The plot began with a question. It was the summer of 1944, and Louie and
Frank Tinker were walking in
Ofuna. Louie could hear planes coming and going from an airstrip nearby, and it got him thinking.
“Could you fly a Japanese plane?” he asked.
“If it has wings,” Tinker, replied.
An idea took root. Louie, Tinker, and
Harris were going to escape.
They’d been driven to this point by a desperate spring and summer. They lived in squalor, crawling with fleas and lice and so swarmed by flies that the guards offered a rice ball to the man who could kill the most, inspiring a cutthroat swatting competition. Rations were slashed. Ravenous, Louie made reckless efforts to find food. He stole concentrated miso paste—a fermented Japanese seasoning meant to be diluted in water—swallowed it in one gulp and ended up heaving his guts out. He volunteered to starch the guards’ shirts with rice water, exposing himself to the guards’ volatility just so he could scavenge flecks of rice from the water. Eventually, he was so frantic to eat that he broke into the kitchen and stole chestnuts reserved for the guards, an act that could’ve gotten him killed.
When officials asked for a volunteer to barber the guards, offering one rice ball per shave, Louie was desperate enough to step forward. To his surprise, the guards expected him to shave not only their faces, but their foreheads, a standard Japanese barbering practice.
A notoriously cruel guard called the
Weasel came to Louie for shaves but never paid him the rice ball. Louie couldn’t resist evening the score. Shaving the Weasel’s forehead, he thinned his eyebrows to a girlish line. The Weasel left and entered the guardhouse. A moment later, Louie heard a shout.
“Marlene Dietrich!” It was the name of a movie star with famously slender, feminine eyebrows.
Louie backed away, waiting for the Weasel to burst out. Guards crowded in and began laughing. The Weasel never punished Louie, but he stopped coming to Louie for his shaves.
In the Pacific, the war raged. The Japanese were increasingly agitated. An Ofuna official told Commander
Fitzgerald that if the Allies won, the captives would be executed. The quest for war news took on special urgency.
One morning, Louie was outside, under orders to sweep the compound. He saw the Japanese camp commander sitting nearby, holding a newspaper and nodding off. Louie waited, watching. The commander’s head tipped, his fingers parted, and the paper fluttered to the ground. Louie used the broom to slide the newspaper to himself.
There was a war map on the paper. Louie ran to the barracks, found
Harris, held the map up while he memorized it, then ran the paper to the trash. Harris drew the map, and captives came to look: America was closing in on Japan.
In July, it was rumored that America was attacking
Saipan, tantalizingly close to Japan’s home islands. When a new captive arrived, everyone eyed him as a source of information, but the guards isolated him. When the captive was led to the bathhouse, Louie saw his chance. He snuck behind the building and looked in an open window. The captive was holding a pan of water and washing. When the guard stepped away, Louie whispered.
“If we’ve taken Saipan, drop the pan.”
The pan clattered to the floor. The man picked it up, dropped it again, then dropped it once more.
At night, lying in their cells, the captives began hearing a distant wailing sound: air-raid sirens. They listened for American bombers, but for now, no bombers came.
Life in Ofuna grew grimmer. Every day, the men were slapped, kicked, beaten, and humiliated. The
Quack was especially ferocious, unleashing explosions of violence that left captives spilled over the ground. Camp officials stole the rations, and the captives wasted away. The little food they were given was inedible.
One day, when Louie saw fish, writhing with maggots, sitting in the captives’ foot-washing trough, he recoiled. The Quack saw him, charged at him, and beat him. Later, the fish was ladled into Louie’s bowl. Louie wouldn’t touch it. A guard jabbed him behind the ear with a bayonet and made him eat it.
Living in vile degradation and suffering, sure they were doomed, Louie,
Harris, and
Tinker listened to the nearby planes and wondered if there could be a way out. They decided to make a run for it, commandeer a plane, and get out of Japan.
At first, they hit a dead end. They didn’t know where the airport was or how they’d steal a plane. Then they got hold of a Japanese almanac. Filled with detailed information on Japan’s ports, its ships and their fuels, and the distances between cities, it was all they needed to craft an escape.
They discarded the plane idea in favor of escape by boat. Harris plotted a path west, about 150 miles. At a western port, they’d steal a boat, cross the Sea of Japan, and flee into China.
There was one especially worrisome problem. Hiking in Japan, they’d stand out, and not just because of their race. In a land in which the average soldier was five foot three, they were giants. If caught, they’d surely be
killed, either by civilians—who often attacked
POWs—or by authorities. They decided to move only at night and hope for the best.
As the plan took shape, they walked as much as possible, strengthening their legs. They studied guard shifts, discovering a patch of time at night when only one guard watched the fence. Louie stole supplies—a knife, rice, string, and loose paper to serve as toilet paper. He stashed it under his floorboard.
For weeks, they prepared. The plan was potentially suicidal, but the prospect of taking control of their fates was thrilling. Louie was filled with what he called “a fearful joy.”
Just before the escape date, everything changed. A prisoner escaped from another camp, and in response, Ofuna officials issued a decree: all escapees would be executed, and for every escapee, several captive officers would be shot. Louie, Tinker, and Harris were prepared to die, but they couldn’t risk other men’s lives. They abandoned their plan.
With the escape off, they focused on insurgency. In early September, a captive saw a newspaper with a war map on it on the Quack’s desk. Few things were riskier than stealing from the Quack, but with the kill-all order looming,
the men were desperate for news. Only one man had the thieving experience to attempt a heist so dangerous.
For several days, Louie staked out the Quack’s office, watching him and the guards. At the same time each day, they took a cigarette break of roughly three minutes. It would be Louie’s only chance, and it would be a very close call.
On the chosen day, the Quack and guards stepped out. Dropping to all fours so he wouldn’t be seen through the windows, Louie clambered into the office, snatched the newspaper, stuck it under his shirt, crawled out, and walked to Harris’s cell, striding as quickly as he could without attracting attention. He held the paper up before Harris, then crammed it under his shirt
again, sped back to the office, crawled in, threw the paper on the desk, and fled.
At the barracks, Harris drew the map on a strip of toilet paper. The Americans were coming closer and closer to Japan.
A few days later, Harris was sitting in a cell when the Quack swept in. Seeing something in Harris’s hand, he snatched it. It was the map.
The Quack, his face crimson, called all captives outside. He told Harris to step forward.
Louie heard the marine whisper, “Oh my God.”
The men who witnessed what followed would never blot it from memory. Screeching and shrieking, the Quack attacked Harris, punching him and clubbing him with a wooden crutch. When Harris collapsed, the Quack kicked him repeatedly in the face, then had other captives hold him up for more clubbing. On and on the beating went, long past when Harris fell unconscious. Two captives fainted.
At last, raindrops began to patter over the dirt. The Quack dropped the crutch, walked to a building, and slid to the ground, panting.
Dragged to his cell, Harris slumped, eyes wide open but blank as stones. It was two hours before he moved.
In coming days, he began to revive. Louie sat with him, helping him eat, but Harris could barely communicate. He wandered about, his face disfigured, eyes glassy. When friends greeted him, he didn’t know who they were.
Three weeks later, on September 30, 1944, the guards called Louie,
Tinker, and several other men out. They were told they were going to a POW camp called
Omori, just outside Tokyo.
Louie hurried to his cell, hid his diary in his clothing, said goodbye to Harris, and climbed on the transport truck. As it rattled away, he was euphoric. Ahead lay a POW camp, a promised land.
