Belly of the Beast Page 13

  Tarpy’s birthday celebration continued throughout the day until another bangou was called. This time the prisoners were ordered to listen to a visiting colonel who was going to deliver what the guards called “an education speech.” The colonel, it turned out, was a propaganda officer with an absurd-looking handlebar mustache. He unrolled a large painting, a panorama of the Japanese destruction of Pearl Harbor. The painting was punctuated with a great number of orange explosions, black smoke, and red flames.

  After the colonel gave the men a toothy smile, he spoke in English. “You haf no more a Navy. It is utterly destroyed. What do you think of your future now? There is not the slightest hope of anything but total defeat now for your armed forces.”

  The colonel’s comments were met with silence. After forcing the POWs to stand in the yard for ten minutes of humiliation while the guards chattered in Japanese and laughed, pointing at the Americans, the men were allowed to resume their yasumu.

  “Okay, you guys,” Myers told Tex and Tarpy. “Now it’s our turn.”

  They walked over to where a particularly unpleasant guard they had nicknamed Bullet Head stood. This guard’s moniker came from his misshapen cranium.

  “So how’s the war going, Bullet Head?” Myers asked him.

  “War’s going,” Bullet Head answered. “You see picture. Nippon winning. All American Navy gone boom, boom.”

  Now came the fun part for the prisoners. The part where they ridiculed the guard’s obvious lack of command of English.

  “Is that so?” Myers said thoughtfully. “You mean to tell me the USS Hornet is gone?”

  “Hai, boom, boom.”

  “And the USS Enterprise?”

  “Hai, boom, boom.”

  “How about the USS Dumb Shit?”

  “All boom, boom.”

  Myers walked away, his shoulders slumping in mock dejection. Meanwhile, everyone who’d witnessed the act worked hard at suppressing their laughter.

  Now it was Tarpy’s turn. He chose the hated interpreter, Herri.

  “You ever hear of Mickey Mouse?” he asked the unsuspecting Japanese.

  Herri furrowed his brow and shook his head. Tarpy continued.

  “Oh, Mickey Mouse is an ichiban American movie star. Number one. I was just tellin’ my pals that you look a lot like him.”

  “I look like ichiban American movie star?”

  “You sure do. In fact, is it okay if we call you Mickey Mouse?”

  Herri considered this. “Ichiban Mickey Mouse,” he announced, proud of his new status. “Hai!”

  Yasumu was also the day for taking care of things there never seemed to be enough time for during the other days. Tarpy’s birthday or not, the men had washing and repairs to do. The uniforms they wore were no more than tattered rags. As the elbows and knees of their shirts and pants wore out, shorts and sleeveless shirts were made. Any surplus fabric was either used to make patches or unwoven at the frayed spots to make thread. Needles were fairly common in the hospital, but occasionally they had to rely on a sharp thorn to do the mending.

  Those whose clothing had worn out entirely had two choices. They could wear Japanese-issue G-strings, resembling those worn by sumo wrestlers, or they could wait for hand-me-downs from the dead. Since clothing was at such a premium, the POWs were buried naked and their clothing was reissued to the living from the Zero Ward.

  Shoes posed yet another problem. Whatever the men had been wearing at the time of their capture were the shoes they wore every day after that. When the shoes could no longer be repaired at the camp cobbler shop, the POWs graduated to clacks, homemade sandals. The sandals were wooden platforms with strips of old tires nailed on the bottom for traction and strips of leather from their retired shoes nailed across the top.

  Most of the men had been accustomed to a simple wardrobe on the outside, before captivity. When they had enlisted, the country had been in the throes of the Depression and many things, including excess clothing, were considered unnecessary luxuries. Still, the list of what they missed from their American lives continued to grow.

  Chapter Nine

  Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

  Myers thought about his family every day he was in Bilibid Prison. Until he joined the Navy, he’d never been farther from home than a couple of hours’ drive. Even after he enlisted, he felt connected to them, got letters from them, and wrote when he had a chance.

  But as a POW he not only felt disconnected from freedom, but also from those he loved. He was sure his mother would be worried about him since she hadn’t heard from him, and he made himself a promise that he would never let her know the details of this living hell. He figured the Navy had probably let her know he was a POW, but since neither he nor his fellow prisoners had received anything from the United States since they’d been captured, he wondered exactly how much his family knew. It bothered him immensely that he was probably causing them concern.

  For their part, his parents, Lena Mae and Bertram Sr., knew from Estel’s prewar letters that he had been relocated to the Philippines after his stint in Shanghai. When news of the initial Japanese attack on the islands reached them, they hoped that since their son was a part of the hospital corps, he would be transferred to an area away from the fighting to take care of fellow soldiers. When all the letters Lena Mae had written to Estel after the hostilities began in December were returned as undeliverable, she wrote to the 12th Naval District in San Francisco.

  A response to her request for information arrived from the Navy Department on June 20, 1942. It was two weeks after the American victory at the Battle of Midway and the day before Father’s Day.

  My dear Mr. and Mrs. Myers,

  This Bureau regrets that definite report cannot at this time be made regarding the welfare of your son, Estel Browning Myers, but feels you are entitled to the available facts.

  On last report, he was serving in the Manila Bay Area and since the capitulation of the last defense in that area, no word has been received by the Department concerning the personnel. It is presumed that they became prisoners, and as soon as possible will be interviewed by the International Red Cross and report made to this Bureau.

  This Bureau appreciates your anxiety and hopes that your patience will extend to the time when definite assurance can be furnished. Until such definite assurance, he will be carried on the rolls as “missing.”

  Sincerely yours,

  Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs

  The Chief of Naval Personnel

  This was extraordinarily difficult news to receive. Pure torture existed in the word “missing” for those who received such a letter. They did not know the whereabouts or condition of a loved one. It made their day-to-day lives arduous and their futures uncertain. The classification carried financial consequences, as well. Until a serviceman could be determined as deceased, family members were not eligible for back pay, insurance, or pensions.

  When the Myers family received their letter, it gave a new meaning to the war efforts occurring around them. President Roosevelt had told Americans early on in the war that the efforts of every man, woman, and child would be needed in order to win the conflict that had now spread across the entire globe. Consequently, not one aspect of American society went untouched by patriotism and the war effort.

  American automakers’ assembly lines had come to a dead stop back in January of 1942; car and truck production was suspended and the factories were reconfigured. When the assembly lines began again, they turned out machines of war. Production requirements were astronomical: four thousand tanks and forty-five hundred planes had to be produced every month. Navy ships had to be assembled in seventeen days, once the parts were manufactured. Factories producing anti-aircraft guns were on track to turn out twenty thousand by the end of the year.

  President Roosevelt had told the nation, “Let no man say it cannot be done. It must be done and we have undertaken to do it.�
� Following that speech, he personally visited the production facilities around the country to encourage the workers. In Detroit, he toured the newly created Chrysler Tank Arsenal. In the suburb of Willow Run, Henry and Edsel Ford escorted him down their half-mile assembly line. In Milwaukee, Roosevelt watched steam turbines and propeller shafts being created at the Allis-Chalmers factory. In Seattle, he was taken to the Boeing aircraft plant and in Portland, to Henry Kaiser’s shipyards.

  Everywhere FDR went that year, workers cheered him for his leadership. But the cheers that greeted his words were not only from hardened male factory workers. There was a distinctive feminine note to these cheers. Nearly one third of the American workforce in 1942 were women, nineteen million of them in all. They had filled jobs in the tank, aircraft, and armament factories in the absence of the country’s men.

  The women were told that welding was not so very different from crocheting, and Winnie the Welder was born. Some of them learned to drive rivets at the astronomical rate of 275 in a twenty-seven-minute period, and Rosie the Riveter came into being. They were asked to do the job “he” left behind. They worked nine hours a day, six days a week, humming what had become their theme song: “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Can’t afford to sit around a-wishin’. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we’ll all stay free.”

  The women’s exodus to the factories caused a fashion revolution, as they became mass consumers of pants and overalls. To many, particularly those in the Bible Belt like the Myers family, wearing slacks was something only hussies had done previously. But frilly dresses didn’t play well in the factory. Major department stores like Filene’s in Boston, Hudson’s in Detroit, and Marshall Field’s in Chicago opened “slacks bars.” Together they reported that sales in women’s trousers were ten times greater in 1942 than they had been the year before.

  Clothing changed everywhere in the country. Women who continued to wear dresses made them with half as much fabric, so that the excess could be used for the war effort. The National Association of Hosiery had announced in January that it would no longer be using silk, so women began buying their Victory Hose made from rayon. Those who couldn’t afford hose painted their legs with makeup and drew lines up the back with eyebrow pencils to imitate seams. Neither Lena Mae Myers nor her daughter, Iola, wore hose on a daily basis, making do with bobby socks instead. When purchasing hosiery became rationed, they donated their stamps to the Red Cross, who passed them on to the WACs, WAVs, nurses, and others who needed hose.

  Things changed in American kitchens as well. Lena Mae could only purchase coffee, sugar, beef, cheese, butter, and canned goods using ration stamps. Government home economists told citizens to eat more chicken, rabbit, and fish, meats that were not rationed. “Can all you can,” American housewives heard, and they were also encouraged to raise Victory gardens, so more processed foods could be shipped to the fighting forces. None of these concepts was new to the Myers family. Eating small game bagged by Bert and the boys had been a frequent occurrence back on the farm. And Lena Mae always canned vegetables from their garden.

  While the sacrifices being made by the families were noble, none touched the prisoners of war directly. No Red Cross packages arrived, and no supplements of food and medical supplies ever made its way into Bilibid Prison during 1942. Every meal of every day was the same for Myers and the other POWs: some form of rice prepared in the camp’s unscreened, fly-infested kitchen. Bilibid’s long, open latrine was less than fifty feet from the kitchen. The latrine ran into the cesspool next to it, home to millions of maggots.

  Given those facts, Myers’ decision to begin eating cockroaches fell right in line. He was well aware that these vermin carried filth and germs, but he figured he was already being exposed to so many diseases from his fellow prisoners in the hospital that the roaches couldn’t make it any worse. Myers had an extra tin can among his possessions that he used as his trap. Saving a bit of rice from each meal, he baited his trap and lured the roaches in. He covered the roaches with water to prevent their escape, and when the next mealtime rolled around he’d boil them and add them to his ration of rice. Myers explained to his pals that although adding roaches to his diet was beneath anything he ever thought possible, he thought it might somehow delay his starvation and suggested they try adding roaches to their rice as well.

  Those who did benefit from the sacrifices being made by Americans at home were the military men and women charged with recapturing the one million square miles the Empire of Japan was claiming in mid 1942. The area, nearly one seventh of the world’s surface, was three times larger than the combined areas of the United States and Europe.

  Retaking this area required an enormous military strategy, which the Allies code-named “Operation Cartwheel.” The operation would marshal two main thrusts. The first would use the central Pacific forces and push westward to recapture the Gilbert, Marshall, Marianas, and Caroline Islands. The second thrust would use the southern and southwestern Pacific forces. Their battles would be waged in a westerly direction, beginning on Guadalcanal, the southernmost islands in the Solomon chain.

  Military intelligence had discovered that the Japanese were constructing an air base on Guadalcanal. If completed, Imperial planes would have a clear shot at demolishing the important supply line which came from the United States through Australia and on to the Allied forces in the Pacific Theater. Although the unexpected defeat at Midway had cost the Japanese their carrier force, they were determined to maintain a network of bases throughout the Pacific, beginning with Guadalcanal.

  The two leaders chosen for this major amphibious assault couldn’t have been more different. For the Army, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the southwest Pacific was General MacArthur. He was arrogant, flamboyant, and loved the attention of the press, which often portrayed him wearing his cap at its customary jaunty angle, dark glasses, and corncob pipe. MacArthur also knew more about the Pacific Theater than anyone else in the services. He was an inspiring leader with one of the most distinguished military careers in history.

  The naval leader for Operation Cartwheel was the Commander in Chief of the Pacific, Admiral Nimitz. Unlike MacArthur, Nimitz was a mild-mannered gentleman from Texas with a modest nature. But he had also spent his adult life in the military and was known for his piercing blue-eyed stare and military prowess.

  From offshore, Guadalcanal looked like a travel brochure photo with white beaches and swaying palm trees. The paradise soon turned to fury. On August 7, 1942, exactly eight months from the day the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the Allied armada appeared off the coast of Guadalcanal. After a three-hour bombardment, the Marines went ashore virtually unopposed. But the calm was deceptive.

  Two days later, the Japanese struck back fiercely from their fortress, Rabaul, on New Britain Island. The Japanese sank one Australian and three American cruisers. Then, inexplicably, at the point when they could have levied harsh consequences on the Allies, the enemy commander called off the attack. This astonished the Allies and gave them a foothold. They wasted no time in beginning their force buildup on the island. During the next two months, the Japanese hammered the Marines on Guadalcanal as well as the convoys bringing them supplies from Australia. In mid October, an Imperial task force that included four carriers positioned itself north of Guadalcanal. On the night of October 26, 1942, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands began, which cost Japan two destroyers, two carriers, and two battleships. The Americans lost the carrier Hornet.

  The night of November 13 was the beginning of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. This battle roared for twenty-four hours, at which point the Japanese mustered their remaining ships in an effort to establish a beachhead. They were met by an American flotilla, which sank another Imperial battleship and damaged two more cruisers. By dawn of November 15, it was clear that the Japanese naval effort had failed.

  The Japanese were not done with Guadalcanal yet, though. From bases established in caves across the island, the
y waged a land campaign that continued through 1942. It was the first time that U.S. Marines came face-to-face with jungle terrain. They slashed their way through vine-choked underbrush and the foul slime of decomposing vegetation, forever threatened by Japanese snipers lashed to trees overhead. By February 9, 1943, there wasn’t a single living enemy left on Guadalcanal. The cost to the Japanese was immense: twenty thousand troops, eight hundred sixty aircraft and fifteen warships. Plus they had suffered their first defeat of the war on land. At the same time, it was the Allies’ first successful offensive.

  During a nightly newscast, radio announcer Eric Sevareid referred to the victors as “those who are living more miserably than ever before in their lives, fighting for those who are living better than ever before in their lives.”

  The Myers family might not have immediately agreed that they were living better than ever before. As the final days of fighting wound down on Guadalcanal, Kenny Myers, age seventeen, convinced his parents he should quit school and enlist in the Navy. With their second eldest son, Orville, stationed somewhere in North Africa and Estel’s whereabouts still unknown, Ken’s entry into the war put a third blue star on the small banner given to families of servicemen.

  It was unusual, but not unheard of, for a family to have multiple sons serving the country, and this included the first family: the Roosevelts had four sons wearing uniforms. The sacrifices, however, were paying off. The Allies had reached far up into the southwest Pacific archipelagoes and severed one hundred thirty-five thousand Japanese from all prospect of ever being rescued, feats that had seemed unimaginable less than two years earlier in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.