Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

one-quarter of the loot to sick POWs. One night, when he found Frank Tinker deathly ill, Louie waited for the guards to pass, snuck to the Scots’ barracks, and told them that Tinker was in trouble. The Scots sent Louie back to Tinker with a load of sugar, no charge. Tinker would later say that Louie’s sugar run “saved my soul.” According to Martindale, Tinker wasn’t the only man saved. Deaths from illness and malnutrition had once been commonplace, but after the thievery school was created, only two POWs died, one from a burst appendix. And in a place predicated on degradation, stealing from the enemy won back the men’s dignity.
    ——

    As the weeks passed, the Bird didn’t relent in his attacks on Louie. The corporal sprang upon him randomly, every day, pounding his face and head. Any resistance from Louie, even shielding his face, would inspirethe Bird to more violence. Louie could do nothing but stand there, staggering, as the Bird struck him. He couldn’t understand the corporal’s fixation on him, and was desperate for someone to save him.
    During one of the Bird’s attacks, Louie saw the camp commander, Kaname Sakaba, step out of his office and look toward him. Louie felt relief, thinking that now that Sakaba had seen this abuse of a POW by a lowly corporal, here at a show camp, he’d put a stop to it. But Sakaba watched indifferently, then walked back inside. Subsequent beatings, of Louie and of others, were no different. Other Japanese officers watched, some looking on approvingly, others looking dismayed. Sometimes, when they issued orders, they allowed the Bird, a mere corporal, to overrule them right to their faces.
    According to camp accountant Yuichi Hatto, this strange situation was the result of a wrinkle in rank. Sakaba was ravenous for promotion. The appearance of order in his camp and the productivity of its slaves furthered his interests, and Watanabe’s brutality was his instrument. While it is unknown whether Sakaba ordered Watanabe to abuse POWs, he obviously approved. According to Hatto, some camp employees were offended by Watanabe’s treatment of POWs, but because those acts pleased Sakaba, the Bird was untouchable, even by those who outranked him. In consequence, the Bird flaunted his impunity and virtually ran the camp. He viewed the POWs as his possessions, and he sometimes attacked other Japanese who interacted with them. Watanabe was, said Hatto, “not a mere guard, but an absolute monarch of POWs at Omori.”
    Some Japanese, including Hatto, tried to help POWs behind Watanabe’s back. No one did more than Private Yukichi Kano, the camp interpreter. When sick men were taken off work duty, losing half their rations, Kano found them easy jobs to keep them officially “at work” so they could eat enough to get well. When he saw prisoners violating the rules by eating vegetables in the garden area, or pocketing mussels at low tide outside the camp, he talked the guards into looking the other way. In winter, he hung blankets along the infirmary walls and scrounged up charcoal to heat the rooms. He snuck sick men away from the sadistic Japanese doctor and into the hands of a POW who was a physician. “There was a far braver man than I,” wrote POW Pappy Boyington, winner of the Medal of Honor. Kano’s “heart was being torn out most of the time, a combination of pity for the ignorance and brutality of some of his own countrymen and a complete understandingof the suffering of the prisoners.” But for Louie, the Bird’s pet project, Kano could do nothing.
    When Louie saw Red Cross officials being taken on a carefully staged tour of camp, he thought that help had finally arrived. But to his dismay, the Bird tailed the officials and stood by, listening intently, as POWs answered the officials’ questions about life in camp. No POW was foolish enough to answer truthfully, knowing the retribution that would follow. Louie had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.
    Louie was on his own. As the attacks continued, he became increasingly angry. His experience in childhood, when bullies had sent him home bloody every day, was repeating itself. His interior world lit up with rage, and he couldn’t hide it.
    Each time the Bird lunged for him, Louie found his hands drawing into fists. As each punch struck him, he imagined himself strangling the Bird. The Bird demanded that Louie look him in the face; Louie wouldn’t do it. The Bird tried to knock Louie down; Louie wobbled