National Affairs: The Endurance of Lou Zamperini

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Prisoners of War. One ordeal was over. The fishermen treated them decently. And when Zamperini and Philips were delivered to the base at Wotje, Japs there also treated them decently. But when they were moved again to Kwajalein, another ordeal began.

Guards, jabbing them with pointed sticks, made them sing and dance for their amusement, hurled them food — gobs of rice — so that they had to scramble for the grains on the filthy cell floor. Learning that Zamperini was a famous miler, they forced him to compete against healthy Jap runners, bribed him (with food) to stall so the Japs could score a glorious victory.

They were shifted to Truk, put aboard a transport for Japan. Men in the crew, infuriated when the flyers said they thought Japan would lose the war, punched them in the face, broke Zamperini's nose. For weeks he held the broken bones in place until they had healed.

In September, they arrived in Yokohama, where a Jap officer struck Zamperini's nose with a flashlight because, when they were transporting him in a sedan, he could not get his long legs under a jump seat.

Then they were dumped into the prison camp at Amomori.

"The Bird." The man Zamperini will never forget was Sergeant Watanabe, who made prisoners do "pushups" over latrine troughs until they collapsed with their faces in the excrement, who beat Zamperini on the head until he bled, gave him bits of paper to staunch the wounds and when the blood stopped, said "Oh, it stop, eh?" and beat him again. Watanabe had a head like a frog's. The prisoners called him "The Bird."

Zamperini was shifted to Naoetsu and to Naoetsu went The Bird, still practising his cruelties and abominations. When prisoners came out of the glutted, maggoty toilets, he forced them to lick clean their fouled shoe soles. At other times he lined up a handful of U.S. officers, ordered U.S. enlisted men to go down the line, punching each officer in the face, while he stood there crying, "Next, next" until it became a chant that haunted prisoners' dreams.

It was at Naoetsu that Zamperini finally heard the news that Japan had surrendered. The Bird had already flown. Solicitous guards bowed Zamperini and Philips to freedom.

Last week, almost 28 months after he had crashed, Zamperini was headed home. If he knew he had to go through it again, he said bitterly, "I would kill myself."