Baa Baa Black Sheep

by Gregory Boyington

  The women of Japan seemed to be especially kind. I never heard of any of them being ornery to the prisoners. As a matter of fact, even the people in bombed-out homes would give the prisoners, when nobody was looking, small portions of food salvaged from their own wreckage, or anything else they thought the prisoners could use—as long as the guards did not catch on.

  Contrary to what people would think, the guards who gave us the most trouble on the whole were the young ones who never had left the mainland. Those who had been out to different parts of the world and had seen action, and even some of those who had been terribly wounded, seemed to be of much better nature than the young ones who had stayed in Japan. These were the fellows who administered most of the beatings.

  Uniforms can do strange things to some people during their first weeks. Now I can appreciate even better why the Marine Corps wants to wear the newness off a boot’s uniform by sending him through boot camp prior to turning him loose on the public at large.

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  33

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  As long as people are still alive to talk about the end of this war, and before getting into the next one, each person no doubt will have his own version of where he was, what he thought, and what he did on the day hostilities ceased.

  This was the case after the First World War, as we know; and, judging from our grandparents, it was the case after the Civil War; and so the whole thing must have continued this way right on back to Helen of Troy.

  Under the circumstances, and because we are individuals, each person’s version must remain somewhat different, how he received the news and what he did immediately afterward. The end of a war suddenly can become such a personal matter, and all at once, that the only way we can be honest in telling of our reactions is by merely sticking to our own and letting others stick to theirs.

  So, even if this chapter does seem personal, too personal, that is all I can do about it or should do about it. For, after all, I was only one of a billion who had his own feelings during those transforming hours.

  The day hostilities ceased I was lying ill with yellow jaundice on my straw mat back at camp. The guard on duty called me over to him. He was one of the elderly guards and had never given us any trouble, so I believed, more or less, what he said, although I cannot say that it quite dawned on me.

  He told me in Japanese that the war was over. I stared at him. He repeated himself, saying: “Yes, the war is over. It was over fifteen minutes ago. Don’t tell anybody I told you, because if it is found out the officers will punish me.”

  I really did not believe that the war was over. I thought that maybe there was some sort of a peace parley going on. I knew definitely that something important had happened. The rest of my gang had been working in a mine shaft and came home early that afternoon, and said that they were told to bring out the light equipment and take home all the tools.

  A party of Englishmen who used to go down daily and work on the railroad yards all came home that afternoon. It was different from any other day we had seen them come home because this time they were all singing.

  Every night and every morning we had to stand in formation. I would stand at the head and give the command to attention and so forth, and salute the Japanese duty officer and his staff as they came by. But this evening, after I had given the final salute, I said to my own people: “Hey, fellows, we don’t know whether this is over, but I would like to suggest something.”

  They said: “What is it?”

  I said: “Let’s stay in formation and all repeat the Lord’s Prayer together.”

  We did, and after we got through one little prisoner said: “Oh, Greg, that sounds so wonderful, why didn’t we include that with every one of these formations?”

  Although I have had my share of nightmares in my day, the remainder of this night was about the largest and longest real nightmare I ever hope to have. I don’t believe that I could stand a much longer one.

  Looking back, in a different light, I am able to appreciate the utter disillusionment and hopelessness some of these poor Japanese guards must have felt. I can feel for them now but truthfully cannot say that I appreciated any part of it at the time it happened.

  Resorting to alcohol to try to solve one’s problems, or to try to attain peace of mind, was thoroughly familiar to me. And I can understand why the majority of the guards proceeded to get drunk. Furthermore, had I been invited, I probably would have gladly joined them in their drinking—but for the opposite reason. Any reason is a good one, though, if one happens to be an alcoholic, or emotionally immature.

  All seventeen of us were awakened from sweet dreams, not by the drunken shouting coming from the various guard quarters at Omouri, but by the guard on duty at our doorway. He was trying to be calm and suppress his anxiety, saying: “The guards are getting very drunk. Some are threatening to kill all the American prisoners. Here is a hammer and some nails for you to nail your door closed. And don’t worry, because I’ll protect you with my life—because that is my duty.” So we proceeded to put the hammer and nails to good use without delay.

  Before long we could recognize the drunken shouting of a non-commissioned officer we had always considered to be a right guy, and he said: “Let me at the captives. I am going to kill all of them. I’ll prove to them that Japan is greater than the United States. Let me at them.”

  Through the cracks and windows we were able to see this drunken character staggering around outside. Our guard was restraining the drunk as best he could, trying his utmost to pacify him. The drunk would break away occasionally, and take huge slashes at the air with his double-handled samurai sword, such huge slashes that he almost fell on his tail each time he swung. Then he would beat upon our door until I thought that he would surely break it down, when all he had to do was walk through one of the windows. But a drunk never does anything the easy way, I know.

  This non-com would wear himself down with his antics, then sober up slightly from the physical exertion. He would disappear for a while, returning to the guards’ quarters for more drink and confidence from his fellow-drunks. Several of these door-breaking attempts were so serious, in my estimation, that I stood to one side in back of our doorway, clutching the handle of the hammer our guard had given us. I fully intended to make the first swing upon this drunken non-com’s head, regardless of any consequences, had he accidentally or otherwise bolted through the nailed-up door. Thank God he didn’t!

  Our guard at the door talked to us in his free moments, informing us that several of the guards had vowed among themselves to commit hari-kiri before the night was over. He mentioned one whom all of us prisoners liked, an exceptionally large Japanese, and said that this fellow was then in the midst of his hari-kiri ceremony.

  During the previous twenty months of my captivity I had listened to so many tales about hari-kiri and Kamikaze that I thought these were coming out of my ears. Bunk, I thought. Somebody would be capable of wanting to take as many of his enemies along with him as he could, but this junk, never.

  No, I was wrong, the guard insisted, it was a tradition in Japan.

  Then I thought of all the head-on runs I had made with Japanese fighter pilots in the past. In all cases I had had a more durable aircraft, and greater fire-power than these Japanese had. About the only method they could have used to beat me was to have flown head-on into my plane, killing us both. Yet, these pilots had chosen to give ground.

  My point was verified the following morning, as we hadn’t lost a single Japanese. The big fellow had only been able to cut his belly sufficiently deep, during his lengthy ceremony, so that the wound could be covered by a Bandaid. Another had cut one wrist slightly.

  Not that these Japanese weren’t suffering, because they most certainly were, something horrible, for this happened to be the largest number of hangovers in one place of one nationality that I ever witnessed in my life.

  The following day it really dawned on us that something must be over, because the Japanese comma
nding officer, who never had given us even a nod of kindness, came through our barracks and wanted to know, through the interpreter, how the living conditions were and so forth. The old son of a bitch must have been awfully stupid, I thought, not to think we could understand all we wanted to without the aid of an interpreter.

  The next thing we knew, we were all being issued new clothing, the only decent clothing we ever were given. Then the Japanese medical officer started sending in vitamin pills. It said on the bottles: “Take so many of these; take so many of these!” Each time more vitamin pills would come in. We had cod-liver-oil pills, multivitamin pills, and iron pills. Well, we tried to follow the directions and after about three days I was belching iron ore, cod-liver oil, and everything else. I had to quit.

  After five days we were notified that we could go talk to the regular prisoners of war. This was a great day, one we had been looking forward to for a long, long time.

  When we were finally released, I experienced something of which I had had a premonition a year and a half before. One day I was walking on my crutches out to the latrine, and on the way back I had stopped to talk to a couple of the boys. I had said to them: “Gee, I had the wildest dream last night.”

  “Yeah, what was it?”

  “Well, I dreamed that I was in a building something like a schoolhouse, a very modern building, and I was reading a Japanese newspaper and I could read it just as plain as day. It was in the early fall and this newspaper said that the war was over.”

  Then I had continued limping down to my cell. The boys—I could see them as I looked over my shoulder—were all shaking their heads because, as I was sick with this infected leg, I guess they thought: “Well, what do you know, old Gramps has finally flipped his wicket.”

  Now, here it was fall, a year and a half later, and I did read in a Japanese newspaper (I had no idea a year and a half previously that they printed one in English), in the Nippon Times, that the war was over!

  The dream, or the premonition, had come true.

  On the sixth day after the war they moved us to different quarters. According to my rank, I was now placed in a room with a Navy officer, a submarine commander, and then we had our first visit by the Red Cross, the Swiss.

  There were a couple of ladies in the crowd and they, no doubt, had been there through the whole war and had known of our existence but apparently they could not get permission to visit us. Now they were coming by, smiling at each prisoner and wanting to know how he had been mistreated and this, that, and the other thing. They actually sickened me with their talk. The way I felt, there were many things they could have done for us. They could have smuggled out our names, even though we were special prisoners.

  I think it is just as right for anybody with the Red Cross on his arm, whether Swiss or not, to fight for what that Red Cross represents as it is for a poor boy in khaki uniform to fight for what his cause is supposed to be. So I had nothing to say to these people.

  On this subject, months later when I was in Washington to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, in this line-up to receive the same honor was a young fellow who bore the Red Cross. He was a hospital corpsman, and as he stepped by I really got a big lump right in my throat. This man had one eye shot out as well as many other injuries. He had been a conscientious objector (before the war), but he had earned his medal by proving what he thought was right. He had received his injuries while picking up Marines on the fire-swept hills on Iwo Jima.* He had then, in his own way, really fought for what he believed.

  About ten days after the war, or the cessation of hostilities, I should say, our own planes, Navy and Air Corps, came over these camps and started dropping clothes and foodstuffs. The prisoners went wild. They were running all over the place, and when the B-29s started dropping fifty-gallon drums packed solid with concentrated foods by parachute, I took to an air-raid shelter.

  One prisoner said: “Why don’t you stay out here and get some of this stuff? You can watch these things come down and they wont hit you.”

  “Nuts to that,” I answered. “After living through all I have, I’m damned if I’m going to be killed by being hit on the head by a crate of peaches.”

  There actually were three or four lives lost among the prisoners after the war was over by parcels dropped from our own planes.

  Then, a few days later, some of the boys decided to paint my name on one of the buildings. What they used for paint was Japanese tooth powder. They mixed it with water and had a rag for a brush. They painted in big letters: “Pappy Boyington here!”

  The following morning a Navy plane flew by. We could see that he was taking a look, because he dipped his wing, this being the usual way a pilot takes a look. Then he circled around and came back again, and we could see somebody in the rear seat grinding a motion-picture camera.

  All these months I had been wondering what my reaction would be on being rescued. I could imagine myself crying, maybe laughing and jumping around, doing practically anything. As I looked around, all these prisoners were now doing these things. But for my own part I was numb. I just couldn’t feel. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t laugh.

  As the Higgins boats docked, the sailors jumped out and stuck three flags into the sand on the beach. There was little wind, so the flags did not unfurl immediately. But I walked toward the nearest flagstaff, the one on my right, and slowly raised my eyes, letting them follow the flagstaff from the sand to the top. And there on top was a Dutch flag. I lowered my eyes then, and walked over to the second flagstaff, and did what I did before—letting my eyes move slowly up from the sand to the top. There I saw the flag of England. Then I walked over to the third flagstaff, and did the same thing all over again. And on top this time was the flag of the United States.

  I had been a slave now for more than twenty months, and as I looked up at this flag now, which had released me, which had made me a free man, I did something which today may seem oversentimental. I did not have a hat on, and I knew that a Marine is not supposed to salute uncovered, but just right then and there I gave this flag the snappiest salute I have ever given her.

  As I turned and walked away from the flags, a gentleman I had seen two years previously, when I had a short talk with him, came up to me and stuck out his hand. God knows how he recognized me, because I didn’t look anything like I had two years ago. But there stood Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota.

  He said: “God sakes, Pappy, we didn’t know you were alive until we saw that picture the plane took this morning. We were out here on the cruiser San Juan. The official signing isn’t going to be for five days, but we couldn’t stay out there anchored just a thousand yards from you boys and let you stay here any longer.”

  The Japanese colonel in command of the camp did not want to turn the prisoners loose because there had not been an official signing, so our American visitors sent back to the ship and brought out a couple of platoons of Marines. The camp commander asked what these people were for, and the answer was: “Oh, just to help things along, help get the boys out of camp.”

  So the commander permitted us to leave the camp. The dignified old Japanese colonel, I heard later, had lost his boots, sword, and collar insignia to some of the prisoners. He must have been awfully disgraced.

  In the past I had been on many boats going ashore. They had been called liberty boats. But this was the first time I ever took the first one away from shore back to the ship. This Higgins boat took us aboard one of our beautiful hospital ships, the Benevolence.

  I went up the gangway, and somebody told me to go down a certain ladder and turn to the right. As I went down the ladder I was almost bowled over by one of the cutest little nurses I ever have seen. I do not think it was altogether because I had been away from women all this time, for this little nurse was really cute. I did not have presence of mind to say “pardon me” or anything.

  I had started to turn to the right, as we had been directed, and then I thought: “Oh no, I had better turn around.” I turned a
round and said: “Hey you, baby.”

  She said: “Hello, big boy.”

  I said: “How about a smooch?”

  She threw her arms around my neck and about the time we were in the middle of a clinch somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said: “This way, bub. Take your clothes off and take a disinfectant shower, and we will issue some new clothes.”

  After getting cleaned up we were sent down to the dining room. If I ever had prayed for a meal, we had just exactly what I would have asked for in our first meal that evening aboard the Benevolence. It was ham and eggs.

  I had about five orders of ham and eggs, and some poor little starved B-29 pilot sitting across from me just shook his head sadly and said: “My God, Greg. I wish I could put all the stuff away that you do.”

  Many of the boys could not eat. I was lucky. I guess part of the reason I was always able to eat everything that was given to me in Japan was because I was raised on poor man’s food, which consisted of a great many starches. I had very little dysentery all along the line. Most of the prisoners were troubled terribly with this.

  After a short screening by the medical department, those of us who were permitted to travel were put off onto another ship. I immediately found an icebox next to my stateroom, and while I was looking at it a Navy chief walked up to me and told me that if I wanted anything just to help myself. So that is where I spent most of the next two days. A couple of old chiefs came in there and were talking to me and one said: “We thought we had a new chief aboard.” I guess I really made myself a member of their mess, twenty-four hours a day.