(Coincidentally, years later when I met my wife-to-be, Cynthia, she remembered seeing that picture as a child.)
I didn’t know it then, but my persistence, perseverance, and unwillingness to accept defeat when things looked all but hopeless were part of the very character traits I would need to make it through World War II alive.
Of course, you don’t have to live through a war to have those qualities work for you every day. Sometimes a day in the office or raising the kids is just as challenging.
Be Prepared
Louie, at eighty-one, making it look easy, 1998.
Preparation Determines Your Survival
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Life on earth is dangerous: You should be prepared for anything.
As adults we sometimes encounter circumstances with potentially grave consequences that we can’t anticipate. It can seem overwhelming. But each circumstance can usually be broken into smaller, more manageable challenges that we might already be prepared to deal with.
For example, I was in a plane crash at sea during the war. I couldn’t do anything about that. I could have died. Instead, I lived. Now what? Rather than try to take on the whole predicament at once, I broke it down to smaller tasks that used the various survival skills I’d already learned: first aid, obtaining food, knowing not to drink salt water, maintaining a positive attitude, and keeping my mind active. I followed my training, a step at a time. I didn’t freak out.
You may feel, in your busy life, that learning survival skills will require too much time that you don’t have. Maybe you figure you’ll never need them. But you only have one life. You should never be too busy to save it.
Education is the mainstay of being prepared. Every high school should have a survival course. Just one class is all you need. A good hour. You won’t learn everything, but you’ll know more than when you began—and perhaps create a thirst for more knowledge. A semester course is better. And you could take optional courses to broaden or specialize your knowledge.
I love the outdoors. I’ve spent lots of time sleeping under the stars, or in a tent: whether in my parents’ backyard in Torrance, or camping on the beach, or in the mountains. Growing up, my favorite stories were about Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. I became an Eagle Scout, and of course the Scout motto is be prepared. I learned how to build game traps and catch food. I took classes when possible and tried to learn as much as I could about being prepared for all circumstances.
That came in handy on the life raft.
I love rock climbing. I took courses and practiced when I could. But I’ve met so-called trained climbers who almost kill themselves through lack of basic knowledge.
I was teaching some kids how to use rock climbing equipment when we heard a guy screaming bloody murder. “What’s wrong?” I yelled.
“My girlfriend fell over a cliff,” he said, running over.
I followed him to the accident site. She was okay. She’d only slid down the hill to a ledge but had no way to get back up. I secured my rope around a tree and rappelled down and rescued her.
After they got through thanking me, I said, “You’re welcome, but what in the world are you doing on this rock? It’s shale.”
“Oh, we’re members of the mountaineer club at Fresno State.”
I was annoyed. They’d put me in danger as well as themselves. I suggested that they either give up climbing completely or take some more courses. “The first thing they should teach is what kind of rocks to climb on. This is shale, the most dangerous rock in the world. It separates and slides. You should climb where the rock is hard and you can get hold of it.”
At least they hadn’t killed themselves. I remember reading about a woman who got into trouble during a day hike on Mount Baldy in Southern California. She had described herself as an experienced climber. She disappeared, and they found her dead three days later. She’d gotten lost, and it got worse from there.
Anything can happen to anyone, but there are simple rules designed to keep you out of trouble. When you’re hiking off-trail through the wilderness and you make a turn, break a tree branch so you know that’s where you were. Or you can create a pattern of rocks on the ground. When I took groups of camp kids out, I always had a pocketful of ribbons about ten inches long. When we turned I’d tie one to a tree. Then to teach them how not to lose their way, I’d take them up a hill, around it, down, and around again—just to confuse them.
Then I’d say: “I think we’re lost.”
The response was usually, “Well, we’re still following you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure,” I’d say. (Of course, I knew exactly where we were.)
“What are we going to do?”
“What did I teach you?”
They’d been trained, and now they had to use their knowledge.
“Look at the position of the sun,” one boy said.
“See which way the stream runs.”
“Look for the ribbons,” said another.
We set off and each time they found a ribbon I could see their faces shine with the joy of accomplishment. Soon we were back to where we’d started, safe and sound, with the personal reward of having learned a lesson and used it successfully in the real world. It’s a great feeling.
Survival, in any situation, from the outdoors to the office, depends on education, preparation, and anticipation.
You’ve got to think ahead.
My Survival Kit
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Say there’s an earthquake or some other natural disaster. It’s good to always have a hardhat and a pair of heavy shoes.
“Who has those?” I’ll ask when I speak at schools and camps. A few hands might eagerly shoot up. I’ll pick someone.
“Where do you keep them?”
“They’re somewhere in the house.”
“Too late, you’re dead. You’ve got to keep them right near your bed, and once a week just make note again of where they are. You should also put them on every couple of weeks to make sure they’re in good condition.”
I’ll say this again: You only have one life. You should never be too busy to save it.
I spoke at a mountaineering club and afterward someone asked me a question. “I just read where two guys died on Mount Hood at ten thousand feet even though they built a snow cave to get out of the wind. What happened?”
“They lost their body heat and didn’t make it out,” I said. “But maybe if they’d had two items you can put in your shirt pocket, they might have lived.”
No one looked like they believed me. “What are they?”
One is a Disney water cape. When you take a water ride they give you one free. (This is probably true at any amusement park.) I buy them by the box. Ten cents apiece, but they’re big and will cover your whole body. The other is a shower cap available in any hotel bathroom. Even if you’re out of the wind, you’re still losing heat through porous clothes and your porous hat. So you put the shower cap over your hat. And you open the cape, cut a slit in the middle, and stick your head through. That’ll keep more heat in.
And you can put them both in your shirt pocket.
Besides the water cape and shower cap, I keep a few things in my car at all times. A surgical mask, surgical gloves, leather gloves—to keep from cutting my hands—a rockhound hammer (a geologist’s tool used to dig up minerals), a tow rope, jumper cables, a tool kit, a water bottle, and toilet paper.
Anything to help improve my chances.
When I was on the raft, the tool kit included a rubber patch kit, water dye, a flare gun, little air pumps, a mirror made of chromed brass, and a pair of pliers with a screwdriver handle.
But no net to catch fish—on a raft! And worse, where was the knife?
How often I thought: My kingdom for a knife!
Someone hadn’t been thinking. You always have to think ahead. Always.
BEING STUCK ON a raft in the middle of the Pacific is a pretty exotic circumstance, so let me bring the lesson closer to home. I r
emember teaching my son, Luke, to drive. He’s said that it was more like a course in anticipating what every other driver might do. He was right. I also made him learn how to go in reverse before I’d let him put the car in drive. What on earth for? If you can master keeping the car on a straight line going backward, going forward is much easier.
Trust What You Know
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When you’re stuck on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, you’re always hungry.
So are the sharks. They were our constant companions, every day circling our makeshift home. At first they were waiting for the tiny bits of bait—small fish we found in the stomachs of the occasional albatross we caught when one landed on the raft (or the bits of albatross we didn’t eat)—that I hung overboard on hooks tied to lines wrapped around my fingers, trying to catch a fish. They’d swoop up and take the bait, and the hook. I’d try again and they’d do the same. Sometimes I managed to catch a fish without their interference, but it was rare. The sharks were as hungry as we were. When we said our prayers to be saved, we included a plea not to become a shark’s snack.
One night when the guys were asleep a small shark swam by and I decided to put my hand on its head and drag it over the dorsal fin. Why? Who knows? Bored, I guess. I did that twice. They slipped by slowly, and then disappeared—which was unusual.
Suddenly one shot up like a torpedo, with his open mouth right in my face. I automatically hit his snout, shoved him back in the water. Then the other shark came up and I whacked him with an aluminum oar. Mac woke up and reached for the other oar and we beat them back until they’d had enough.
It seemed to me that if they wanted to eat us then turning the tables on them was fair play. The two sharks that had tried to jump into the raft were still with us. Phil and I made a plan. He’d hold the bait, dipping it in and out of the water to get the shark’s attention. When it came close I’d grab it by the tail and haul it into the raft—and kill it. When the bait tempted a small one, I leaned over the raft and clutched the tail. Big mistake. Shark skin is gritty like sandpaper and I couldn’t hold on because a five-foot shark is stronger than a six-foot man. It quickly pulled me into the ocean. Now it was my turn to shoot out of the water and into the raft.
Here’s what happened next, as I described it in Devil at My Heels.
A couple days later we saw some three and four footers, and no larger ones. We hung the bait again. This time I decided to get lower in the raft (to help my center of gravity). I grabbed a passing tail and, as quickly as I could, pulled the shark out of the water. His mouth opened, but Phil was ready, holding an empty flare cartridge. He shoved it in. The shark instinctively closed his mouth and wouldn’t let go of the cartridge. I took the screwdriver end of the pliers from our emergency kit, rammed it through his eye, into his brain, and killed him.
Ripping a shark open without a knife is a very tough job. I’d used the pliers to fashion saw-like teeth on one corner of our chromed-brass mirror. Though sharp enough to open a man’s arm like butter, the shark skin put up a fight. It took almost ten minutes to cut through the belly.
Because of a survival course I’d taken on base in Hawaii about how to deal with sharks, I knew that eating raw shark meat would make us sick. The smell, a bit like ammonia, was bad enough. The only edible part was the liver.
I knew that shark liver was a rich source of vitamins and protein. The minute we ate it we got a big boost. We had a luscious, gooey, bloody meal of shark liver twice and it was the best thing that happened to us.
Imagine then my surprise when years later a television show criticized me for eating sharks’ liver, and quoted someone from the military saying, “That’s where all the poison goes.” What poison? Just as when a human eats, a shark’s liver takes care of anything unsatisfactory. Then you pee it out or otherwise. There aren’t any toxins left in the liver, especially that of a wild shark.
Here’s further proof: I heard that during a break in shooting Unbroken in Australia, the actors playing me, Phil, and Mac ate raw shark liver. No one got ill.
If I hadn’t trusted what I knew, who knows if I’d be here to tell this story. Those mouthfuls of shark liver might have made all the difference.
Keep Your Mind Sharp
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Every day we put our brains through their paces, but the older we get the more it’s necessary. You have to stay active. Engage with others. Don’t sit and vegetate in front of the television. Move your body. Use your head.
You’ve heard that kind of advice before, but I proved it to myself when I was adrift on the Pacific Ocean. I’d taken physiology classes at USC with Dr. Roberts. He’d said, “The brain is a muscle. It’s essential to exercise it or it will atrophy.” I believed him. Despite hunger, thirst, heat, desperation, weight loss, boredom, and ravenous sharks, I worked my brain whenever I could. I hate mathematics, but I’d lie there and add up a column of figures in my head. Then I’d try a double column. I may not have gotten the right answers, but I wasn’t letting my brain go to sleep.
To deal with hunger, the pilot, Russell Philips, and I described in intricate detail meals we’d cooked or eaten, right down to the smallest ingredients, and then how it tasted. That was an exhaustive, extensive exercise. I had to be very precise: how much salt, how much baking powder, how long to knead the dough, how to make the finished product crispier, how long to bake at what temperature, how to make spaghetti sauce, how to stuff a turkey, how to make stuffing, how long to bake the turkey, how crisp the skin should be. The guys got so hungry they were on me to do this every day, so I became the main cook. I didn’t mind, and flung myself into making meals by the seat of my pants. My mother was the same way. We even washed our imaginary dishes, dried and put them away. Anything to use our brains. This routine may sound frivolous, but it was great because it kept us focused on something positive, rather than letting the desperate reality of our situation overwhelm us.
We also shared stories from our pasts. We sang. Phil and I talked about contraptions we wanted to invent. We talked about the future, our plans.
“What are you going to do after the war?” Phil asked me.
“I want to convert the PE depot [a railroad freight depot] in my hometown into a nice restaurant with a bar.” Then I’d describe what it would look like inside, and all the rest, right down to the tiniest detail.
WHILE STUCK ON the raft, the lack of the usual input we have in our lives must have cleared some space in my head because I started to remember things that I shouldn’t have been able to recall—events that happened to me when I was two and three. For instance, although I was born in Olean, New York, my parents moved to Southern California when I was two. We could only afford to travel by rail. At Grand Central, my mother walked Pete and me along the platform and into the train. But a couple of minutes after rolling out, she couldn’t find me anywhere. She searched all the cars and then did it again. Frantic, she demanded the conductor back up to New York—and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s where they found me: waiting on the platform, saying, “I knew you’d come back,” in Italian. When I got home from the war, I told my mother, and she was amazed that I remembered.
When Phil and I were “rescued” by the Japanese, we were just as sharp as the day we crashed—only many pounds lighter. I thought to myself, “Six weeks ago, I was a world-class athlete.” And then, for the first time in my life, I cried.
The enemy sailors took us aboard and tied us to the mast. They hit Phil with a pistol across the face. But as they went to strike at me, I knew enough to throw my head back and hit the mast instead. For what it’s worth, they did it just to save face and prove their superiority. Otherwise they weren’t unkind to us, more like surprised we were still alive and coherent.
During our first interrogation on Wotje Atoll, where our captors took us before sending us to Kwajalein—Execution Island—the interviewers were astounded at our sharpness. They brought officers in to speak with us. If we were a bunch of mushy-heade
d dummies that had lost our brains to the vast salt water, they wouldn’t have bothered. I like to think that my wits helped keep me alive until the war ended. Use it or lose it.
On Kwajalein we were taunted, harassed, spit upon, jabbed with sticks, starved, and medically experimented upon with near-deadly injections The food we got, if you can call it food, was filthy. We’d eat it and it would go right through us. If we were going to have a mental breakdown, it should have been then. And yet, when the interrogation started, I was sharp enough to deceive our captors.
They liked to manipulate me. I’d be brought into a room where biscuits, pastries, and sodas lay out on a table. The Japanese puffed on cigarettes and blew the smoke in my face. I wasn’t a heavy smoker, but I wanted one badly. I knew that if I gave them the information they wanted, I’d get a reward.
I wanted the reward but not because I’d betrayed my country. I decided to try and trick them. In Hawaii we’d constructed three mock airfields with phony airplanes, so if the Japanese came they’d bomb the wrong field. I knew one of them was right near Hickam. When they brought up airfields in Hawaii and I went, “Well, uh … ,” they thought they had me. I pretended to try and avoid the question, but they kept on me and finally I broke down, saying, “Okay, okay. There’s one here”—and I gave them the fake field—“one here, one there, and one there.”
I got a biscuit and a little soda pop. They were pleased. I had out-thought my captors on Execution Island, been rewarded, and managed to live another day.
Unfortunately, other than Phil and myself, I know of no other prisoners who made it off Kwajalein alive. We were lucky. As we discovered years later, one Japanese officer knew that I was a track star and recommended that Phil and I be spared because we might be better used for propaganda purposes.
Don’t Forget to Laugh
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Don't Give Up, Don't Give In Page 4