Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (10 page)

I also tied parachute cords around each airman and a secure part of the plane. Rather than make a knot that would tighten on impact and be next to impossible to untie, I simply looped the cord and gave each man an end. They’d be secure yet could free themselves easily.

Finally, the moment of truth arrived. Our wheels hit the blacktop and the plane grumbled and creaked. Suddenly it ground-looped, spinning us off the runway to the left and right at another B-24 coming our way. After all we’d gone through, would it end with two 4-engine bombers smashing into each other on the tarmac?

Cupernell instinctively hit the right pedal, even though he knew we didn’t have any brakes. There was just enough fluid in the well to cause the wheel to momentarily lock, swinging us ninety degrees to the right. Seems the cannon fire that had narrowly missed my face had also entered the left tire and flattened it, which had caused the ground loop and cleared us of the runway.

We stopped.

HOW EERIE THE
sudden silence. I jumped out and gave the cross signal, and the marines raced out to help us. One marine was way out in front of the others, and when we came face to face I shouted, “Art!” and he shouted, “Louie!” It was Art Redding, a USC champion half-miler and pilot. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” he asked. (Later, poor Art crashed off Funafuti and was eaten by a shark.) We hurried to evacuate the injured, but the marines, graciously, would not allow me to help. I went ahead to meet the doctor. He introduced himself as Dr. Roberts, which was an odd coincidence since I’d taken my first advanced first-aid course at USC from another Dr. Roberts.

Wanting to be with my crew, I asked Roberts if I could help. He said, “From what I’m looking at I can use all the help I can get.”

Ambulances hauled seven men to the hospital for emergency operations. Afterward the doctor said, “If it wasn’t for the proper medical care you gave the injured, three would have died. You saved two, and the copilot saved another.”

Later, Phil and Cup attended the briefing where Brigadier General Landon and Major General Hale evaluated the mission’s success. They discussed the tragedies that struck our first flight over the target. They knew we’d encountered fierce opposition. We were in the lead flight because, as in the marines, the best go first. We spearheaded the raid to knock out enemy antiaircraft nests and Zero fighters, thus paving the way for the trailing flights and providing them with uninterrupted bomb runs on the phosphate factories. It was months before they’d be able to resume production. What’s more, the Japanese had been duped into sending out their available fighters against our flight, leaving the coast clear for the rest to shuttle in and out of the target area at will. We heard that there was scant antiaircraft fire to bother the later flights, and only two Zeroes, which, seeing their heavy losses, decided not to mix it up.

Both generals credited Phillips and Cupernell with a miraculous performance in bringing the badly damaged
Superman
back without a crash, and on April 21 they said so to Charles Arnot, the war correspondent for the
Honolulu Advertiser
. General Hale then came to the hospital to pin the Palm Leaf on our wounded crew members.

Our B-24 was put on display, the center of attention. The marines and airmen swarmed around counting cannon and bullet holes. General Hale said we had the worst-shot-up B-24 that ever limped back to the base: 4 cannon holes, 2 heavy antiaircraft hits, 500 shrapnel holes, and 150 7.7-millimeter bullet holes. The nose and upper turrets were useless. The right tail was gone. We had truly made it on a wing and prayer.

I went to General Hale to give him a breakdown of our mission. I told him of Phillips’s and Cupernell’s skill and courage. I told him of the gunners who had delayed medical attention to keep on shooting. I recommended a commendation for these men, but the general didn’t seem to be listening, so I stopped talking and went back to the hospital.

Arnot had just returned from checking out the damage to
Superman
and found me there. He asked how it felt when I was faced with the task of patching up the wounded. I said, “It was the toughest race of my life.”

In the interview I gave Arnot and a marine major, who was also a pilot, a blow-by-blow description of our engagement with the enemy. The major said, “After examining your bomber and from what I saw in the hospital, I would say that besides a batch of Purple Hearts, your crew most certainly earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.”

Like all flyers, I knew the Cross stood for “heroism and extraordinary achievement in aerial flight,” but I said, “Just being able to help is reward enough for me.”

Just then Dr. Roberts came in and said, “Lieutenant Zamperini, your radioman, Brooks, just died.” Sad. Mentally, physically, and now emotionally worn out, I went to my tent and fell asleep.

I SLIPPED INTO
my bunk that night not knowing that one of our pilots had panicked during the mission and broken radio silence. He’d called Command to ask, “Should we take the heading back to Guadalcanal?”—which we were supposed to do before cutting over to our real destination—“Or shall we go directly back to Funafuti?”

About one in the morning I awoke to the sound of aircraft overhead. I thought, Well, somebody’s coming in from the States. Wrong.
The Japanese had intercepted the pilot’s radio transmission and learned our location. We had no warning because the marines, evidently, had not been fully alert and had not picked up the planes on their radar. Or maybe, like me, they thought they were friendly.

Explosions started at the far end of the island as Sally or Betty bombers, or both, pattern-bombed our installation. The attack continued for ninety minutes and did considerable damage. Every airman in my tent immediately and spontaneously dashed for cover, no matter that it was raining and we were clad only in our briefs. We tumbled into an air-raid shelter dug under a native hut and jammed in like sardines, our hearts pounding. Someone landed on top of me. Just then—
boom
—a mortar hit and blew my tent and the war correspondents’ tent to kingdom come. Later I found a reporter huddled over his mangled typewriter mourning it as if it were a close friend.

More damage. During the first pass, a frag bomb ripped an army truck to pieces and mangled three men from the 371st to ribbons. On the second pass the church took a direct hit. Fortunately we had evacuated two minutes earlier and also told the natives to hide in foxholes. Three died when they didn’t get inside far enough. On the third pass they killed more soldiers. On the fourth pass we took direct hits on two B-24s, each fully gassed and stocked with bombs. Later we found landing gear and motors four hundred yards away.

The Japanese laid tiny Funafuti to waste and got us good, ruining several planes, demolishing the personnel area, and filling our makeshift hospital with dead and dying. I went to the field hospital again to help Dr. Roberts.

The next day we remained on alert, waiting for the Japanese to return. They didn’t. Eventually the commander ordered incomplete crews and those without ships but fit for combat to fly back to Canton. Those still in good shape flew to Tarawa to retaliate.

The day after that we left Canton for Palmyra, a beautiful island of palm trees and coral eight hundred miles south of Hawaii that served as a navy and marine base. It was gorgeous and almost like another world after what we’d been through. (Years later, former Los Angeles district attorney Vincent Bugliosi would write about a murder that happened there in
And the Sea Shall Tell
.) I ran into a few fellows from
USC, and spent some time at the officers’ club. They also had a swell theater. I saw
They Died with Their Boots On
, starring Errol Flynn, had a few beers, took a hot shower, and went to sleep glad I was alive and that my boots were under the bed.

FOR SOME REASON,
when General Hale submitted his report of our mission to headquarters in Hawaii he wrote that the destruction had been very light. It wasn’t true and it made me mad. Half our planes were hit, ours the worst. And though everyone made it back to Funafuti, we lost ships there on the ground when the Japanese retaliated. I still have pictures that show the total devastation. Few of our B-24s could be salvaged. Caught in their bunkers, they exploded and left holes thirty feet deep and eighty feet across.

Of course, Hale never recommended Distinguished Flying Crosses for
Superman
’s crew. I credit this omission to a lack of communication between General Hale and myself. I believe the trouble started shortly after I arrived in Hawaii. After any raid, the press would interview the commanding officer; if I was on the mission they’d also talk to me, the famous Olympian. Sometimes our stories didn’t exactly jibe; more often my picture appeared instead of General Hale’s. I’m convinced he resented that, but the press was right. You had to talk to the soldier on the front line to get the story. As General Colin Powell has said, “In battle, to get the real dirt, head for the trenches.” Of course, it’s not the whole story; no one plane or infantryman can see the whole picture. You’re so focused on your job and staying alive that you are usually unaware of what anyone else is doing. That’s why we had debriefings. Every man would tell his story, and the commanding officer and his staff would put the pieces together.

When General Hale put the pieces of the Nauru raid together, he didn’t present all the facts, as far as I’m concerned, and our crew, which to my mind and others’ had more than earned a Distinguished Flying Cross, was passed over. As far as the history of World War II is concerned, I am sure that there were as many discrepancies as with history in general. As Will and Ariel Durant have written, “Most history is guessing, the rest is prejudice.” Still, I got mad and sick to my
stomach when I read what General Hale said: “One plane got hit.” My crew just said, “Tell him to shove it. We don’t want any medals. Not when they give them away indiscriminately to some people and then, when people really earn it, they aren’t recognized. It’s a farce. Think of all the guys who should have had medals and didn’t get them. They’re dead.”

I had to agree. In the end a medal doesn’t mean a hill of beans. We all know what we did.

BECAUSE DANGER AND
death were all around, I did what I could to distract myself. A time-honored way was to needle crewmates, or get back at them for needling you.

At Kahuku we lived in a barracks with a room on each end. A crew that didn’t return left one unoccupied, so I took it. It came with an icebox that had three shelves. I gave a shelf to Phil and one to Cupernell. Whenever I’d get a ration of beer I’d put it on my shelf. But too often I’d find my beer gone. All of it. At first it was kind of funny, but we only got a small ration of beer and the joke quickly wore off. I decided to get even.

One morning we were supposed to report to our ship to swing the compass. That meant taking off and following various headings to check their accuracy with the navigator. They did not require me on the run, but I showed up before Phil and Cupernell got there. While the ground crew prepped the plane, I walked around the ship, chewing a big mouthful of gum, like I was in the midst of a preflight inspection. Working my way to the nose, I found the two small holes I wanted: drain openings for hoses in the cockpit that connected to the pilot relief tubes; in other words, funnels into which the pilot and copilot peed while flying. The urine ran down the hoses, and the wind sucked it out.

I plugged both holes with gum.

When the crew reported for duty, I got on the ship with everybody else. I went to my post in the bomb bay, and we taxied to the end of the runway for takeoff.

Procedure calls for closing the bomb-bay doors just prior to hitting the gas. Before the doors shut I dropped onto the tarmac and dashed
off the runway. It’s a big ship inside and nobody missed me. Phil took off assuming I was onboard. Instead, I headed for Honolulu.

Later the engineer gave me a blow-by-blow description of all the fun I’d missed. When Phil had to urinate he used his funnel. Instead of emptying, it filled to the brim. Phil needed one hand to balance the funnel so it didn’t spill. He couldn’t figure out the problem, so he called the engineer, who decided to pour the excess into the copilot’s funnel. Cupernell didn’t mind, but first he wanted to take
his
leak. When his funnel filled as well, no one could believe it. Two malfunctions simultaneously?

There they were, balancing their funnels and trying to fly.

The first bit of air turbulence was the coup de grâce.

Phil and Cupernell landed, soaked. The engineer went under the ship, found the gum, and scooped it out. Then they came looking for me, but I was already gone. Phil, who called me Zamp unless he was mad, kept hollering, “Where’s Zamperini?” He figured I had to be nearby, but I stayed in Honolulu for a couple of days.

When I got back they were still uptight. I treated their complaints casually. “Hey, no use getting sore about it,” I said. “After all, I gave you a lesson, a hands-on experiment, in the laws of physics: liquid seeks its own level. Just like my beer.”

They looked at me, puzzled, then half grinned. My punishment was to pay for a few beers, after which they felt much better, and my rations never disappeared again.

I STILL WANTED
my revenge for the carpet bombing on Funafuti, and I found it during a raid on Tarawa. Operating out of Canton Island in the South Pacific, we were on a secret two-plane photoreconnaissance and bombing mission covering the Marshall Islands. The squadron commander had two specific targets in mind: Tarawa on the first mission, Makin on the second. Tarawa was covered with broken clouds, which prevented photographs and bombing. We flew in circles, hoping to find an opening, until our engineer reported the fuel supply dangerously low. We had also lost sight of our lead plane. Cupernell said, “I’ll bet that damn colonel headed back without telling
us.” Just then a stern voice came over the radio. “I heard that, Cupernell,” the colonel said. “Salvo your bombs and head for home.”