giving a prisoner a drink, but I rather imagined that the penalty for stealing sake, especially on such an occasion was probably the double-handled sword. But the guard had given me this extra-large serving, so I felt like my hands were clean as I sat down to enjoy my drink. The two days that remained before I completed my first year of sobriety, for which I had been so thankful, passed quickly from my mind. I finished the bowl, smacked my lips, and lighted a whole cigarette, for a change, which the goat had presented to me, then I settled back on my stool beside the warm fire and waited for that wonderful glow to arrive. But the glow seemed so slow that I was thinking: “Maybe this junk isn’t as powerful as bourbon.”
I heard laughter coming from the guards’ quarters until I became unaware that anyone but myself existed on this earth. Several more guards made trips to get sake, which they found properly warmed, and they complimented me for this. But the first drink had done it, I threw caution to the wind, and I put the bum on every single guard who entered the kitchen.
I would be waiting for them with my soup bowl handy, and I would say: “I wouldn’t think of stealing any of your sake, but I haven’t had a drink for a year,” and each guard would believe me, for he would fill at least part of the bowl.
Finally the guards’ trips for sake appeared to have stopped about the time I was just beginning to feel good; maybe they were getting filled up. So I decided to pour my own. And I did. Now I know that nothing, absolutely nothing, scares an alcoholic—not even death.
I had no idea what possessed me, or who was taking care of me, other than my Higher Power. But just before I started to black out in the dimly lighted kitchen, a thought came to me: ‘This is too good to spoil, somehow. I’d better get to my cell and roll up in my blankets.”
Fortunately for me I made it to my cell, and whether I got the blankets around me properly I don’t know. The goat had given me permission to sleep in that morning for tending the fires, so I don’t know to this day just how many were wise to me. I do know that a couple were, but they remained silent—thank God.
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31
* * *
After the New Year’s incident life seemed to go on much the same as before until the latter part of February 1945. Then all hell appeared to break loose over our peaceful country valley. It all started by hearing the distant wail of air-raid sirens, which we prisoners paid no attention to because we hadn’t dreamed this could be anything but a drill. But in a matter of some twenty minutes everybody in Japan came to the realization that this was no drill. Just twelve miles from our camp the large Jap naval base of Yokosuka was taking a thumping something terrific.
Dive bomber after dive bomber started down, the hills between the target area and our camp momentarily chopping each bomber from view, making it appear as though they were diving into the hills. But in a few seconds we saw them pull out about the same time we heard the ka-lumph of the exploding bomb. Even at this distance the noise from so many engines sounded much the same as a gigantic waterfalls—a steady roar. Obviously this was not a morale strike like the Doolittle raid; this was concentrated, and we knew that this carrier raid was the beginning of the end for Japan.
Prisoners were ordered by the guards to go to their cells, and to keep away from the windows or they would be beaten. This order was analogous to asking a person to stop breathing, one can stand it only so long. None of the guards bothered me, as I was in the kitchen, and I was able to get an eyeful.
What a sight, I thought, as I saw a Zero scooting low along the hilltops directly over our camp, being chased by a Navy F6E An old familiar feeling came over me, causing a tingling to run through my body, as I watched the F6F pour his .50-caliber machine guns into the hapless Zero, which belched flame and crashed into a hillside as the F6F pulled skyward. I knew he was looking for new prey, for I felt close enough to the action, while standing there on the ground, almost to feel that I was thinking for that Navy F6F pilot.
I was thrilled by the sights of two more shootdowns before one of the guards finally shooed me inside through the back door of the kitchen. As much as I wanted to remain and continue watching, I had seen enough, so I didn’t mind.
Curly, the cook, was frightened half to death, and he was pleading: “What is the best thing to do? Where is the safest place?”
“Flat on your belly is the safest place I know of.” I tried to console this excited and frightened man. Curly must have taken me as an authority when I spoke, for he was flat on his face before I had finished.
After the racket had subsided and nothing was visible but a huge column of smoke rising behind the hills in the direction of Yokosuka, Curly looked up from the deck like a little child and said: “Is it all right to stand up now, Major?” And this was the first, last, and only time the little cook ever addressed me by my rank.
I would have given plenty for the little fellow’s thoughts during that carrier raid. I knew enough about him already, and that wasn’t good. But I rather imagined, just briefly, that he was asking for forgiveness for his sins toward American naval prisoners.
Of course, we all had had our suspicions concerning Curly. But few of us were able to verify them. The Japanese navy had actually allotted a sustaining diet for captives and prisoners of war, but fellows like Curly saw to it that their orders were only partially carried out. This is reminiscent of how, in a larger way, tremendous donations to starving nations by the United States are sidetracked, black-marketed, and how a few American citizens make fabulous fortunes for themselves. These fortunes have a habit of coming back, after a period of time, to the good old U.S.A., where they are deposited safely, and they are not subject to federal income tax, either.
The only difference I can see is that Curly was a miserable cheap crook and is now spending life in jail, while some others very close to us have the titles of “Honorable” and other such high-sounding names.
However it may be, Curly carried on a booming business in a small way each night after supplies arrived from the naval base of Yokosuka. Then between shipments he would have to do some mighty sharp figuring in order to make what he had left stretch until the next load of supplies arrived. But I’ll have to take my hat off to the little cook; he was a master mathematician, for he knew to the ounce of bean paste and barley what would keep a man barely alive.
This is apparently a world of people who think they are doing somebody else, and somebody else is thinking at the same time that he is the one who is doing the doing. We kitchen helpers would steal part of the guards’ allotment of barley and bean paste in the dark of the morning and place it, as a compensation for Curly’s theiving, into the prisoners’ ration.
After this Navy raid we helpers became even more brazen in our thefts of the guards’ supplies. As a matter of fact, I found that one can want so desperately to help people that he can kill them with kindness, for one morning in the darkness I stole so much of the guards’ rich bean paste, which is protein, and camouflaged it in the prisoners’ watery soup that all of them got diarrhea. I naturally assumed that it went unnoticed, as nobody accused me, but there was one hell of a to-do around camp because they couldn’t track down the cause.
Finally, one day in April, eighteen of us were told that we were going to be moved from this intimidation ca
mp of Ofuna to a prisoner-of-war camp. This information immediately aroused in all of us the hopeful prospect that at last our status might be changed from that of captives to prisoners of war. This meant that, after all these months, our folks would be able to find out that we were not dead.
We had been in the intimidation camp for more than thirteen months, and before that in other camps or cells, but always as people who did not exist—except to the Japanese who were quizzing us or roughing us up. Naturally all eighteen of us had plenty of reasons for wanting the people at home to know we were still among the living. I am in no position to tell the case histories of all the others, but as an example I certainly can tell my own.
Not only did I want my parents to know that I was living, that I had not been killed when shot down during my last fight; I wanted my three children to know it too. I wanted them to know they still had an old man. Their mother and I had long been divorced, but the children had been placed in my custody. Obviously I had seen practically nothing of them since the war started; I had been in the Pacific and Asia so long.
That I would have given anything for word to be sent back to the United States that I was still alive goes without saying. It would be the same with any father or son.
I figured, too, that any geographical change would be better for me. For a few trying minutes I thought that this change was going to be just a day too late, because the day before I was to be transferred I found that Curly was wise to me. He had a heart-to-heart talk with me the day prior to my leaving Ofuna.
Curly said: “I want you to know that I knew you were spiking the prisoners’ food from the guards’ cupboard.”
Because I had been so confident in thinking I had everybody fooled words nearly failed me, but I asked: “Why did you wait until the last day before turning me in?”
Then he floored me with: “I’m not going to turn you in.”
I asked: “Why the sudden change of heart, Cookson?”
“I knew all along what you were doing. But also, I knew what else was going on, too. And I don’t believe our military, either. I know the war will be over soon. I didn’t turn you in because I would have only had you hurt for nothing. And it doesn’t matter any more.”
I thanked Curly and shook his hand good-by, but I looked back over my shoulder at the closed gates of Ofuna with no nostalgia as the eighteen of us were leaving. When we walked back the same road I came in on originally, I wasn’t conscious of the quiet wooded scenery in the same way, for I saw no beauty in looking back anyplace.
We got on a streetcar and went, I should judge, about twenty-five miles, and then we had another long walk of some five miles before we arrived at the new camp. We took hope again when we understood from the guards that this was the headquarters camp for the whole area. I’m not sure about that, but I do know that, upon arrival, we were lined up in front of an administration building, and there they had us standing the whole day.
We stood there in the cold and were kept practically at attention, apparently because some Japanese big shot was expected to arrive to make an announcement to us. But if the announcement was what we hoped it would be, that no longer were we to be special prisoners or captives (the same thing) but were to be prisoners of war—well, all this cold and all this standing would seem to us very secondary indeed. So, while standing there, we whispered about our hopes as much we dared and prayed about them, and yet tried not to fidget too much for fear we still might do something wrong—before the announcement came—and thereby spoil eveything.
Finally, toward evening, a Japanese colonel appeared. He turned out to be the commanding officer of this camp, Omouri. When he came out, there was a great deal of bowing and scraping going on. He came over and stood in front of us. Now would come the announcement.
It came.
An interpreter said—and we had already picked up enough from the colonel ourselves to sicken us—“You are to remain in this camp as ‘special prisoners.’ If any of you try to escape you will be killed.”
I thought: “I wonder where in the hell this gray-haired old coot everybody is bowing to, and we waited so long to see, thinks we could escape to. A white man would show up like a boil on the end of his nose.”
This was it. The colonel wheeled around and walked away, and the eighteen of us were taken into a small room that remained our sleeping cell until the end of the war.
The home stretch is not the easiest part of any endurance race, even though a popularization of the phrase has made it seem to be. Even though some of us were aware that the end of the war was in sight, a group of men who are starved, underweight, overworked, and out of touch with their families can do things that normally would seem crazy, for they are not getting their logic in some comfortable library at home reading philosophical books. They are not waiting for the war to end while listening comfortably to announcers on the radio.
B-29
Besides, during the last few months of the war, the bombings from the B-29’s continued terrifically. Hardly a day or night went by in which we were not pounded. Though “The Music” meant our ultimate liberation, a lack of sleep night after night can also tell on starved men who for so many hours after hours had to do such hard work by day cleaning up debris and digging tunnels.
Because I was senior officer in this little group it was up to me to keep them living and sane if possible. As for me, I am fortunate in never having had trouble with the will to live. I always have wanted to keep on going, and still want to keep on going; some of us may be blessed with this gift more than others.
There were fights among some of my nerve-racked people, and I had to settle them, and I had to keep some of them from stealing each other’s food, and I had to be the interpreter with the guards, translating when my boys got in trouble. Yet, strangely, I found that the biggest curse, or the biggest threat, I could give any of my group who were troublesome was to say: “Listen, when we get out of this and back to the States, I’ll never speak to you again.”
In one case I still have lived up to that threat, for the officer deserved it. I still do not want to see him or speak to him again. He did steal fellow-captives’ food, and also let others be beaten up for something he himself had done.
Most of them kept on going somehow and became ashamed immediately for something they had done. And once it was my turn to feel very sorry. It was a sorrow that came from my own inadequacy to keep one poor little fellow alive.
There is nothing of the chaplain about me, God knows, but a chaplain’s duty became mine too. This was thrown in with the rest, and especially during those hard closing weeks of the war. The night I failed at this job, or at least the night I remember failing the most at this job, was when I just simply seemed unable to “will” one of my younger boys to stay alive.
I wanted him to pay attention to me long enough to hold on for one more month—just one more month. But he would not eat. I would scold him, but he still would not eat. The fight for survival had gone completely out of him in his weakness. So I tried to force food down this poor little soul’s throat, and then I would scold him again for not trying.
Finally, after many attempts, he looked up at me and said: “Please, Greg, don’t scold me.”
That evening we posted a guard to stand by and watch him. I had told him, then, to try to get some sleep. I was to have the first watch over him. It was about seven o’clock when everyone turned in, and I was going to have a four-hour watch. About nine o’clock the little fellow died.
And yet just one month later it was all over, and he would have been free. But, of course I realize that it is not up to me to make such decisions, and therefore I should not worry about them.
Because in the next great war we are destined not to know what will hit us, and because in the next great war we are destined not to see or hear ahead of time whatever it is that will destroy us, this report about being on the receiving end of our own B-29s already seems obsolete and far away.
We prisoners in this new ca
mp first heard about the B-29s from the guards, but they also told us that the planes were all being shot down as fast as they came over, or even before they reached the coast of Japan.
Not having seen a B-29, and not even having known of this new ship’s existence, all I could do about these first rumors was to remain as baffled as the Japanese must have been. And then one day, a surprisingly short time later, I saw for myself, my first B-29s. There were four of them, all flying high, and from that moment on I had no doubts whatsoever that the Nips were really in for something.
I happened to be out working on a coal-dump when I saw these great ships. They were flying so fast and so high that the few Japanese planes sent up to intercept them were immediately out of sight. All I could see of them were their vapor streaks up there, but periodically I could hear some of the firing, and then down came the immense bombs.
From then on, day after day, as the B-29s kept coming over, we special prisoners were given a new type of work to do, but a work we really relished. Our work consisted of going out early each morning into the city streets on the outskirts of Tokyo and Yokohama and picking up what the B-29s had laid down. Where the bombs hit, everything was knocked or burned flat. We had to take the heavy pieces, like cement blocks and pieces of metal, and lay them in neat rows along the city streets. Then we burned up the wood and trash. Then we had to mattock the ground surface, which had not had anything planted in it for, I imagine, a thousand years. It was really rough work at that time, and I was back again to my original starvation weight.
But work, almost no matter what kind, was better than being made to sit in a cell doing nothing. And this is what had happened to us during the first month in Camp Omouri. We had not been able to do a thing, and every time any guard came in, we all had to jump to attention and bow.
Baa Baa Black Sheep Page 33