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American prisoners of war in Japanese camps sometimes learned of battlefield defeats before the guards holding them. On Luzon, a starving American captain watched more than a hundred U.S. planes cross the sky after two and a half years without seeing one—a striking moment in this World War II story of information, endurance, and captivity in the Pacific.
A secret radio is only part of the account. From a prison farm on Mindanao to a sealed room in a Tokyo newspaper, the story traces how captives pieced together news of the war despite isolation, hunger, and punishment. It’s a military history narrative about American POWs, Japanese prison camps, wartime intelligence, and the uneven flow of news across the Pacific.
For listeners seeking WW2 stories, Pacific War history, Japanese POW camp accounts, and calm historical narration, this documentary-style story offers a focused look at how prisoners followed the war from behind the wire. Suitable for history listening, background listening, or exploring lesser-known stories of World War II captivity.
A secret radio is only part of the account. From a prison farm on Mindanao to a sealed room in a Tokyo newspaper, the story traces how captives pieced together news of the war despite isolation, hunger, and punishment. It’s a military history narrative about American POWs, Japanese prison camps, wartime intelligence, and the uneven flow of news across the Pacific.
For listeners seeking WW2 stories, Pacific War history, Japanese POW camp accounts, and calm historical narration, this documentary-style story offers a focused look at how prisoners followed the war from behind the wire. Suitable for history listening, background listening, or exploring lesser-known stories of World War II captivity.
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LearningTranscript
00:00September 21st, 1944, Cabanatuan Prison Camp, Central Luzon.
00:07Half past nine in the morning.
00:09Captain George Brundrette is lying in the dysentery ward when he hears it.
00:14Engines.
00:15Not one or two.
00:17Dozens, then more.
00:19A rolling sound that comes across the rice fields and doesn't stop.
00:24Brundrette has not seen an American airplane in two and a half years.
00:28Neither has anyone around him.
00:30They have heard Japanese planes come and go from the airfields near the camp so often
00:34that the sound has become part of the weather.
00:37This sound is different.
00:39So are the shapes.
00:41Heavier.
00:42Blunter.
00:44Unfamiliar.
00:45Planes these men have never seen, because those types had not yet reached the fleet when
00:50the Philippines fell.
00:52Then someone makes out the markings.
00:55That night, Brundrette opened a diary he kept hidden from the guards and wrote,
00:59Today is a red-letter day.
01:02I saw American planes over.
01:04More than 100 flew over this a.m. at 9.30.
01:09They came back at 10.30.
01:11At noon, he heard bombing and shooting down the road, and something was set on fire.
01:16The next day, he corrected himself.
01:18It had not been 100 planes on the 21st.
01:21It had been about 400.
01:23And by 8 o'clock that second evening, more than 100 more had gone over.
01:27Two of them strafed the airfield nearby.
01:30They were Navy fighters and dive bombers from Admiral William Halsey's fast carriers,
01:35sent to smash Japanese airfields and shipping on Luzon.
01:38To the men in the ward, they were something simpler.
01:42Proof.
01:43And on that same red-letter day, something else reached George Brundrette.
01:48A letter from his wife.
01:50It was dated July 8, 1943.
01:53It had taken more than 14 months to find him.
01:57Keep that number in mind.
01:5814 months.
02:00Because this whole story is about how long it takes the truth to travel,
02:04and who it reaches first.
02:06Now think about who was standing on the other side of the wire that morning.
02:10The guards at Kavanatuan were not starving.
02:12They were armed, fed, and connected to an empire.
02:16Radio stations, newspapers, headquarters.
02:20Officers who briefed them.
02:23Brundrette was a captain in a dysentery ward,
02:25taking quinine, his legs swollen with edema.
02:28The next day, he weighed himself.
02:31126 pounds.
02:33And yet, the man in the ward was about to understand this war
02:36more clearly than the men holding the rifles.
02:41Filipino guerrillas who watched the camp noticed something about those guards.
02:46Whenever American planes passed over, the Japanese grew agitated
02:50and kept scanning the sky long after the planes were gone.
02:53They had reason to be nervous.
02:56But they were about to be told a very different story.
03:00Here is what you need to remember.
03:02The carriers that launched those planes over Kavanatuan would,
03:05three and a half weeks later,
03:07become the subject of an official announcement from Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo.
03:12That announcement set off celebrations across Japan.
03:16The emperor issued a rescript of praise.
03:19And almost every number in it was false.
03:22The prisoners had every reason not to believe it.
03:25Many of the men guarding them had every reason, too.
03:28And that gap did not stop at the guard towers.
03:31It reached all the way up,
03:33into the planning rooms of the Japanese army,
03:35with consequences that tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers would pay for
03:39on an island called Leite.
03:42So that is the question at the center of this investigation.
03:46How did captured Americans,
03:48stripped of everything,
03:49cut off for years,
03:51unable to get a letter from home in under a year,
03:53come to know about Japanese defeats
03:56before the men guarding them did?
03:59The easy answer is a hidden radio.
04:01There were hidden radios.
04:03And we will go inside one.
04:05But that turns out to be only the first layer of the answer.
04:08And the shallowest.
04:10As we go,
04:12keep asking yourself one thing.
04:14What did the guards have that the prisoners didn't?
04:17And what did the prisoners carry with them
04:20that the guards could never be given?
04:22If the story of the American prisoners in the Pacific matters to you,
04:25please like this video and subscribe.
04:28It helps us keep digging through the records behind it.
04:31George Brundrette was a Texan,
04:34a graduate of Texas A&M,
04:36class of 1933.
04:38By the morning of the planes,
04:39he had been a prisoner since the spring of 1942.
04:43He had been held at the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao,
04:46a prison farm in the far south of the islands,
04:49before the Japanese moved him north,
04:51to Cabana Tuan.
04:53For two and a half years,
04:55news reached men like him
04:56the way water reaches a desert.
04:59In rumor.
05:01On August 29th,
05:03three weeks before the planes,
05:04he wrote,
05:05rumors are so good that I don't see how it can be so long
05:08before we will be together again.
05:11Rumors were what a prisoner lived on.
05:13Or so it seemed.
05:15Because underneath the rumors,
05:17in some camps,
05:18there was something harder.
05:20Something with wires.
05:23Back at Davao,
05:24the Japanese camp commandant
05:26had needed a repairman.
05:27His personal radio was an American set,
05:30a Zenith.
05:31So he put out a call for a prisoner
05:33who could fix radios.
05:35An army captain named Russell Hutchison answered it.
05:39What Hutchison did with that job
05:41would give the prisoners their ears.
05:43But look closely at that Zenith.
05:46It is the first clue that the radio
05:48was never the real difference
05:49between the two sides of the wire.
05:51When the Japanese commandant
05:52at the Davao Penal Colony
05:54needed his radio fixed,
05:55he did what any officer
05:57with a camp full of American prisoners would do.
05:59He asked for a volunteer.
06:02The colony sat on Mindanao,
06:04in the far south of the Philippines.
06:06Before the war,
06:08it was a prison farm
06:09for Filipino convicts
06:10cut out of the jungle.
06:12In November 1942,
06:14the Japanese filled it
06:15with American prisoners of war,
06:17about 2,000 of them.
06:19George Brundret,
06:21the captain from our first scene,
06:23was one of them.
06:24The men worked the rice paddies
06:26and the fields under guard.
06:29Rations were thin.
06:31Contact with the outside world
06:32was zero.
06:35Captain Russell Hutchison
06:36got the repair job.
06:38And here is the detail that matters.
06:40At the same time,
06:42he got a second job
06:43from the other side.
06:45The senior American officer
06:47in the camp
06:47quietly commissioned him
06:49to build a secret shortwave receiver.
06:52So now,
06:53one man was working
06:54for both sides of the wire.
06:56By day,
06:57he repaired the commandant's
06:59personal radio.
07:00It was an American set,
07:01a Zenith.
07:03In secret,
07:04he was building
07:05its smaller,
07:06illegal cousin.
07:08The camp machine shop
07:09became his hunting ground.
07:11As the historian
07:12Gavin Dawes put it,
07:14every chance Hutchison got,
07:16he liberated parts.
07:17Two tube sockets
07:19out of a broken car radio,
07:21capacitors,
07:22resistors,
07:22a voltage meter,
07:24a headset that had been damaged
07:26in a fire,
07:26and eventually,
07:28a few new vacuum tubes.
07:30What he built
07:31was a one-tube shortwave receiver.
07:34Then he hid it
07:35inside the most ordinary object
07:37an American prisoner owned,
07:38a standard army water canteen.
07:42It drew its power
07:43from an electric light socket.
07:45Its antenna was fine wire
07:47woven into a clothesline.
07:49Only a handful of men
07:50knew it existed.
07:52They had to keep it that way.
07:54If the guards had found
07:55a working receiver,
07:56the likely penalty
07:57was summary execution.
08:00Now here is a number
08:01that puts this little machine
08:03in perspective.
08:04That single tube
08:05inside a canteen
08:07on a prison farm
08:08in Mindanao
08:09pulled in stations
08:10as far away
08:11as San Francisco.
08:12That is roughly
08:137,000 miles of ocean.
08:16Across all of that distance,
08:18the link between
08:19the prisoners and America
08:20was a strand of wire
08:22in a clothesline.
08:23When Hutchison was moved out,
08:25he did not destroy the set.
08:27He handed it
08:28to another army officer.
08:29William Gibson.
08:30And it kept working.
08:32Remember that canteen?
08:33It would outlast
08:35many of the men
08:35who listened to it.
08:37And it would vanish
08:38on one of the most famous nights
08:40of the Pacific War.
08:42So there is our first answer.
08:44The prisoners had a radio.
08:46Case closed?
08:47Not quite.
08:49Because I want you
08:50to put the two radios
08:51side by side.
08:52On one side,
08:54Hutchison's canteen.
08:55One tube.
08:56Scavenged parts.
08:57A fire-damaged headset.
09:00Power stolen from a light socket.
09:03On the other side,
09:04the Commandant's zenith.
09:06A factory-built American receiver.
09:09The kind families back home
09:11kept in their living rooms.
09:12Better in every technical way.
09:15And it belonged to the man
09:16who ran the camp.
09:17If hardware were the answer,
09:19the Commandant should have known
09:20more than any prisoner alive.
09:22He had the better set.
09:24He had officers,
09:26headquarters,
09:27newspapers,
09:28an empire's communications
09:30behind him.
09:31His guards had all of that
09:32within reach.
09:34But a radio is only a pipe.
09:36What matters
09:37is what flows through it.
09:39And what flowed through
09:41the Japanese pipe
09:42was controlled
09:42at the source.
09:44In Japan,
09:46listening to foreign
09:47shortwave broadcasts
09:48was forbidden to civilians.
09:50A major of the Kempeitai,
09:52the Japanese military police,
09:54later explained
09:55the practical side of it.
09:57Ordinary people,
09:58he said,
09:59simply did not have receivers
10:00that could pick up
10:01such broadcasts.
10:03Then he added
10:04something remarkable.
10:05Most government
10:06and military leaders,
10:08he testified,
10:09listened every day.
10:11Stop and think about
10:12what that means.
10:14The truth existed
10:16inside Japan.
10:17It came in
10:18over the same airwaves
10:20that Hutchison
10:20was catching in his canteen.
10:22But it was held
10:23in a few rooms
10:24at the top.
10:25What flowed down
10:26to the soldier
10:26in the guard tower
10:27was something else entirely.
10:29The American prisoners
10:31had the opposite problem
10:32and the opposite advantage.
10:34They had almost
10:35no equipment.
10:36But the American voice
10:37coming across the Pacific
10:39had not been built
10:40to keep them comfortable.
10:41From the first months
10:42of the war,
10:43it had told them
10:44hard things,
10:45including the hardest
10:46possible thing
10:47about themselves.
10:49We will come to
10:50exactly what it said
10:51and when.
10:52So the question shifts.
10:54Not who had a radio,
10:56but what was each radio
10:57allowed to say?
10:59To answer that,
11:00we have to go to Tokyo.
11:01to one of the largest
11:03newspapers in Japan
11:04and to a room
11:06on its third floor,
11:07behind a door
11:08with an innocent
11:08little nameplate.
11:10Behind that door,
11:11in June of 1942,
11:13a handful of reporters
11:14wearing headphones
11:15heard foreign stations
11:17name four Japanese
11:18aircraft carriers
11:19that had just gone
11:20to the bottom
11:21of the Pacific.
11:22Days later,
11:23their own newspaper
11:24went to press.
11:26What it told
11:27the Japanese people
11:28and what the Navy
11:29did with the sailors
11:30who had seen the truth
11:31with their own eyes
11:32is where this investigation
11:34goes next.
11:35Tokyo,
11:36December 8, 1941.
11:40The day the Pacific War
11:41began,
11:42every newspaper in Japan
11:44lost its access
11:45to overseas news.
11:47That same day,
11:48the editors of
11:49the Mainichi Shimbun,
11:51one of the country's
11:51largest papers,
11:53held a secret
11:53emergency meeting.
11:55They decided to do
11:56something that ordinary
11:57Japanese citizens
11:58were forbidden to do.
12:00They would listen
12:01to the enemy.
12:03They needed a room
12:05no one would think
12:05to search.
12:07They chose a women's
12:08restroom on the third
12:09floor of their headquarters,
12:10right next to the newsroom.
12:12They added a second
12:13layer of insulation,
12:15hung black velvet curtains,
12:16and moved in a bunk bed
12:18for the night shift.
12:20On the door
12:21went a nameplate,
12:22Europe America Section
12:24Annex.
12:26Inside,
12:26wearing headphones,
12:28sat mostly young reporters
12:29who had grown up
12:30with English,
12:31many of them born
12:32or raised in America.
12:34The staff had their own
12:35name for the operation,
12:37the toilet press.
12:38For three and a half years,
12:39that little room
12:40picked up the BBC,
12:42the Voice of America,
12:43stations in Australia,
12:45China,
12:45Turkey,
12:46and beyond.
12:47And in June of 1942,
12:49those reporters
12:50heard something
12:51that changed the meaning
12:52of everything else
12:53they would hear.
12:55Foreign stations
12:56were naming
12:56Japanese aircraft carriers
12:58that had been sunk
12:59near a place
12:59called Midway.
13:01Not one carrier,
13:03four.
13:04Akagi,
13:05Kaga,
13:06Soryu,
13:07Hiryu,
13:08along with the heavy cruiser
13:10Mikuma,
13:11and about 3,000
13:12Japanese lives.
13:14Now listen to what
13:15Imperial General Headquarters
13:16announced to the nation
13:17on June 10th.
13:19Japan, it said,
13:21had sunk two
13:21American aircraft carriers,
13:23one of the Enterprise class
13:25and one of the Hornet class,
13:27and shot down
13:28120 enemy planes.
13:30Japan's own losses,
13:32as reported in that coverage,
13:34one carrier sunk,
13:36one seriously damaged.
13:38The next morning,
13:40the Mainichi went to press.
13:41It printed the military's version.
13:44Think about that for a moment.
13:46The men who knew the truth
13:47were sitting 30 feet
13:48from the printing desk,
13:49and the truth still
13:50could not get out of the room.
13:53Here is where it gets darker.
13:55The Navy did not just
13:56control the story.
13:58It controlled the witnesses.
14:00When the battered fleet
14:01came home in mid-June,
14:02most of the wounded
14:03were labeled
14:04secret patients
14:05and isolated
14:06from the outside world.
14:08Survivors were scattered.
14:10Many were barred
14:11from seeing their families.
14:12Many were shipped off
14:13to units in the South Pacific,
14:15where most of them died.
14:17According to the history
14:18of the battle,
14:19only the Emperor
14:20and the highest naval staff
14:22were accurately told
14:23what had been lost.
14:24Even the Japanese army
14:26was not given
14:26the full picture at first.
14:28So picture a Japanese soldier
14:30assigned to guard
14:31American prisoners
14:32in the Philippines
14:33that summer.
14:34Everything he has been told
14:36says the war is going well.
14:38Midway,
14:39if he has heard the name at all,
14:40was a victory.
14:41The sailors who could have
14:42told him otherwise
14:43have been hidden,
14:44transferred,
14:45or sent to die
14:46on distant islands.
14:48Now let me show you
14:49the other side,
14:50and I want you to hold
14:51the two pictures together.
14:54Two months before Midway,
14:55on April 9, 1942,
14:58the War Department
14:59in Washington
15:00issued Communique No. 183.
15:03Its language was careful,
15:05but its meaning
15:06was unmistakable.
15:08This situation indicates
15:09the probability
15:10that the defenses
15:11on Bataan
15:12have been overcome.
15:15That same day,
15:16Secretary of War
15:17Henry Stimson
15:18set it straight.
15:20The fall of Bataan
15:21is no easier to bear
15:22because we have known
15:23that it was only
15:24a question of how long.
15:27The shortwave station
15:29KGEI in San Francisco,
15:31which had been broadcasting
15:32a program called
15:33Freedom for the Philippines,
15:35carried the news.
15:37Time Magazine wrote
15:38that when the end
15:39of Bataan came,
15:40the station
15:41rose to the occasion
15:42with a solemnity
15:43that matched the moment.
15:46Do you see
15:47what happened there?
15:47The men who would become
15:48the prisoners
15:49at Cabanatuan and Davao
15:51were the subject
15:51of that announcement.
15:53Their own government
15:54told the whole world,
15:56including the enemy,
15:57that they had been defeated.
15:59It did not hide them
16:00as secret patients.
16:01It did not invent a victory.
16:04It said, in effect,
16:05our men have lost.
16:07And here is how bad it is.
16:11To be fair,
16:12the American government
16:12was not perfectly candid either.
16:14The loss of the carrier
16:16Lexington at the Coral Sea
16:17was held back
16:18for about five weeks
16:19before it was announced
16:20in June of 1942.
16:23Wartime censorship
16:24was real on both sides.
16:27But here is the difference
16:28that matters for our question.
16:30On the American side,
16:32bad news was delayed.
16:34On the Japanese side,
16:36bad news was converted.
16:38Four carriers lost
16:40became two enemy carriers sunk.
16:43And that is the second layer
16:45of our answer.
16:46The prisoners did not just
16:48have a radio.
16:49They had a lifetime habit
16:51of hearing their own side
16:52admit losses
16:53and of judging news
16:55by whether it held up.
16:56A man raised on that habit
16:57hears a broadcast differently.
17:00When Tokyo announced
17:01a great victory,
17:02the prisoner asked,
17:03where, exactly?
17:05And what happened next?
17:07The guard had never been taught
17:09to ask that question.
17:10His information system
17:12had been built
17:12so that he would never need to.
17:14But a system that hides a defeat
17:16as big as Midway
17:17has a problem.
17:18Defeats keep happening.
17:20Sooner or later,
17:22the soldiers have to be told
17:23that they are leaving a place.
17:24And so,
17:26in February of 1943,
17:28as the last Japanese troops
17:30were being evacuated
17:31from Guadalcanal,
17:32Imperial General Headquarters
17:33needed a new word.
17:35The word it chose
17:37was so carefully built
17:38that it described a retreat
17:40without admitting one.
17:42Within the year,
17:43a Marine officer
17:44held at a secret camp in Japan
17:46would teach himself
17:47to read those words
17:48and to find,
17:50hidden inside them,
17:51the one thing
17:52no censor in Tokyo
17:53could remove.
17:54February 9th, 1943.
17:57Imperial General Headquarters
17:59went on the radio
18:00to announce the end
18:01of the campaign
18:02on Guadalcanal.
18:03Japanese units,
18:05the announcement said,
18:06had attained
18:06their primary objective.
18:08They were being
18:09transferred to a new front.
18:11It claimed the Americans
18:13had lost more than
18:1425,000 men
18:15killed on the island.
18:16That figure was more
18:18than three times
18:19the number of Americans
18:20who died in the entire campaign,
18:22on land and at sea.
18:24In reality,
18:25the Japanese army
18:26had just finished
18:27evacuating the starving
18:28survivors of a defeat
18:29under cover of darkness
18:31over three nights
18:32in early February.
18:34The word Tokyo used
18:35for the move
18:36was tenshin.
18:37A Japanese historian
18:39has translated it as
18:40changing course
18:41in order to advance.
18:43A retreat,
18:44described as a form
18:46of attack.
18:47Three and a half months later,
18:49on the island of Attu
18:50in the Aleutians,
18:51the Japanese garrison
18:52was wiped out
18:53almost to the last man.
18:55This time,
18:56Tokyo reached for an older,
18:58more poetic word,
18:59gyokusai,
19:00the shattered jewel.
19:02An honorable death,
19:04like a jewel breaking,
19:06rather than becoming
19:06a common tile.
19:08According to Japan's
19:09national archives,
19:11Attu was the first battle
19:12where Imperial General Headquarters
19:14used that expression.
19:15So now,
19:17there were two words.
19:18One for retreat
19:19that wasn't called a retreat.
19:21One for annihilation
19:23that was called glory.
19:25Why build a language like that?
19:27Look back to January 8, 1941.
19:31That day,
19:32the Japanese army issued
19:33its field service code,
19:35the senjinkun.
19:37It told every soldier,
19:38if alive,
19:40do not suffer the disgrace
19:41of becoming a prisoner.
19:43A system that forbids
19:45its men to surrender
19:46has trouble telling them
19:47that they have lost.
19:48It has to find other words.
19:51Now meet the man
19:52who learned to read those words.
19:54First Lieutenant William Harris,
19:57United States Marine Corps,
19:58Naval Academy,
19:59class of 1939.
20:01Captured on Corregidor
20:03in May 1942.
20:05Two weeks later,
20:06he and another officer
20:07escaped and swam
20:09across Manila Bay
20:09to Bataan.
20:10The swim took about
20:11eight and a half hours.
20:13He joined Filipino guerrillas,
20:15tried to sail to China
20:16in a motorboat,
20:18drifted for 29 days
20:19when the engine died,
20:21and kept going south,
20:22trying to reach American forces.
20:25He made it nearly
20:26a thousand miles
20:27before he was turned in
20:28on the island of Morotai
20:30in 1943.
20:32On February 13, 1944,
20:35he arrived at Ofuna
20:36outside Yokohama.
20:39Ofuna was not
20:40an ordinary prison camp.
20:41It belonged to the Japanese Navy,
20:44and it existed for interrogation.
20:46Officially,
20:47it was not even called a camp.
20:49It was never registered
20:50with the Red Cross.
20:52The men held there,
20:53mostly aviators,
20:55submariners,
20:55and officers,
20:56could vanish
20:57without the outside world
20:58knowing they were alive.
21:00At Ofuna,
21:01there was no canteen radio,
21:03but there were
21:04Japanese newspapers.
21:06Guards read them
21:07and threw them away.
21:08And American prisoners,
21:10including an Olympic runner
21:11turned bombardier
21:12named Luis Zamperini,
21:14began stealing them
21:15out of the trash.
21:16Here is what makes
21:17Harris extraordinary.
21:19According to the account
21:20Laura Hillenbrand
21:21pieced together
21:22from survivors,
21:23Harris built a homemade
21:24Japanese-English dictionary
21:26so the men could work
21:27through the papers.
21:28And when a paper
21:29carried a map,
21:30he studied it,
21:32memorized it,
21:33and redrew it from memory
21:34on a scrap of paper.
21:36Now ask yourself,
21:38what is on a map
21:40that no censor
21:41can take out?
21:42A place name.
21:44Tokyo could call
21:46a retreat an advance.
21:47It could call
21:48a massacre a jewel.
21:50But it could not
21:51report a battle
21:52without saying
21:53where the battle was.
21:55And when you put
21:56those names
21:57on a map
21:57in order,
21:58they tell a story
22:00of their own.
22:01Guadalcanal
22:02in the Solomons.
22:04Then Tarawa
22:05in the Gilberts.
22:07Then Kwajalein
22:08in the Marshalls.
22:10Each glorious battle
22:12a little farther
22:13north and west.
22:15Each one
22:15a little closer
22:16to the newspaper's
22:17own printing press.
22:19That is the third layer
22:21of the answer.
22:22Even the lies
22:23carried coordinates.
22:25A guard reading
22:26about another
22:27shattered jewel
22:28was meant to feel pride.
22:29A marine with a pencil
22:31and a scrap of paper
22:32saw a line
22:33moving toward Japan.
22:35And the line
22:36kept moving.
22:37In July of 1944,
22:40Saipan fell,
22:41about 1,500 miles
22:42from Tokyo.
22:44The same month,
22:45the government
22:46of General Tojo,
22:47the man whose army
22:48had issued the Senjin-kun,
22:50resigned.
22:51The guards at Ofuna
22:53understood exactly
22:54how dangerous
22:55a map in a prisoner's
22:56hands could be.
22:57A medical orderly
22:59named Sueharu Kitamura,
23:00whom the prisoners
23:01called the Quack,
23:03found Harris' maps,
23:05his dictionary,
23:05and his clippings.
23:07According to Hillenbrand,
23:09the beating went on
23:10for about an hour,
23:11in front of the other prisoners,
23:12and continued
23:13after Harris lost consciousness.
23:16Records show
23:17Kitamura beat him
23:18unconscious in September
23:19and again in November
23:20of 1944.
23:22Fellow prisoner
23:23Pappy Boyington
23:24reported that
23:25Harris was knocked down
23:2620 times
23:27with a baseball bat
23:28for reading a newspaper.
23:30They did not beat him
23:31for having a weapon.
23:33They beat him
23:34for having geography.
23:36Hold on to William Harris.
23:38He will be standing
23:39somewhere you would
23:40never expect
23:40at the end of this story.
23:42But here is the problem
23:44that even a brilliant
23:45mapmaker could not solve.
23:47Place names tell you
23:48where the war is.
23:49They do not tell you
23:51what it costs.
23:52And in October of 1944,
23:55the newspapers
23:56Harris had been beaten for
23:57were about to announce
23:59the greatest naval victory
24:00of the entire war.
24:02Eleven American aircraft
24:04carriers sunk.
24:05This time,
24:07the lie would not stop
24:08at the guard towers.
24:09It would walk straight
24:10into the war plans
24:11of the Japanese army itself.
24:13October 12, 1944.
24:16Off the coast of Formosa.
24:19Before dawn,
24:20the American carriers
24:21began launching.
24:22The same fast carriers
24:24whose planes
24:25George Brundret
24:26had counted over
24:26Cabana Tuan
24:27three weeks earlier
24:28were now hitting
24:29the Japanese air bases
24:31on Formosa,
24:32the big island
24:33between the Philippines
24:34and Japan.
24:35The goal was simple.
24:37Destroy Japanese air power
24:38before the Americans
24:39went back to the Philippines.
24:42Japan answered
24:43with everything
24:43it had left.
24:45Wave after wave
24:46of land-based bombers
24:47and torpedo planes
24:49went out against the fleet,
24:51many of them
24:52at dusk
24:52and after dark.
24:53Many of the pilots
24:55were young
24:55and barely trained.
24:57In the night,
24:58over the sea,
24:59a burning Japanese plane
25:01hitting the water
25:01looked a great deal
25:03like a burning ship.
25:05At 6.35 in the evening
25:07on October 13,
25:08an aerial torpedo
25:09struck the heavy cruiser
25:11USS Canberra
25:12on her starboard side.
25:14Both of her boiler rooms
25:16flooded almost at once.
25:17She went dead in the water,
25:19less than 100 miles
25:20from enemy airfields.
25:22What the Navy did next
25:23matters to this story,
25:25so watch closely.
25:27The Canberra
25:28was not abandoned.
25:29The cruiser Wichita
25:31took her in tow,
25:32and the fleet began
25:33to drag her away,
25:34slowly,
25:35toward the anchorage
25:36at Ulethe.
25:38The next day,
25:39the light cruiser
25:40USS Houston
25:41took a torpedo
25:42amid ships.
25:43She was taken
25:44under tow as well.
25:45Two days later,
25:47while under tow,
25:48Houston was torpedoed
25:49a second time.
25:51She still did not sink.
25:53Fleet tugs
25:54took over the tows.
25:55On October 27,
25:57both cruisers
25:58reached Ulethe.
25:59Out of the entire
26:01battle,
26:01not one American ship
26:03had been sunk.
26:04Now,
26:05here is what
26:06Tokyo was hearing.
26:07On October 13,
26:09Japanese headquarters
26:10reported one
26:11American carrier sunk.
26:13On the 14th,
26:14three.
26:15On the 15th,
26:16seven.
26:17On the 16th,
26:19ten carriers,
26:20two battleships,
26:21and three cruisers.
26:22And on October 19,
26:24at six in the evening,
26:26came the final summary.
26:28Eleven aircraft carriers sunk.
26:30Two battleships sunk.
26:33Three cruisers sunk.
26:35And many more ships damaged.
26:37Let me put that number
26:39in perspective.
26:40Eleven fleet carriers
26:42was the heart of Halsey's
26:43entire striking force.
26:45If it were true,
26:47the American Navy
26:48in the Pacific
26:49had just suffered
26:50a catastrophe worse
26:51than Pearl Harbor
26:52and Midway combined.
26:54Japan celebrated.
26:56The emperor issued
26:58a rescript
26:58praising the commanders
26:59for their victory.
27:01In Tokyo,
27:02a national rally
27:03filled Hibiya Public Hall.
27:06Admiral Halsey
27:07later wrote
27:08that local dignitaries,
27:09ranging from cabinet ministers
27:11to a keeper
27:12in the Tokyo Zoo,
27:13united in praise
27:14of the glorious victory.
27:17But inside the Japanese Navy,
27:19doubts appeared
27:20almost immediately.
27:22On October 15,
27:23the staff of the Air Force
27:25that had flown the attacks
27:26concluded that the real results
27:28were perhaps half
27:29of what had been claimed.
27:31On the 16th,
27:32a Japanese scout plane
27:33found a large American force
27:35still at sea
27:36with seven carriers in sight.
27:38The record
27:39was never clearly corrected.
27:41And now meet
27:42one Japanese officer
27:44who did ask
27:45the prisoners question.
27:46Major Eizo Hori
27:48was an Army
27:49intelligence officer.
27:50He went to the airbase
27:52at Kanoya
27:52and questioned
27:53the returning pilots himself.
27:55How did they know
27:56it was a carrier?
27:57What did they actually
27:58see sink?
28:00When he was done,
28:01he sent a cable
28:02to the Army General Staff
28:03in Tokyo.
28:04The real results,
28:06he reported,
28:07were at most
28:08two or three ships,
28:09and it was
28:10doubtful
28:10whether they were
28:11carriers at all.
28:13His cable was ignored.
28:15Remember the second
28:16layer of our answer?
28:17The habit of asking
28:18where exactly
28:19and what happened next?
28:22Here is one Japanese officer
28:24who asked exactly that.
28:26And the system he served
28:27had no place
28:28to put his answer.
28:30Instead,
28:31the Japanese Army
28:31built a new plan
28:32on the Phantom Victory.
28:34For months,
28:35the Army had intended
28:36to fight its decisive battle
28:38for the Philippines
28:38on Luzon,
28:39the main island,
28:41and to fight
28:41only delaying actions
28:43elsewhere.
28:44Now,
28:45as the U.S. Army's
28:46own official history
28:47puts it,
28:48confident that the U.S. fleet
28:50had suffered grievously
28:51in the battle
28:52off Formosa,
28:53the Japanese commands
28:55agreed
28:55that the time
28:56was most opportune
28:58to deliver
28:58the coup de grace.
29:00The Japanese,
29:02that history says,
29:03undertook the defense
29:04of Leite
29:05with serene assurance.
29:08Divisions that had been
29:09meant to defend Luzon
29:10would be shipped
29:11to Leite.
29:12General Yamashita
29:13sent his first division there.
29:16Thousands of men
29:17would be fed
29:17into a battle
29:18chosen on the strength
29:19of 11 carriers
29:21that did not exist.
29:23years later,
29:25Admiral Shigeru Fukudome,
29:26who had commanded
29:27the Japanese air forces
29:28in that battle,
29:30wrote that the false report
29:31made the nation
29:32indulge
29:33in a false celebration
29:34and created the illusion
29:37that the Empire
29:38could turn the tide
29:39of the war.
29:41So now look at
29:42where we are.
29:43The guards believed it
29:44because their newspapers
29:45said it.
29:46The generals believed it
29:48because they wanted to.
29:50The one man who checked
29:51was ignored.
29:53And the American prisoners?
29:55George Brundret
29:57had seen those carriers' planes
29:58over his camp
29:59with his own eyes.
30:00Even without a radio,
30:02a man who has watched
30:03400 American planes
30:05in a day
30:06does not easily believe
30:07their carriers are gone.
30:10But some of the prisoners
30:11had more than eyes.
30:12They had a canteen
30:14with one tube inside it.
30:16And on October 19th,
30:18the same day
30:18Tokyo published
30:19its final tally,
30:20the U.S. Pacific Fleet
30:22issued a press release
30:23with a message
30:24from Admiral Halsey himself.
30:26It was one sentence long.
30:28And it may be
30:29the most American sentence
30:31of the entire Pacific War.
30:33Here is the sentence.
30:34Halsey sent it
30:35to Admiral Nimitz
30:36after reading Tokyo's claims
30:38and the Pacific Fleet
30:39passed it on to the public
30:41in its press release
30:42of October 19th, 1944.
30:45In Halsey's own version,
30:47it read,
30:48The Third Fleet's
30:49sunken and damaged ships
30:50have been salvaged
30:52and are retiring
30:53at high speed
30:54toward the enemy.
30:55Read it again.
30:57Retiring.
30:59Toward the enemy.
31:01It is a joke.
31:03But it is a very particular
31:04kind of joke
31:05and it tells us something
31:06important about our question.
31:08You can only make that joke
31:10if you are completely sure
31:12that reality is on your side.
31:14Within days,
31:15anyone could check it.
31:17Either the carriers
31:18would appear over the Philippines
31:19or they would not.
31:22Now compare it
31:23with the other voice
31:24in the air that week.
31:26Tokyo's announcement
31:27had no checking
31:28built into it.
31:29The ships it claimed
31:30were at the bottom of the sea
31:32where no Japanese guard
31:33in the Philippines
31:34would ever go to look.
31:36It asked for faith.
31:38Halsey's sentence
31:39was a promise
31:40with a deadline.
31:41The deadline came
31:42the next morning.
31:44On October 20th, 1944,
31:46American troops
31:47landed on Leyte
31:48in the central Philippines.
31:50That afternoon,
31:52General Douglas MacArthur
31:53waded ashore
31:54through the surf,
31:55then spoke into a microphone.
31:57People of the Philippines,
31:59I have returned.
32:01Above the beaches
32:03flew planes
32:03from the very carriers
32:04that Tokyo had sunk
32:06the night before.
32:07That same night,
32:09at Cabana Tuan,
32:10one American prisoner
32:12was spending his last evening
32:13in the camp
32:14before being moved.
32:16According to the historian
32:17John McManus,
32:18he listened to the secret radio
32:20and heard the news.
32:21The Americans
32:23had landed on Leyte.
32:25Think about where
32:26that information came from.
32:28A broadcast in the open air.
32:30A press release
32:31anyone could read.
32:33A general speaking
32:34into a microphone
32:35on a beach.
32:36The American war
32:38was announcing itself
32:39out loud
32:40to the world.
32:41And that included
32:43the enemy,
32:44the prisoners,
32:45and anyone
32:45with a wire
32:46strung through a clothesline.
32:49By then,
32:50George Brundrett's diary
32:51had gone silent.
32:52Its last entry
32:53is dated October 8th.
32:55But the men
32:56he had shared
32:56those wards with
32:57had their proof now.
32:59Not in rumor.
33:00In sound.
33:02And what was happening
33:03on the other side
33:04of the wire?
33:05The Japanese army
33:06was doing exactly
33:07what the Phantom Victory
33:08had told it to do.
33:10Divisions were being
33:11loaded into transports
33:12and shipped across
33:13to Leyte,
33:14into the island
33:15the Americans
33:15had just landed on,
33:17to win a decisive battle
33:18against a fleet
33:19it believed was crippled.
33:21Prime Minister
33:22Kuniaki Koiso
33:23told the Japanese people
33:25that Leyte would be
33:26the decisive battle
33:27of the war.
33:28Then the real fleet
33:29showed up.
33:30Between October 23rd
33:32and 26th
33:33in the waters
33:33around Leyte,
33:34the Imperial Japanese
33:36Navy came out
33:37to fight.
33:38When it was over,
33:39Japan had lost
33:40four aircraft carriers,
33:42three battleships,
33:43and around ten cruisers.
33:45The Navy
33:46that had announced
33:4711 American carriers
33:48sunk
33:48had now lost
33:50most of what
33:50it had left.
33:51Even then,
33:52Tokyo's broadcasts
33:54claimed fresh victories.
33:55More American carriers
33:57sunk
33:57or damaged
33:58off the Philippines.
34:00On Leyte itself,
34:02Japanese reinforcements
34:03kept pouring in
34:05by sea,
34:05and many of the transports
34:07were sunk
34:07on the way.
34:09Most of the Japanese
34:10soldiers sent to that island
34:12never left it.
34:13So let me put
34:14the timeline
34:15in front of you,
34:16because this
34:16is the heart of it.
34:18October 19th,
34:20Tokyo announces
34:2111 American carriers
34:23sunk.
34:24The same day,
34:25Halsey jokes
34:26that they are
34:27retiring toward the enemy.
34:29October 20th,
34:31the Americans land
34:32on Leyte,
34:33under the wings
34:34of those same carriers.
34:36Within hours,
34:37a prisoner at Kavanatuan
34:38hears it on a radio
34:39hidden from the guards.
34:41late October,
34:43Japanese divisions
34:44are still being sent
34:45to Leyte
34:45to finish off a fleet
34:47that was never damaged
34:48in the first place.
34:49Who knew the truth first?
34:51The prisoner in the barracks.
34:53Not the guard at the gate.
34:55And not the generals
34:57in Manila
34:57who were sending men
34:58to Leyte.
34:59That is the fourth layer
35:00of the answer.
35:01And it goes deeper
35:02than the radio
35:03and deeper than the map.
35:05The American system
35:06did not just tell
35:07its people bad news.
35:08It told them news
35:10that could be tested.
35:11A promise with a deadline.
35:13Every day,
35:14reality either confirmed it
35:16or exposed it.
35:18After nearly three years of that,
35:20a man learns
35:21which voice to trust.
35:23The Japanese system
35:24had stopped testing itself.
35:26When its own intelligence officer
35:28did the test
35:29and reported the answer,
35:30the answer was thrown away.
35:33But there is still
35:34one piece missing.
35:36Everything I have shown you
35:37so far
35:38depends on the Americans
35:39reaching out
35:40across the ocean.
35:41To a canteen radio.
35:42To a stolen newspaper.
35:44What about
35:45inside Japan itself?
35:47Who,
35:48inside the empire,
35:49was actually hearing
35:50Halsey's press release
35:52and MacArthur's voice
35:53and the real reports
35:54from Leyte?
35:56The answer
35:57is a concrete bunker
35:58in the hills
35:59near Kawasaki,
36:00a short distance
36:01from Tokyo.
36:02It held a dozen
36:04large shortwave receivers.
36:05It belonged
36:06to the Japanese Navy.
36:08A cable ran from it
36:09straight to the headquarters
36:10of the combined fleet.
36:12And some of the men
36:13wearing the headphones
36:14were not Japanese.
36:16They were American prisoners.
36:19Navy radio men
36:20captured on Wake Island
36:21and in the Java Sea
36:22ordered to sit
36:23at Japan's receivers
36:25and copy down
36:26everything the Allies
36:27were saying.
36:27Kanigaya.
36:28In the hills
36:29near Kawasaki, Japan.
36:31In April of 1942,
36:34the Japanese Navy
36:35brought its first
36:35American prisoners
36:36to a radio station
36:38it had been running there
36:39since 1930.
36:40They were not chosen
36:42at random.
36:43They were radio men.
36:45Four of them
36:46came from the Naval Air Station
36:47on Wake Island,
36:49captured in December 1941.
36:52More arrived that August.
36:54Two from the destroyer
36:55USS Pope.
36:57Three from the submarine
36:58USS Perch,
37:00both lost in the Java Sea.
37:03British telegraphists
37:04from HMS Exeter
37:05and HMS Encounter
37:07joined them.
37:08Names like
37:09Marvin Ballhorn,
37:11Victor Bessonçon,
37:13Charles Sargent,
37:14Franklin Kidd,
37:16Edward Borkowski,
37:18Joseph Normand,
37:19Theodore Ray.
37:20They had been held first
37:22at Ofuna,
37:23the Navy's
37:24secret interrogation camp.
37:26They were never
37:27properly registered.
37:29One American officer
37:30held there
37:31later called those places
37:32unofficial POW camps
37:34and entirely unlawful.
37:37The Navy had moved them
37:38to Kanigaya
37:39for one reason.
37:40It needed their ears.
37:43By 1943,
37:45the station had gone underground
37:46into a reinforced
37:47concrete bunker
37:48with walls
37:49about 40 centimeters thick.
37:51It had 12
37:53large shortwave receivers
37:54and more than
37:55200 Japanese personnel.
37:58An underground cable
37:59about 2 kilometers long
38:01ran to the Army
38:02signal headquarters
38:03in Tokyo
38:04and to the headquarters
38:05of the combined fleet itself.
38:08And at those receivers
38:10sat the Americans,
38:11copying down
38:12the U.S. Navy's
38:13own radio traffic.
38:16The fleet broadcasts
38:17from Pearl Harbor
38:18and San Francisco.
38:20Later,
38:21broadcasts from Guam
38:22and the Admiralty Islands.
38:24Submarine frequencies.
38:26Aircraft frequencies.
38:28Distress calls.
38:30Ship-to-shore traffic.
38:32Stop on that list
38:34for a moment
38:34because it carries
38:35the map lesson
38:36from William Harris.
38:39Guam had been captured
38:40by Japan
38:40in the first days
38:41of the war.
38:43Now,
38:44American transmitters
38:45on Guam
38:45were filling the air.
38:47For a Wake Island
38:49radio man,
38:50every new American
38:51station on the dial
38:52was a place
38:53the Japanese newspapers
38:54had once called
38:56theirs.
38:56most of the fleet traffic
38:58came in code.
38:59The prisoners
39:00could not read it
39:00and neither
39:01could the Japanese.
39:02But Marvin Ballhorn
39:04later described
39:04what the men did
39:05with what they could copy.
39:07They had been told
39:08that receiving messages
39:09was not treason,
39:10though transmitting
39:11could be.
39:12So they received.
39:14And when they wrote
39:15the messages down,
39:16they altered them
39:17so that no critical information
39:19was ever recorded.
39:21For this,
39:22they were paid
39:22six yen a month.
39:23It was the only way
39:25to buy soap
39:26and toothpaste.
39:27One of those
39:28Wake Island radioman,
39:30Franklin Kidd,
39:31died at Kanigaya
39:32of stomach cancer
39:33on October 22, 1944,
39:36two days after
39:37the landing on Leyte.
39:39In the same week
39:40the Imperial Navy
39:41was destroyed
39:42off the Philippines,
39:43an American sailor
39:45died inside the building
39:46where Japan was listening
39:47to that defeat arrive.
39:49A Japanese man
39:51who worked at the station
39:52remembered what
39:52the Allied messages
39:53amounted to.
39:54In his words,
39:56they said,
39:57Japan is going
39:58to lose the war.
40:00Now we have
40:01every piece.
40:02Let me put them together
40:03because this is the answer
40:04we have been building toward
40:06since the first plane
40:07came over Kavanatuan.
40:10Inside Japan,
40:11the truth was not missing.
40:13It was being collected.
40:15The Mainichi heard it
40:17in a converted restroom.
40:18The Kempeitai said
40:20most government
40:21and military leaders
40:22listened every day.
40:23The Navy ran a bunker
40:25full of receivers
40:26wired straight
40:27to combined fleet headquarters.
40:30The truth came into Japan
40:31every hour of the war.
40:34But it flowed upward,
40:36toward the top,
40:38toward a few rooms
40:39where a few men
40:40decided what everyone else
40:42would hear.
40:43What flowed down
40:45to the guard on the tower
40:46was the communique.
40:47and the communique
40:48had its own arithmetic.
40:51A Japanese historian
40:52has added it up.
40:54Over the course of the war,
40:55Imperial General Headquarters
40:57announced 43 allied battleships
41:00and 84 aircraft carriers sunk.
41:03The real figures were
41:05four battleships
41:06and 11 carriers.
41:08Japan's own losses
41:10were shrunk the other way.
41:11Eight battleships lost
41:13became three.
41:14Nineteen carriers
41:15became four.
41:17The phrase
41:18Imperial Headquarters
41:19Announcement
41:20survives in Japanese
41:21to this day
41:22as a byword
41:23for an official statement
41:24nobody should believe.
41:26On the American side,
41:28the truth flowed outward,
41:29down to the public
41:30and out across the ocean
41:32to anyone who could listen,
41:34including the enemy.
41:36Washington announced
41:37the fall of Bataan
41:38in its own communique.
41:40Halsey made his joke
41:41in a press release.
41:43MacArthur spoke
41:44into a microphone
41:44on a beach.
41:46So here is the answer
41:47to our question.
41:49Captured Americans
41:50knew of Japanese defeats
41:51before their guards did
41:52because the guards
41:53stood at the bottom
41:54of a system built
41:55to keep the truth
41:56from reaching them,
41:57while the prisoners,
41:59starving and stripped
42:00of everything,
42:01were still connected
42:02to a system
42:02that broadcast the truth
42:04to everyone,
42:05even to its own
42:06defeated men,
42:07even behind enemy wire.
42:10The guards held
42:11the rifles,
42:12but the prisoners
42:13held the more reliable
42:14version of the war,
42:15and in Japan's own bunker,
42:17the Navy needed
42:18American radioman
42:19at its receivers
42:20to hear it.
42:22That answer explains
42:23what the prisoners knew.
42:25It does not tell you
42:26what it cost them.
42:28Some did not live
42:29to see the end.
42:31One would be standing
42:32on the deck
42:32of an American battleship
42:33in Tokyo Bay,
42:35and the canteen radio
42:37had one more night
42:38ahead of it.
42:39January 30, 1945,
42:41Cabana Tuan.
42:42The camp George Brun Drett
42:44had written about
42:45was nearly empty now.
42:47Most of the able-bodied
42:48prisoners had been
42:49shipped out months before.
42:51About 500 remained,
42:53many of them too sick
42:54or too weak
42:55to have been worth moving.
42:57That evening,
42:59men of the U.S. Army's
43:006th Ranger Battalion,
43:02with Alamo scouts
43:03and Filipino guerrillas,
43:05crawled across open fields
43:07toward the fence.
43:08Remember what the guerrillas
43:10had noticed
43:10back in our first scene?
43:12Whenever American planes
43:14came over,
43:15the Japanese guards
43:15stopped and stared
43:17at the sky.
43:18Now the Americans
43:20used it.
43:21AP-61 Black Widow
43:23night fighter
43:24came in low
43:25over the camp
43:26and every guard
43:27looked up.
43:29Minutes later,
43:30the rangers opened fire
43:31and the gates
43:32came down.
43:34The prisoners were carried
43:35and walked out
43:36into the night.
43:37And somewhere
43:38in the confusion
43:39of that night,
43:40Russell Hutchison's
43:41canteen radio
43:42disappeared.
43:43The little receiver
43:44that had brought
43:45San Francisco
43:45to a prison farm
43:46on Mindanao
43:47was lost
43:48on the night
43:48of the most famous
43:49rescue of the Pacific War.
43:51It had done its job.
43:53George Brun Drett
43:54was not there
43:55to see it.
43:56In December,
43:57he had been among
43:58more than 1,600 prisoners
44:00loaded into the hold
44:01of a ship
44:01called the Orioku Maru
44:03at Manila,
44:04bound for Japan.
44:06The Japanese
44:07did not mark
44:07ships carrying prisoners.
44:09On December 15th,
44:11American carrier planes,
44:12the same kind
44:13he had cheered
44:14in September,
44:15attacked the ship
44:16at Subic Bay
44:16and sank her.
44:18He survived.
44:20He was moved
44:20to a second ship,
44:21the Inora Maru,
44:23which was bombed
44:24in the harbor
44:24at Takao
44:25on Formosa
44:26on January 9th.
44:27He survived that, too.
44:30A third ship,
44:31the Brazil Maru,
44:32reached Japan
44:33on January 29th, 1945,
44:36the day before the raid
44:38on Kavana Tuan.
44:39He was taken to a camp
44:41near Fukuoka.
44:42He died there
44:43on July 4th, 1945,
44:46Independence Day.
44:48He was 34 years old.
44:50His diary did not
44:51die with him.
44:53Typed copies of it
44:54ended up in the
44:55National Archives
44:55in Washington,
44:56among the Army's
44:57wartime records.
44:59That is how we know
45:00about the Red Letter Day,
45:02the 400 planes,
45:04the letter from his wife
45:05that took 14 months
45:07to arrive.
45:08Russell Hutchison,
45:09the captain who repaired
45:10the Commandant Seneth
45:11and built the canteen,
45:13survived the war.
45:15Decades later,
45:16his son,
45:16a radio amateur himself,
45:18was still telling the story
45:20of his father's
45:20one-tube receiver.
45:22The radio men at
45:23Kanigaya kept copying
45:25until August 1945.
45:27Then the station closed,
45:29and they were taken back
45:30to Ofuna,
45:31where so many of them
45:32had started.
45:34Marvin Ballhorn,
45:35the Wake Island sailor
45:36who altered every message
45:37he wrote down,
45:39came home.
45:40And William Harris,
45:41the Marine who was beaten
45:42for drawing maps
45:43from stolen newspapers,
45:44survived Ofuna
45:46and the camp at Omori.
45:48He arrived there
45:49near death,
45:50and a fellow prisoner,
45:52Louis Zamperini,
45:53gave him extra food
45:54until he recovered.
45:55On September 2, 1945,
45:58Harris stood on the deck
45:59of the battleship
46:00USS Missouri
46:01in Tokyo Bay,
46:03among the men chosen
46:04to represent the prisoners
46:05while Japan signed
46:06the surrender.
46:08The man who had been beaten
46:09for knowing where
46:10the war was
46:11now stood
46:12at the exact place
46:13where it ended.
46:15He stayed in the Marine Corps.
46:17Five years later,
46:18in Korea,
46:19he commanded
46:20the 3rd Battalion,
46:217th Marines,
46:22in the breakout
46:23from the Chosin Reservoir.
46:25His battalion
46:26was the rear guard.
46:27On December 7, 1950,
46:30he was last seen walking,
46:32carrying two rifles
46:33on his shoulder.
46:34He was never found.
46:36He was awarded
46:37the Navy Cross.
46:39So let's go back
46:40to the question
46:40one last time.
46:42Why did captured Americans
46:44know of Japanese defeats
46:45before their guards did?
46:47Not because they had
46:48better radios.
46:50The Commandant
46:51had the better radio.
46:52Not because they were
46:53told more.
46:55They were told
46:56almost nothing.
46:56They knew
46:57because the country
46:58they belonged to
46:59told the truth out loud,
47:01even about its own defeats.
47:03And they had learned
47:04to listen for it.
47:06The guards' country
47:07kept the truth
47:08for the few at the top.
47:10That is why
47:11a starving captain
47:12in a dysentery ward
47:13could look up
47:14at 400 planes
47:15and know exactly
47:16what they meant.
47:18They meant
47:18the United States
47:19was coming back for them.
47:22Thank you for watching
47:23this story to the end.
47:24If it meant something to you,
47:26please give it a like.
47:27It genuinely helps
47:28the video reach people
47:29who will care about
47:30these men's names.
47:32Subscribe and turn on
47:34notifications
47:34so you don't miss
47:35the next one.
47:36And tell us in the comments
47:37where you're watching from.
47:39If your father,
47:40grandfather,
47:41or uncle
47:41served in the
47:42Second World War,
47:44especially if he was
47:45ever a prisoner
47:45of the Japanese,
47:47please share his name
47:48and his unit.
47:49The American POWs
47:52of the Pacific
47:52are remembered
47:53one name at a time.
47:55And I'll see you next time.