By Laura Hillenbrand
This is an incredible story, I could not put it down. Amazing and thought provoking book. Spoilers contained below so watch out. I recommend closing out of this blog and reading the book instead.
"There were 594 holes. All of the Nauru bombers had made it back, every one of them shot up, but none so badly as this." Page 104
"In its place, rising from below, came dark blue shapes, gliding in lithe arcs. A neat, sharp form, flat and shining, cut the surface and began tracing circles around the rafts. Another one joined it. The sharks had found them." Page 129
"'It was awful, awful, awful,' he said through tears sixty years later. '. . . If you dig into it, it comes back to you. That's the way war is.'" Page 140
"Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phill's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling." Page 147
"A moment later, the second shark jumped up. Louie grabbed an oar and struck the shark in the nose, and it jerked back and slid away. Then the first shark lunged for him again." Page 160
"Though they didn't know it, they had passed what was almost certainly the record for survival adrift in an inflated raft. If anyone had survived longer, they hadn't lived to tell about it." Pg 165
"Joyful and grateful in the midst of slow dying, the two men bathed in that day until sunset brought it, and their time in the doldrums, to an end." Page 166
"Louie found that the raft offered an unlikely intellectual refuge." Page 166
"Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live." Page 182
"Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty. In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet." Page 183
"Japanese historians call this phenomenon 'transfer of oppression.'"
Page 194
"What Hirose did took nerve. Everywhere in Japan, demonstrating sympathy for captives or POW's was taboo." Page 196
"Punctuating the passage of each day were beatings. Men were beaten for folding their arms, for sitting naked to help heal sores, for cleaning their teeth, for talking in their sleep. Most often, they were beaten for not understanding orders, which were almost always issued in Japanese." Page 193
"The only break in the gloom came in the form of a smiling guard who liked to saunter down the barracks aisle, pause before each cell, raise one leg, and vent a surly fart at the captive within. He never quite succeeded in farting his way down the entire cell block." Page 200
"The triumph was in the subversion." Page 203
"A fragrant favorite involved saving up intestinal gas, explosively voluminous thanks to chronic dysentery, prior to tenko. When the men were ordered to bow toward the emperor, the captives would pitch forward in concert and let thunderclaps fly for Hirohito." Page 204
"Though the captives' resistance was dangerous, through such acts, dignity was preserved, and through dignity, life itself. Everyone knew what the consequences would be if anyone were caught stealing newspapers or hiding items as incriminating as Harris's maps and dictionary. At the time, it seemed worth the risk." Page 205
"In Naoetsu's little POW insurgency, perhaps the most insidious feat was pulled off by Louie's friend Ken Marvin, a marine who'd been captured at Wake Atoll. At his work site, Marvin was supervised by a one-eyed civilian guard called Bad Eye. When Bad Eye asked him to teach him English, Marvin saw his chance. With secret delight, he began teaching Bad Eye catastrophically bad English. From that day forward, when asked, 'How are you?' Bad Eye would smilingly reply 'What the fuck do you care?'" Page 285
Regarding the Bird: "This man, thought Tinker, is a psychopath." Page 232
"Virtually nothing about Japan's use of POW's was in keeping with the Geneva Convention. To be an enlisted prisoner of war under the Japanese was to be a slave." Page 234
"By Wade's estimate, each man had been punched in the face some 220 times." Page 290
Book 19
Amazing true story, A part of our history which should never be forgotten. I can't wait to have a movie like this.
ReplyDelete