that I wasn’t going to tell them anything, they took me back to the others.” 12
When the sun began to set on their first day in captivity, the Tang survivors were crammed together into a small deckhouse. There was only enough space for them to stand. Out of earshot of the Japanese, they talked about their escape from the Tang .
The deckhouse soon felt like a sauna, more uncomfortable even than the frying-pan deck. “It was extremely hot in there,” recalled Leibold. “It was all metal. There was a wooden door with an opening at the bottom and the top. The opening was about six inches at the top. A guard stood outside. When we asked for water and food, the guard thrust his bayonet through the opening.” 13
The next morning, the Japanese again began to question the survivors.
Bill Leibold was taken belowdecks and interrogated. He refused to provide any information beyond his name, rating, and service number, as stipulated by the Geneva convention. But the Japanese insisted on more information.
“What was the name of your submarine?”
When Leibold refused to answer, he was beaten.
Leibold was not the only survivor who was hit for not revealing the name of the Tang . Others were soon nursing serious bruises. Their captain, Dick O’Kane, realized that there was little to be gained by refusing to reveal the Tang ’s identity. His men were already suffering enough; they were extremely dehydrated and exhausted, surviving on adrenaline and little else. The violence had to stop or someone would die.
“Listen,” O’Kane told his men, “The Tang ’s on the bottom. Just go ahead and tell them what the name is.” 14
THE AGONY SEEMED as if it would never end. For four more days, the Tang survivors fried in the daytime sun on the P-34 ’s deck and were crammed together in the airless deckhouse at night. Some of the men recalled with bitter irony how they had treated a Japanese sailor from Kyoto, a man named Mishuitunni Ka, whom they had fished from the water on their third patrol. They had nicknamed the sailor “Firecracker” because they had saved his life on July 4, 1944.
In stark contrast to what they were experiencing, the Tang ’s crew had looked after Firecracker so well that O’Kane noted he was “much more of a crew’s mascot than a prisoner of war.” In fact, he was treated more like a guest of honor: One midnight, while passing through the galley, O’Kane had found a cook hard at work. “Oh, I’m just trying to get the texture of Firecracker’s rice the way he’s used to it, Captain,” the cook had commented. “We’ve been cooking it too hard.” 15
On the fifth day aboard the P-34, the men were sitting on the deck when they saw the Pescadores Islands come into view. Then the P-34 entered the port of Takao on Formosa, modern-day Taiwan.
As they entered the harbor, the Tang ’s survivors were blindfolded. “They [also] put a hangman’s black sack over our heads,” recalled Larry Savadkin. 16
After the Japanese led the men off the boat, they were bundled onto a flatbed truck, which took them to a dockside warehouse. “The Japanese then waltzed us through a small town,” recalled Bill Leibold, describing the public procession the men next endured. “There was a lot of yelling. We got pushed around.” 17
O’Kane later observed that this “morning publicity parade rather backfired. Trukke had somehow managed to keep long blonde hair, but now all of the slickum had washed away, and his hair bounded down all around to the level of his mouth, giving him the exact appearance of Hairless Joe in Al Capp’s comic strip. The onlookers pointed and laughed [at him] until the whole affair took on—for them—the nature of a circus parade.” 18
After the march, the Tang survivors were placed in a jail. A Japanese officer threatened them with beheading if they did not cooperate. In their cells, the Tang survivors were chained by the wrists to rings fixed high on the wall.
When the sun began to set on their first day in captivity, the Tang survivors were crammed together into a small deckhouse. There was only enough space for them to stand. Out of earshot of the Japanese, they talked about their escape from the Tang .
The deckhouse soon felt like a sauna, more uncomfortable even than the frying-pan deck. “It was extremely hot in there,” recalled Leibold. “It was all metal. There was a wooden door with an opening at the bottom and the top. The opening was about six inches at the top. A guard stood outside. When we asked for water and food, the guard thrust his bayonet through the opening.” 13
The next morning, the Japanese again began to question the survivors.
Bill Leibold was taken belowdecks and interrogated. He refused to provide any information beyond his name, rating, and service number, as stipulated by the Geneva convention. But the Japanese insisted on more information.
“What was the name of your submarine?”
When Leibold refused to answer, he was beaten.
Leibold was not the only survivor who was hit for not revealing the name of the Tang . Others were soon nursing serious bruises. Their captain, Dick O’Kane, realized that there was little to be gained by refusing to reveal the Tang ’s identity. His men were already suffering enough; they were extremely dehydrated and exhausted, surviving on adrenaline and little else. The violence had to stop or someone would die.
“Listen,” O’Kane told his men, “The Tang ’s on the bottom. Just go ahead and tell them what the name is.” 14
THE AGONY SEEMED as if it would never end. For four more days, the Tang survivors fried in the daytime sun on the P-34 ’s deck and were crammed together in the airless deckhouse at night. Some of the men recalled with bitter irony how they had treated a Japanese sailor from Kyoto, a man named Mishuitunni Ka, whom they had fished from the water on their third patrol. They had nicknamed the sailor “Firecracker” because they had saved his life on July 4, 1944.
In stark contrast to what they were experiencing, the Tang ’s crew had looked after Firecracker so well that O’Kane noted he was “much more of a crew’s mascot than a prisoner of war.” In fact, he was treated more like a guest of honor: One midnight, while passing through the galley, O’Kane had found a cook hard at work. “Oh, I’m just trying to get the texture of Firecracker’s rice the way he’s used to it, Captain,” the cook had commented. “We’ve been cooking it too hard.” 15
On the fifth day aboard the P-34, the men were sitting on the deck when they saw the Pescadores Islands come into view. Then the P-34 entered the port of Takao on Formosa, modern-day Taiwan.
As they entered the harbor, the Tang ’s survivors were blindfolded. “They [also] put a hangman’s black sack over our heads,” recalled Larry Savadkin. 16
After the Japanese led the men off the boat, they were bundled onto a flatbed truck, which took them to a dockside warehouse. “The Japanese then waltzed us through a small town,” recalled Bill Leibold, describing the public procession the men next endured. “There was a lot of yelling. We got pushed around.” 17
O’Kane later observed that this “morning publicity parade rather backfired. Trukke had somehow managed to keep long blonde hair, but now all of the slickum had washed away, and his hair bounded down all around to the level of his mouth, giving him the exact appearance of Hairless Joe in Al Capp’s comic strip. The onlookers pointed and laughed [at him] until the whole affair took on—for them—the nature of a circus parade.” 18
After the march, the Tang survivors were placed in a jail. A Japanese officer threatened them with beheading if they did not cooperate. In their cells, the Tang survivors were chained by the wrists to rings fixed high on the wall.
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