by Larry Colton
With the sound of Glenn Miller wafting through the tropical air, he jumped into the water, surprised at how warm it was. He wasn’t wearing a life belt. A rubber life raft, loaded with cigarettes and sandwiches, was lowered into the water behind him.
Finally, with all the men off the ship and into the water, Fitzgerald gave the word to Whiting to open all vents.
Treading water twenty yards away, Gordy heard a whooshing sound, then watched Whiting and Fitzgerald jump off the ship and swim away.
It took just seconds for the Grenadier to begin capsizing. First the stern went under, then the shears and conning tower, and finally the bow, all in stunning silence.
Gordy felt sick. In the short time he’d been part of the Grenadier crew, he felt closer to these men than to the men on the Sculpin. Now their home was on its way to the ocean floor.
Turning, he saw the Japanese ship, now less than a mile away.
“They’re going to shoot us,” someone yelled.
The men swam in different directions, figuring they’d be harder targets if they spread out. Wearing just his dungarees and a T-shirt, Gordy swam toward the rubber raft; Trigg, the black mess cook, whose court-martial papers had gone down with the ship, was the only man in it. Trigg waved him away. “There’s not enough room,” he yelled.
Bob Palmer also approached the raft, and he too was shooed away.
“God damn nigger!” Bob yelled, dog-paddling away.
Within ten minutes of the Grenadier going under, the crew and its officers were spread out over a square mile, half clinging to mattresses, the rest floating with their life belts. Nobody seemed in peril of drowning, and no sharks had appeared, at least not yet. The sea snakes were keeping their distance.
On a mattress nearby, Lieutenant Hardy, an Annapolis grad and liked by everyone on the crew, clung to the side with one hand; in the other he held a water-soaked copy of Reader’s Digest that he’d stuffed in his pocket before jumping overboard. He opened the pages and began reading the jokes from “Humor in Uniform” to the four other men clinging to the mattress. At first they looked at him as if he was nuts, and then they started laughing.
A shot fired from a deck gun startled Gordy. He waited for more shots, but none came. Then the ship turned and heaved closer. It was a merchant ship that had been converted into a corvette, a highly maneuverable armed escort, lighter than a destroyer. Its flag with the rising sun of the empire was clearly visible.
The ship completed another turn, and then the engine stopped. Gordy was one of the men closest to the ship, and he looked up and saw a rope ladder swing down over the side. On the deck, two Japanese seamen standing behind mounted machine guns signaled him and the others to start climbing up the ladder.
Gordy waited for an order from Fitzgerald, but unable to spot him, he swam to the ship, followed by several other men, and more swimming in that direction. He reached up and grabbed the bottom rung, then started his climb up, his arms weary from his two hours in the water.
As Gordy reached the top of the ladder, a Japanese seaman grabbed his arm and jerked him over the ship’s rail and onto the deck. He scrambled to his feet, now face-to-face with a seaman and his rifle and bayonet. As he glanced around at the other Japanese, his first thought was how short they all were.
The Japanese seaman moved toward him, jabbing the air with his bayonet, barking orders in Japanese. Gordy stood frozen, not understanding the instructions. The man continued yelling, then swung his rifle, the butt smashing Gordy in the shoulder, knocking him to the deck, the bayonet now an inch from his nose.
The seaman motioned him to stand up and take off his clothes. Gordy removed his T-shirt and dungarees. The guard signaled him to keep going. Gordy took off his Skivvies. Totally naked, he glanced at his crewmates, who were also being ordered to strip as soon as they climbed aboard. They did as instructed, heaping their clothes into a big pile. The guards stood around them, bayonets pointed at the men.
They were ordered to sit in rows, officers and crew together, knees to their chests, arms on knees, heads down. The sun was now full in the cloudless sky, and it was hot, very hot.
Gordy thought about his mother. How long would it be, he wondered, before she found out that he’d been captured? Would the Navy inform her, or would she figure it out when his letters stopped coming? But mostly he wondered what the Japs were going to do with them. By his count, there were six guards, with rifles and fixed bayonets and two mounted .50-caliber machine guns, all aimed at the crew. Maybe the Japs would decide their prisoners were too much trouble and were going to shoot them and throw their bodies overboard. But that seemed unlikely. No American submarine crew had ever been captured, so this would probably be a big deal for the Japs, not only a great propaganda tool but also a chance to gain information about the strategy and technology of American submarines.
Soon the ship headed full steam toward Malaysia (then called Malaya). Sitting in the middle of the crew, Captain Fitzgerald watched the guards, and when they turned their backs, he spoke in a hushed voice. “Don’t give them any information,” he instructed. “Just name, rank, and serial number. If they ask the name of our ship and where we’re stationed, tell them it’s the USS Goldfish and that we’re stationed in San Francisco, and we’re on a photoreconnaissance mission.”
They’d been on board for an hour, maybe more. The deck of the main hatch they sat on was blistering hot, and they were starting to get sunburned. Gordy was beginning to get the idea that this ragtag crew of Japanese seamen didn’t know what to do with them. Captain Fitzgerald stood up and identified himself as the ship’s commander. He was taken at gunpoint down below.
Within minutes, Gordy and the rest of the crew heard him scream in pain.
The ship continued its course. For Gordy and others, it had been more than twenty-four hours since they’d eaten. In the early afternoon, a tin of cigarettes was passed around, each man getting one cigarette, lighting it off the nearest man. When they were finished, a guard collected and counted the butts, making sure nobody had stashed one away.
After several hours, they each received one cup of water and another cigarette, as well as a hardtack biscuit. Most devoured the biscuit quickly, but Gordy saved his, figuring he’d need it later. After a while, a guard brought up a five-gallon bucket to use as a toilet.
Late in the afternoon a guard motioned for the men to put their clothes back on. Rummaging through the messy pile, Gordy knew he’d have no chance of finding his own 30-inch-waist pants. He settled on a pair with a 34-inch waist, cinching a belt tight, its excess length hanging halfway to his knees.
As the sun disappeared below the horizon, a guard ordered the men to lie down on the deck. Gordy hadn’t slept in thirty hours. Exhausted, he quickly fell asleep, awakening just before dawn as the motion of the rolling ship stopped and the engines went into reverse. The ship shuddered; it had pulled into a harbor.
Still lying down, Gordy heard voices coming from a dock. He rose to his knees to look, but a guard shoved him back to the canvas hatch cover. Other guards, more emboldened, moved between the rows of men, randomly selecting men to slap across the face or hit in the back with their gun butts.
A guard yanked Gordy to his feet and shoved him toward the starboard side of the ship. It was still dark, but Gordy could see soldiers on the dock. A guard tied his hands behind his back and blindfolded him, then did the same to everyone else in the crew.
Following the men in front of him, Gordy stumbled down the gangway and along a rutted road toward a waiting convoy truck. Unable to see, he felt a hand on his back, someone pushing him up into the back of the truck.
Half the crew was loaded onto one truck, the other half onto another, all of them still blindfolded with hands tied. Squeezed in between Chuck Vervalin and Bob Palmer, Gordy felt the truck begin to roll down the rutted road.
Part Five
THE CONVENT ON LIGHT STREET
17
Chuck Vervalin
POW
&
nbsp; Jammed in tight with his crewmates, Chuck Vervalin bounced along the bumpy road in the back of a convoy truck, blindfolded, hands tied behind him. He heard a whisper that they had landed on Penang, an island of Malaya. Another convoy truck with the other prisoners followed.
Known as the “pearl of the Orient,” in 1941 Penang was a tropical island paradise filled with lush vegetation and exotic beaches, a popular destination for Asian travelers drawn by its sparkling sea and powdery white sand. It had been under British rule until the Japanese invaded in 1942. The balmy air held a sweet fragrance, reminding Chuck of the orchids he’d smelled walking down Hotel Street in Honolulu.
After a short ride, the truck abruptly stopped. A Japanese soldier opened the back flaps and ordered the men out. Other soldiers untied their hands and removed their blindfolds. The morning sunlight filtered through a grove of coconut palms. Chuck eyed a complex of beautiful white buildings that looked like a school or convent.
Brandishing rifles with fixed bayonets, soldiers hustled the crew through a large, solid wooden gate that opened onto an open grass courtyard, a setting that was serene, almost spiritual. Chuck’s knees shook.
Before the Japanese commandeered it during their invasion, the Convent on Light Street was a prestigious Catholic school for girls, noted for a devotion to the arts and its botanical gardens. Located on several acres of land close to the harbor, it was named after Captain Francis Light, who first claimed the island for the British in 1786. Scrubbed white buildings with sturdy columns and arched corridors bordered a grass courtyard filled with coconut, mango, palm, fig, and breadfruit trees. Wild orchids scented the air, and the sound of waves drifted in on a gentle sea breeze.
Chuck felt a gnawing in his stomach. During the Depression, many nights he went to bed hungry, but that hunger was different. Back home he knew the next day would somehow provide something to eat. This was a different kind of hunger. All he’d had to eat since the ship had been torpedoed forty-eight hours earlier was a bowl of cling peaches and a hardtack biscuit. Word quickly spread that they’d be served breakfast soon.
Inside the grounds, the crew was separated; the officers, who’d stepped forward to identify themselves, were led to a room upstairs, and the rest of the men were divided into two groups and placed in adjoining rooms that had been used as classrooms before the invasion. The rooms were empty now, with barren white walls and concrete floors. Shuttered windows faced the open courtyard.
Four guards, armed with rifles and bayonets, ordered the men in Chuck’s room to form two lines and stand at attention, shoulder to shoulder. These guards wore different uniforms than the guards on the ship. Chuck figured that they were part of the Japanese army, and from the stories he’d heard, an army that could be brutal.
Slowly, one of the guards walked down Chuck’s line, glaring at each man. Next to Chuck, Gordy shifted his feet to get comfortable. The guard spotted the movement and moved in front of him. Without warning he swung his rifle butt and caught Gordy on the jaw; he crumpled to the floor. The guard kicked him in the ribs, then motioned for him to get back on his feet. Chuck reached down to help his crewmate up. Bad mistake. The guard rifle-butted him across the back, buckling his knees and bringing tears to his eyes.
For the next four hours, Chuck and everyone else in the room stood at attention, staring straight ahead. Every time someone moved or looked anywhere but straight ahead, they got a rifle butt in the back or to the stomach.
Chuck struggled to stand straight, his whole body aching from the strain. Another hour passed, and new guards entered, bringing with them a renewed sense of arrogance and brutality. One of them stood directly in front of Chuck and glared. Chuck stared straight ahead. The guard screamed, then smashed him in the face with his fist. Chuck staggered but didn’t go down, quickly retaking his place in line, standing at attention, not daring to wipe the blood streaming from his nose.
Dusk came, the light in the room was turned on, and the men still stood at attention. There was still no food or water.
One of the men passed out, falling to the floor in a heap. A guard ordered the men next to him to pull him back up to his feet and support him in an upright position. These orders were given in Japanese, and although nobody on the crew spoke the language, they could decipher the meaning from the gestures and the situation. Other men passed out as well, and they too were propped back up by their crewmates.
Through the night they stood, the guards taking turns walking up and down the lines, randomly stopping to punch someone, sometimes in the face, sometimes in the stomach. By dawn, everyone had been knocked to the floor at least once, each collapse greeted by laughter from the other guards.
Daylight brought the hot tropical sun, draining the strength of the men even more. Still, no one brought them food.
It was Chuck’s turn to go to the head. This had been the men’s only respite, a trip made three at a time: out the door and down the corridor to the left, accompanied by a guard. The head was a small windowless room, containing only a toilet. Chuck and the other two men squeezed inside, shutting the door; the guard stood outside. While the other men urinated, Chuck quietly lifted the tank lid. Using both hands, he scooped out a handful of tank water and poured it into his mouth, swallowing slowly, savoring each drop. The other men did the same.
The second day passed and the men had still not been allowed to sleep or eat. Like almost everyone else, Chuck had a black eye and a swollen lip.
On the third day, the shutters on the window were opened and he looked out onto the courtyard. Two guards appeared, holding a stumbling man in khakis between them. His face and arms were a mass of bruises, his eyes swollen shut; he had been beaten almost to the point of being unrecognizable. It was Captain Fitzgerald.
Dragging him across the grass, the guards stopped next to a long wooden bench. Two other guards stood alongside, holding clubs the size of baseball bats. Fitzgerald was placed on the bench, then, on signal, the guards started raining down blows on his arms, legs, and chest like they were driving a circus tent stake. It was a contest to see who could hit the hardest and make the captain scream the loudest. Five … ten … thirty blows. They took a breather and started again.
Chuck felt like throwing up.
The beating lasted ten minutes, then a guard took two leather straps and tied Fitzgerald to the bench, his head dangling over the edge. He was barely conscious. Another guard raised one end of the bench, elevating Fitzgerald’s feet above his head at a 30-degree angle. A guard carrying a teakettle approached.
With one guard holding a hand over Fitzgerald’s mouth, another slowly poured the water out of the teakettle up his nose. He coughed and choked, flailing his arms, desperately gasping for air. Each time he moved, a guard hit him. Then another poured more water up his nose.
When the kettle was empty, they refilled it and poured it again up his nose. And again. And again.
Finally, Fitzgerald passed out.
Dragging the captain slowly back across the courtyard, the guards smirked, knowing they were being watched. They pulled him up the stairs and out of sight.
18
Bob Palmer
POW
The crew nicknamed the meanest guard Goldtooth Maizie (pronounced May-zee) because of the gold cap on one of his front teeth. When the light hit it just right, it sparkled, and he liked to flash it when he glared at the crew.
On this morning, he’d chosen Bob Palmer to pull out of line. Slowly, he ran his bayonet down Bob’s forehead, pressing just hard enough to break the skin and leave a trickle of blood. Bob felt the cold steel continue down the midline of his face, between his eyes and down his nose, stopping on his upper lip. Goldtooth Maizie held it there for several seconds, grinning, flashing his gold tooth. Then, with a quick upward flick, the sharp edge of the bayonet ripped into the bottom of his nose, blood squirting everywhere.
Goldtooth Maizie shoved him back in line.
For three days Bob had been a captive, and for three days he had not
eaten or slept or even sat down except on the ship.
But his suffering was not nearly as bad as that of his crewmate Charles Taylor, who’d gotten a bad case of gonorrhea in Fremantle; he had been trying to treat it with sulfur pills while on patrol, without much success. It had gotten much worse since being captured; his testicles had swollen to several times their normal size. To help relieve the pressure, he’d torn a hole in the crotch of his pants. His testicles had turned a grotesque purplish blue, extending like an eggplant out of the hole in his pants. He could only move if he reached down and cradled them in his hands to relieve the pressure. At times the pain was excruciating, and he would moan and double over. Crewmates pleaded to the guards to get him treatment; instead they made him stand at attention or crawl around like a dog, sometimes poking at his testicles with their gun butts.
Just prior to the scuttling of the ship, Bob had hustled back down below deck and fetched a bottle of sulfur pills. Several other men on the crew had seen him do this, including Chuck, and when someone questioned him about it, Bob claimed he did it for Taylor. Chuck didn’t buy it, believing Bob had gotten the pills for himself.
As hellish as the physical torture was, the uncertainty was worse. What was coming next? Bob wondered. Would they be lined up against a wall and shot? Would they be starved to death? Would the torture and beatings get worse? Did the Navy know they were there or that their ship was missing? Would his resolve to survive weaken?
Sometimes it was hard to think about anything other than his immediate situation and surviving the next five minutes, or the bayonet being pricked under his nose. He tried to think about Barbara. He closed his eyes and saw her standing next to him at the church in San Francisco on their wedding night; how beautiful she looked. He remembered lying in bed next to her, his arms around her; how good she felt. He created a dinner menu in his head: big slices of honey baked ham, with mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. It was the glazed carrots he savored, the sweet taste filling his senses.
