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

“the night of a thousand suicides”: “Cowra Outbreak, 1944,” Fact Sheet 198, National Archives of Australia,

http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/publications/fact-sheets/fs198.aspx

(accessed September 23, 2009); Harry Gordon,

Voyage from Shame: The Cowra Breakout and Afterwards

(Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1994). While the Cowra incident is sometimes described simply as an escape attempt, the event’s authoritative historian, Harry Gordon, describes it as a “mass suicide bid.” While some Japanese POWs remained in camp and committed suicide or were killed by other POWs, those who made the breakout run, including hundreds who ran directly at camp machine guns, were trying to force the Australians to kill them. According to one survivor, they carried weapons to “show hostility … so they would surely be shot at” and carried implements to use to kill themselves if the Australians didn’t kill them. Some who successfully escaped later killed themselves to avoid recapture.

16

Frederick Douglass: Frederick Douglass,

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

(Cheswold: Prestwick House, 2004), p. 33.

17

Kitamura: Files on Sueharu Kitamura, RG 331, RAOOH, WWII, 1907–1966, SCAP, Legal Section, Administration Division (10/02/1945–04/28/1952?), NACP.

18

Hirose saves POW from beating: Affidavit, Frederick Dewitt Turnbull, from Case Docket No. 216: Katsuo Kohara (Vol. I, Record of Trial–Vol. II, Exhibits) 1945–1949, RG 331, RAOOH, WWII 1907–1966, SCAP, Legal Section, Administration Division (10/02/1945–04/28/1952?), NACP.

19

Child’s sympathy for POWs: Lewis Bush,

Clutch of Circumstance

(Tokyo: Okuyama, 1956), p. 184.

20

“The general opinion”: Yukichi Kano, “Statement of Yukichi Kano Tokio P.O.W. Camp H.Q. (Omori),” undated, from papers of Robert Martindale.

21

Sympathetic guard assaulted: Boyington, p. 257.

22

Food: John A. Fitzgerald, POW diary, Papers of John A. Fitzgerald, Operational Archives Branch, NHC, Washington, D.C.; Boyington, pp. 270–71; Gamble, p. 328; Louis Zamperini, 1946 notes on captive experience.

23

“We were dying”: Jean Balch, “Yorktown Aviator: My Experience as Prisoner of War,”

www.ussyorktown.com/yorktown/pow.htm

(accessed July 1, 2004).

24

Beriberi: Alfred A. Weinstein,

Barbed Wire Surgeon

(New York: Lancer Books, 1965), p. 83; Tom Henling Wade,

Prisoner of the Japanese

(Kenthurst, Australia: Kangaroo, 1994), p. 44; Gamble, p. 324.

25

Tarawa: Gavan Daws,

Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific

(New York: William Morrow, 1994), p. 278.

26

Ballale: Peter Stone,

Hostages to Freedom

(Yarram, Australia: Oceans Enterprises, 2006).

27

Wake massacre: Daws, p. 279; Major Mark E. Hubbs, “Massacre on Wake Island,” Yorktown Sailor,

http://www.yorktownsailor.com/yorktown/massacre.html