Benny’s plan could be summed up like this: Put us inside a ventilated crate and load it on board the Indy. That was it. No secret identities. No trying to pass us off as really small sailors or Philippine princes or anything like that. Benny had cleverly modified the crate to make it as comfortable as possible for us. There was plenty of room inside, and he’d padded the sides with blankets. He’d loaded it with food and water and even a bedpan. But he wasn’t thinking only of our comfort. He’d stenciled AMMUNITION on the side of it. “No swabbie will bother it if they think there’s a chance they’re gonna get their face blowed off, sport. Sailors ain’t tough like us marines. About the most dangerous thing them white pants ever handles is a mop.” That’s what he’d said to us when he showed us how he planned to get us on board.

I remember being miserable inside that wooden box. Yet once we made it aboard, which was no walk in the park, I felt more joy than I had felt in years. For the first time in a long time, it felt as if we might actually be reunited with our parents. Benny had packed enough food into the crate to last long enough to get us to Leyte, and he brought us fresh water every few hours, whenever he went off watch. If the hold was empty and there was no one around, he stood watch so Teddy and I could get out to stretch our legs. He even snuck us into a nearby bathroom, which he called the “head.” But it was so hot and humid down there we just spent most of the time sweating.

“Hang in there, little man,” he said. “A couple of more days, we’ll be in Leyte. It’s all going to work out. We just gotta keep it together.”

Except for the unrelenting heat and humidity, I was fine. It was Teddy I was worried about. Ever since we first left Manila three and a half years ago, Teddy hadn’t spoken. Not a word. He hadn’t liked living in the Philippines much. But everything that came after was more than he could handle.

Mr. Henry Ford had sent my dad to Manila to help the Filipinos build an automotive factory. We’d been living there almost a year. Right before the Japanese attacked in 1941, our parents put us on a plane. They were trying to get us to safety, but at the airfield in Manila, Teddy could only whimper. Because there wasn’t enough room on the plane for our parents. Only the two of us. And he couldn’t imagine going without them.

There was an elderly nun boarding the plane who was very sick, and she was flying to San Francisco. I remember my mother begging her to take Teddy and me with her. I remember it like it was yesterday.

“My oldest—Patrick—he’s a good boy, Sister. He’s almost nine and he can help take care of you, if you’re not feeling well. And Teddy will do whatever my Patrick says,” my mother pleaded with her. “We’re from Detroit, we go to Most Holy Trinity every Sunday.” The nun’s name was Sister Felicity, and she agreed to take us with her.

Then I see my mother, holding my face in her hands, demanding that I pay attention to her.

“You listen to me, Patrick, my sweet boy,” she said. “You and Teddy are going with Sister Felicity. This plane will eventually get you to San Francisco. We’ll wire ahead and have your aunt Maggie pick you up there. You mind your manners and listen to the sister. And take care of Teddy. Promise me you’ll take care of Teddy. Can you do that for me? Your dad and I will be on the next plane, right behind you. Do you understand me, Patrick?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said to her.

My dad knelt down in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, champ,” he said. “We’ll be there before you know it. You mind the sister now, okay?”

“I will, Dad. I promise,” I said.

My mother hugged me harder than she ever had in her life. Up until then, I’d never seen my dad with tears in his eyes. It was the last time I saw either of them.

Because there was never another plane out of Manila. Before another one could take off, the Japanese invaded the Philippines. And I can’t even think about what must have happened there then.

Sister Felicity was nice to us. She tried to distract us with stories and funny jokes as the plane bounced in the air on its way to Guam, where we had to stop to refuel. But the pilot wouldn’t take off again, because there were radio reports of Japanese planes in the area. Then we got the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. And the Philippines. So we stayed on Guam. But a few days later, December 11, 1941, was when the Japanese arrived.

And they weren’t coming to have tea and cookies.

They landed on Guam and gunned everyone down. I remember Sister Felicity pulling us from our beds and telling us to run for the jungle. “Run, boys,” she said. “We must run! They’re coming! Hide in the jungle!” Only there was no way Sister Felicity, as sick as she was, could ever make it to the jungle. We were barely awake as we stumbled out of the house we were staying in. She gave me a pillowcase full of bread and fruit and a jar of water to carry.

We ran toward the underbrush and I could hear shooting and explosions in the streets. The sounds of roaring vehicles and cracking gunshots behind us and Sister Felicity telling us to “Run faster boys! R—!” There was a loud burst of gunfire, and I heard Sister Felicity scream in agony. And then an explosion. It was a Japanese hand grenade. Later, I learned all too well what those grenades sounded like. Sister Felicity didn’t scream anymore. Up until then, her cries were the most horrible sounds I’d ever heard. I was pretty sure she was dead. But I couldn’t stop to think about it. Machine gun bullets plowed up the ground around us just as we made it to the tree line.

“Don’t look back, Teddy!” I yelled at him. “Don’t look back! Keep running!”

And we ran through the jungle, until a small band of Chamorro found us. They were natives of Guam, and they knew the jungle like nobody else. And they were kind to us. They took us in and for three years we survived with them. But we moved all the time, never staying in one place long. Sleeping in the dirt, living off the land, constantly on the lookout for Japanese patrols, because they knew we were there, but they couldn’t find us. When they got too close to us in the jungle, we’d drift back into a village and mix in with the locals until they gave up looking. Then we’d sneak out to the jungle again. We learned how to stay invisible.

After a couple of years of living like that, the Americans came back and hit Guam like a thunderbolt from Zeus. That’s how I imagined it. Before the war, my dad would always read to me at night. I liked the stories from Greek mythology the best. And when the bombs started dropping and the ships started lobbing artillery at the island, this time it was the Japanese who did the screaming.

The Americans retook the island and I thought, This is it! This is what me and Teddy have been waiting for. But they wouldn’t let us go back to Manila to look for our parents. They said it was because they were still fighting a war. An orphanage opened up and another nun named Sister Mary Teresa came to run it. And that’s where they stuck us, until the navy could “figure out what to do with us.”

And that’s where we first met Benny, a United States marine from the Bronx. He’d been part of the Guam invasion and was wounded in the fighting. Benny talked and acted like a tough guy. But in truth he was pretty kindhearted. He liked to come by the orphanage while he was healing up from his injuries. Sometimes he brought us comic books he said he didn’t have time to read, or a baseball to toss around. And he always had naughty jokes. Lots of them. Sister Mary Teresa would wag her crooked finger at his “salty language,” but she could never stay mad at him. Nobody could. Not for long, anyway. There was just something about him. He had an easy way with people. There was always a smile on his face, and he called everybody he met “chum” or “sport” or “ace.”

He’d been in combat on islands all around the Pacific. According to him, he’d been kicking the—I couldn’t say the word or Sister Mary Teresa would get really mad, but it rhymed with “wrap”—out of the Japanese. “Chasing their little Imperial butts all the way back to Tokyo” is what he said. By the time he snuck us aboard the ship, Benny had recovered from his wounds and had been training with a battalion of marines for the invasion of Japan. That was the next step, everyone said. If they didn’t surrender, the Americans were going to invade the Japanese homeland. Benny said he’d “walk right into Hirohito’s palace, snatch him up by his collar, and teach him a thing or two about a thing or two.” Hirohito was the emperor of Japan and judging by the way Benny talked about him, he was clearly not one of Benny’s favorite people.

But me and Teddy were. Benny looked out for us. Said we reminded him of the stoop boys back home in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, where he grew up. And I don’t know how he did it, but eventually he “talked to a sergeant who knew a sergeant that owed another sergeant a favor” and got his orders changed. Now he was assigned to the marine detachment aboard the USS Indianapolis. “Always remember it’s the sergeants that runs all of your military units, pipsqueak. Don’t never ask no officer if you need somethin’. Your average officer couldn’t find his hind end with a both hands and a map.”

It was July of 1945, and the Indy was heading for the Philippines. Back toward Manila where our parents were. And Benny had a plan. Because like he said, “No bunch of white-suited, lamebrained, mop-drivin’ swabbies is gonna keep two red-blooded American boys away from their parents or by all the saints in heaven, my name isn’t Benjamin Franklin Poindexter, Private First Class, United States Marine Corps. If the United States Navy is gonna keep you two kids from findin’ your parents, what the heck are we over here fightin’ for?” Only he didn’t say heck. He said a bad word that rhymed with “smell.” But I didn’t care about that. Because Benny planned a pretty brilliant way to sneak us aboard.

That’s how we got on the ship. How we ended up packed in a crate with Teddy whimpering in the heat and me counting the minutes until we’d land in Leyte. It wasn’t Manila, but at least it was the Philippines.

Teddy didn’t like being in the crate or the darkness of the hold or even leaving Guam. Down there in the hot, sweaty gloom I thought about it a lot. Maybe I should have left him at the orphanage with Sister Mary Teresa and gone to Manila by myself. Once I found Mom and Dad, I could bring them back to Guam and we’d all be together again.

“How will we get from Leyte to Manila, Benny?” I’d asked him when he’d told me his plan for our “free ride” aboard the USS Indianapolis.

“Don’t worry about that, chum,” Benny said. “We do it a step at a time. We get you to Leyte first, and then we’ll worry about getting you to Manila. Heck, even if we get caught in Leyte, it’ll be easier for the navy to ship you on to Manila than all the way back to Guam.”

With Benny’s help, we got in the crate at the ammo depot at twilight on the twenty-seventh. He had it loaded onto a launch and with a sailor at the helm, piloted it out to the Indianapolis, which was bobbing gently at anchor in the harbor. Everything went surprisingly smoothly, until the crate actually sat down on the ship’s deck.

That’s when the trouble started.