As far as Jake was concerned, Chase’s life was as good as over. He’d seen prisoners beaten to a bloody pulp for lesser offenses, but he knew full well that Chase had simply had it. He wasn’t putting up with the insults and humiliation any longer. If they wanted to kill him, he was willing for that, so long as he kept his self-respect. Jake often felt this way, but never acted on it.
The enraged guard struggled to unhook his steel scabbard and began flailing it with furious swipes at Chase, who shuffled and darted to evade each stroke. Now the other guards and prisoners gathered into a loose circle, each silently rooting for “their” man. Amazingly, no matter how hard or how fiercely the guard swung his scabbard, he simply couldn’t connect with the nimble American. Finally, another guard reached out to grab the scabbard, only to have his hand whacked in the process, and the melee ended just as quickly as it had begun.
Jake felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest.
Breathing heavily, Chase picked up his mop and bucket under a crowd of intensely staring eyes, and sauntered back to his cell as if nothing had happened.
Everyone slowly went back to their business. Jake was shocked. It seemed that Chase’s defense of his buddy and standing up for himself despite the possibly horrendous consequences, earned him the respect of the guards. One even nodded with a grin. They never mentioned the matter again.
Chapter 80
August, 1943. The Andrus Farm. Madras, Oregon.
The six family members unfolded their hands having just given thanks for their food in prayer before a lavish display of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, and meat loaf on the checkered table cloth. A basket of steaming rolls and plate of green beans sat beside a pitcher of milk.
Maybe they weren’t rich, Mrs. Andrus thought, but they had all they needed. She passed a basket of rolls to Helen, her youngest, who looked up and said, “I wonder what Jake’s eating tonight.”
The room went silent. Ruth looked down at her empty plate. After a few moments she folded her red and white napkin and laid it across her plate. “I’m ... I’m just not too hungry tonight. I need to do some paperwork.” She slid her chair back and excused herself.
Mrs. Andrus nodded with understanding and looked around the table. Jake’s absence and uncertainty left a huge hole in their family.
After a few more seconds of silence, Glenn pushed away as well. “I can’t eat.”
One at a time, each one left without touching the food.
Mrs. Andrus understood. She felt the same way and tried to hold back the water that stood in her eyes.
Chapter 81
Fall, 1943. Keuka College, New York.
Peggy peered up at the double-string of Canadian Geese in a “V” formation flying over and followed them across the southern sky as they honked and flapped through the autumn air. As she meandered past students lying on the grass to her favorite bench near the lake, she unfolded a worn letter – worn from the number of hands it had passed through before finally reaching her. She couldn’t wait as she walked and read.
“My dear children,” the letter began.
She could hear her mother’s voice in every hand written word.
“We are living in the jungle with the monkeys. We have just finished re-thatching our roof because the old one was leaking like a sieve. We have lots to eat, thanks to the Filipinos. We even drink milk from our water buffalo. We live just like the locals: every day we eat rice and vegetables. We often have our meals with Signe, Dorothy and the Round family. Mr. & Mrs. Meyer and the Adams live nearby, but everyone else was captured and they’re being held in Iloilo and in Manila. I think they’re treated OK.”
Finding her bench and sitting down overlooking the lake, she grimaced at the thought of her friends in prison and wondered what it must be like. She wondered if they would survive.
“The Japanese soldiers came near here three times. Frank Rose even heard their voices. The last time they came near our house, your father was at the Meyer’s place. I grabbed a few of our belongings and hid. I was so frightened I almost thought I was done for.”
Peggy watched a canoe paddled by two student couples gently slosh past her. She’d never seen her parents be anything but strong. She just couldn’t picture either of them being afraid. Of course, if she’d been there, she thought, she’d have been terrified.
“In order to buy food, we sold our tablecloths, sheets, and some clothing. The university chapel hall and the staff residences were burned down and many of the other buildings were destroyed or looted. We heard that the mission hospital in Iloilo City is being used by the Japanese Army. Ida’s four girls came to visit us walking 11 kilometers. We heard that they have moved twenty-three times. Their father is an American and Virginia was caught by the Japanese Army because her father was in the communication unit.”
She shuffled to the next sheet and looked at some of the other students, wondering if anyone she knew could understand what was going on in the war. It all seemed so far away to everyone, just headlines in newspapers with no faces.
“I always pray for you. I just wonder what you’re doing right now. I wish I could see you, however I don’t want to travel until there is peace again. With lots of love, Mother.”
Peggy wondered what her mother and father were doing right then as well. She couldn’t wait to see them again and for the whole war to be over. She folded the letter, slid it back into the envelope, and wiped her coat sleeve across her eyes hoping no one would notice.
Chapter 82
September, 1943. Yokosuka Naval Base, Tokyo Bay.
Leaning on his crutches in front of Vice Admiral Kakuta’s desk, Fuchida felt like a patron intruding on a salesman exasperated by customers.
Kakuta flipped sheets of paper then dropped a set into a file cabinet. He never looked up as he quickly signed papers. “By the end of the year I expect we’ll be sending over a thousand planes to the Philippine islands. Bases need to be prepared.” Collapsing papers into a folder, he finally looked up at Fuchida and held the heavy portfolio toward him. “We’re sending you to locate abandoned U.S. bases we can rebuild and to locate sites for new ones.”
It was a welcome assignment for Fuchida, who was anxious to get back into the field and away from a desk, but even more, he’d become alarmed at the expansion of Japanese installations without the adequate buildup of air support. His pilots had to fly to their maximum limit to protect their soldiers on the ground and badly needed more bases. He took the folder and stuck it under his arm.
“Can you fly?” Kakuta said bluntly.
Fuchida grinned as he looked at his crutches. “Yes, sir. No problem there.” His casts were off but his ankles were still a bit weak.
“Good. Get to work.” The Vice Admiral spun around and dialed out on the phone as if Fuchida had already left.
During his five and half hour flight to the Philippines high above the ocean in his B5N bomber with his pilot and radioman, Fuchida had time to reflect. The Americans could never be defeated. This was now an overwhelming fact, but he was sure they could at least be stopped. All Japan had given up were some relatively unimportant islands on the outer edges of their expanse. He unconsciously shook his head – it seemed a shame to him that half of the more than 1,000 aircraft being manufactured each month were being diverted to the war in China. But if Japan’s Pacific forces pulled back into a defendable posture, doubled up their perimeter divisions, and exacted enough casualties, the American public would soon tire of the bloodletting and call their men back home. What were the Americans fighting for, anyway? They had nothing to gain. Their country was safe. Japan was fighting for its very survival. America should know this.
He looked down as they passed over Okinawa. Clouds like sheets of cotton balls floated against green mountains.
The Americans were in for a surprise, he thought. When the Philippines were taken over they were liberated as well – liberated from the colonization of Western powers. The American soldiers on the islan
d were taken captive, but the Filipino soldiers were set free. Tens of thousands of them. Now, he was convinced, they would taste life under the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, free from the white race. More and more they’ll see themselves in a new light and cast in their lots with the Japanese against the Americans. Fuchida grinned. Why wouldn’t they?
The Philippine Islands.
There’s beer in the ice box,” the base commander said as Fuchida sat down on a green stuffed couch and put his hands behind his head. He wasn’t expecting such nice accommodations.
“I don’t think the locals will ever consider themselves a part of Greater East Asia,” Fuchida said.
The host gave a single chuckle. “They hate us.”
Fuchida’s two week mission took him first to Manila where he discussed his plans for fifteen air bases with the regional commander of Japan’s naval forces. Over the course of a few days he selected locations for five bases in the area and then headed about sixty miles south to Batangas where he found locations for two more bases. His ankles had finally healed enough that he could happily discard his crutches.
From there he flew to Legaspi on the southeastern end of the main island of Luzon where he had a chance to walk the streets with his flying companions and mix with the locals. He smiled at passersby with a friendly touch to his hat only to receive cold stares. Strange. Picking up a pineapple at a vendor’s stand to smell the fresh scent, he felt the steely glare of the people. Others across the street stood still. Even with the temperature being a sweltering 101 degrees, he felt like he’d been doused in ice water. It was the same in every city he visited. Why?
After establishing two more air bases in Legazpi City the day before, Fuchida’s plane touched down on a dirt strip beside a base at the last location to scout – Cebu City on the large island of Cebu. He and his weary crew were escorted to a white guest house with black shutters and white porch railings where they could finally remove their boots and stepped into the house in their stocking feet.
Fuchida sat on a couch and leaned forward to examine the magazines on the table, booklets really, all picturing General MacArthur on the cover with bold, red block letters stating, “I Shall Return!” He leafed through the pages of articles and photographs of American landing parties, Japanese ships exploding in the ocean, and dead Japanese half buried on sandy beaches. “Where did these come from?”
The host handed a newly opened bottle of cold beer to Fuchida’s pilot. “From the guerrillas. The booklets are all over the islands.” He threw back a swig.
Fuchida winced. “How are these coming in? Air drops?”
The commander shook his head. “Submarines.”
Fuchida sighed. If they could smuggle in booklets, they were certainly smuggling in weapons. He let the magazine close to the cover of MacArthur with his oversized corncob pipe. “MacArthur ...” Fuchida muttered.
The commander walked to the window and pulled back the white, lace curtain, muffling a belch. “There’s nothing to worry about from him. He’s a coward. He left his men to die alone.”
Fuchida stood up with the magazine in hand and tapped the photo. “He didn’t say his army would return. He said, ‘I shall return.’ He gives people the will to keep on fighting.”
The commander turned from the window and smiled folding his arms and bending his neck a bit. “He’s happy eating bacon and eggs in Australia. He’d just as soon ...”
“He put his own honor at stake!” The room went quiet. Fuchida dropped the magazine to the table with a slap. He spoke more quietly, but with greater conviction, “He will certainly be back.” Fuchida knew that the most dangerous thing the Americans were smuggling in – was hope.
The next day they flew back north to Manila where he would give his report to the area commander. His journey high above the lush islands and glittering blue ocean was a pleasant reprieve from the concerns of war. Looking down onto the island of Panay, Fuchida reflected on the overwhelming beauty he’d seen in the past few days, beauty like he’d never seen before. The flourishing vegetation seemed engulfed by brilliant flowers of yellow, white, and pink. He was tiring of war and looked forward to the day the war would be over.
In the jungle mountains below, Jimmy hacked away with a machete at the base of a thick stalk of bamboo when the distant drone of a lone airplane caught his attention in the sky above. Seeing the bright red Hinomaru on the wings of the bomber, he turned back to hacking angrily, longing for the day the war would be over.
Chapter 83
October, 1943. Hopevale. The Philippines.
A sweaty, wounded Filipino fighter with a rag tied to his head for a hat, the top of his shirt peeled down to his waist, sat biting a cigarette as one of the Hopevale refugees Jennie, the camp nurse, finished wrapping his shoulder in gauze.
She pulled aside some strands of her hair stuck to her perspiring face. “Not a whole lot of sense in anyone fixin’ you up,” she said, “if you’re planning on killing yourself with that coffin nail in your mouth.” She glanced up at his smiling face then tore the end of the gauze strip with her teeth and tied it into a knot.
“It’s all right, missy. Cigarettes don’t kill you until the end of your life.”
She nodded without smiling. “I’ll be sure to have them put that on your gravestone.” She took a last look at his shoulder. “Come back in two days and we’ll have a look.” The guerrilla shrugged his shirt back on and started buttoning up as an American guerrilla stepped up and displayed a gash on his hip with a smile.
In the open air church under the outstretched wings of the forest canopy, Jimmy read to a gathering of expectant brown and white faces sprinkled with sunlight. The people focused on every word.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” Jimmy said. Everything he lived for seemed wrapped up in these words that had become his life. “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil ...”
Jimmy suddenly looked to the back woods that rustled and parted revealing an armed Japanese officer and soldier.
“... and on the good.” Jimmy closed his Bible.
The entire group of sixty-five people turned and fixed their eyes on the uninvited visitors.
Jimmy was petrified, but didn’t show it. His heart raced. They’d seen Japanese in the distance, but never inside their camp. Just like everyone else in the area, he’d heard the terrifying rumors of the new Japanese leader on the island, and how he and his men tortured and killed just to put people into a state of fear. It was working.
“We have guests. You are all dismissed.” He couldn’t imagine what would happen next. The penalty for not turning yourself into the camps was death. Period.
The people cautiously began to rise, but the Japanese officer headed toward the front and held both hands up as he walked, leaving his pistol in its holster. “Suware!” he said, then again in English: “Sit down!”
The snap of fallen twigs beneath the officer’s boots seemed deafening to Jimmy as the officer made his way to where he stood at the front. The other soldier remained at the rear, his rifle drawn. Every head followed the officer with a mixture of fear and amazement. He carefully looked Jimmy in the face, then turned to the people and walked to those in the front row: Charma, Jennie, Frank, Gertrude, and the others. The officer reached into a breast pocket.
Jimmy watched – prepared to see anything, but was unprepared to do anything. They’d been caught flat-footed. There was nothing to do but to watch and wait.
The officer withdrew a tied roll of paper, loosened the string and proceeded to peel off ten centavo notes, passing them out freely, walking among the rows silently. The people graciously accepted the currency almost as if they were receiving communion wafers from a priest, each nodding with thanks and a fearful smile.
Reaching the back he turned to face Jimmy and stood stationary for what seemed a very long
time, but was only a few moments. His eyes connected with Jimmy’s, then turned downward for a second.
Even though Jimmy knew many were swept up in nationalistic pride, he’d met others in Japan who simply felt pushed into the war. He could see in this young officer’s face the shame of the association with his military and what they were doing. He felt sorry for him.
The officer bowed, stood upright, and just as he began to turn, Jimmy shouted out in Japanese, “We’re all one blood!”
The officer was shocked to hear a white person speak perfect Japanese.
“We’re all brothers!” Jimmy said, again in Japanese.
His eyes smiled back as he said in Japanese, “We didn’t see anything here today.” Then, just as abruptly as he had appeared, he and the other soldier just as suddenly were enveloped by the foliage and disappeared.
Chapter 84
November, 1943. The island of Panay. The Philippines.
Howling and sobbing uncontrollably on their knees in the muddy street, two Filipina women and seven children, begged for mercy as two Japanese soldiers propped up the bloody mess of a Filipino man between them. Behind them, soldiers tossed belongings out of the window of a hovel into the street. Petrified townspeople gaped from a distance as watchful, armed infantrymen stood around Captain Watanabe. Several headless bodies lay in a heap against a blood-spattered wall.
Watanabe grabbed the Filipino’s hair and jerked his head up.
“I swear I don’t know where their hideout is!” the man blurted out in Ilonggo. “They forced me to help them. I swear I don’t know.”
Watanabe turned to a Filipino translator who spat out the words in Japanese.
“Liar!” Watanabe threw the man’s head back down.
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