Chapters 19 + 20

Not one day on the ship and the crewmen were beating on both Phil and Louie. We finally see the cartoon cutout that Louie had in his wallet again. Amazing the things that tie in together, from chapter 7 this artifact is given a purpose. Once taken to the island he is dressed and met with the faithful companion from college, Jimmie Sasaki. He was the head of POW interrogation, a far cry from college buddy. After interrogation he was escorted to where he would live, he was given the rules of his stay: nobody knew he was alive and the Japanese could do anything they wanted in this base (which was top secret), he was not allowed to speak to anyone but guards. Not allowed to have his hands in his pockets or make eye contact with anything but the ground. His cell was about as shelter like as a rice paper tipi. This camp seems a lot like Guantanamo bay. With its large amount of prisoners and the ridiculous situations the prisoners are put through. Then the book mentions the “night of a thousand suicides” a mass suicide attempt by the Japanese to avoid living in shame in a POW camp. The whole notion of irresponsible power and there being no sympathy toward the POWs at all became a widely known fact to all of the prisoners. Also known to the prisoners became the “kill all” rule. If any allied advances made rescue a remote possibility the prisoners were to be executed, this was no problem for the majority of the guards. The reason for suicides (Japanese) as described in the book and from watching documentaries along with this book, was because the Japanese were since childhood forced to believe that being captured would bring many years of shame upon them and their family. Pride must have been a driving force when the troops would kill themselves or fight hopeless battles to the death.