[Excerpts] ...

[...]

Han arrived at the wall early the morning of the 4th. I instructed him to return with the goods after the 8 a.m. roll call when I would hoist my signal flag, a piece of white cloth. Roll call over, I cautiously retreated to our rendezvous point and sent up my flag. From my perch on the drain pipe behind the guard house, I could see Han and his helpers almost immediately start running across the field toward the wall. All were burdened down with supplies. When he arrived I slipped a wad of bills, $680 FRB, under the barbed wire into the merchant’s outstretched hands.

Now in a moment, I thought, the packages will begin to flow across the wall. When the goods did not arrive, however, I began to feel uneasy. Climbing back up on my perch, I surveyed the situation to learn the reason for the delay.

Suddenly I saw Han’s helpers scampering in every direction. At the same time, I could hear the thundering footsteps and bellows of rage coming from Japanese guards in pursuit of the miscreants.

Instantly I hauled down the flag, jumped to the ground and called to my lookouts that the deal was off. Stuffing the white cloth in my pocket, I started toward our quarters, struggling to affect the casual gait of a man on a leisurely morning stroll. But the next moment I found myself looking into the surly visage of a guard who pointed to the bulge in my pocket and demanded an explanation.

From the cold smile on his face as he examined the flag, it was clear he knew all too well what purpose it served. He started to escort me to the guard house, but then evidently remembering the unclaimed bonanza of sugar and supplies abandoned outside the wall, he hastily took my name and darted toward the front gate.

The brief reprieve gave me time to hurry back to our quarters and “clean house”, distributing our stored goods among our friends before the inevitable search began. At 10:30 a.m. I was summoned to the office of the commandant for the grand inquisition. Interpreting was our “friend”, Saborwal, a burly man of unknown nationality fluent in Japanese, who was clearly serving our captors in return for sundry favors. Saborwal was not the most popular man in camp. I soon learned that the Japanese had the story of my buying activities well in hand, obviously obtained from inside intelligence.

My sentence was two weeks in solitary confinement without books (although at the end they relented allowing me to take my Bible). At 12:30 I entered my cell, a small six by eight room in what had originally been the servant’s quarters.

[excerpt]

The escapees’ nine roommates were shut up in the compound church and interrogated nonstop for several days.

In time, however, the authorities became convinced that the men did, in fact, know very little about either the escape plans or their colleagues’ present whereabouts, and therefore released them.

Most vexing, the commandant now required the tedious roll calls twice a day at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., each session taking a full hour. Beyond this, however, there were no other reprisals; nor did our captors resort to violence or torture, as some had feared.

[excerpt]

On that morning of August 7, the Thompsons joined the 400 other internees of group six for roll call at the old tennis court situated beside the camp hospital.

While waiting for the “warden” who habitually showed up late, the youngsters looked for a diversion.

Running diagonally above the court was an uninsulated power line leading from the camp transformer to the sentry tower. Originally, it had stretched a full 20 feet above the ground, but with the passing months it sagged lower and lower. Three times Japanese authorities had been appealed to, to remedy this situation, but nothing had been done.

On this morning, the ground was damp due to the rain during the night. “Bet you can’t touch that wire,” one of the teenagers challenged. A smaller high school student leapt high in the air barely touching the wire with the tips of his fingers.

“Wow,” he exclaimed, “I got a shock!” Now Brian, his curiosity piqued, attempted the same.

Taller than the others at six feet one, he not only touched the wire, but seized it. The full charge of electricity convulsed every muscle in his body.

Unable to let go, he fell to the ground with an awful cry, narrowly missing several of the internees standing nearby.

Mrs. Thompson, seeing her stricken son, instinctively rushed to his aid, but was providently restrained ― her life probably saved ― by alert neighbors.

While a collective cry of alarm rose, several men using wooden deck chairs slashed at the wire, finally, but belatedly, freeing Brian. He was taken to the hospital, and while our camp doctors worked over his body, his classmates waited and prayed outside.

Three hours later a doctor emerged to announce that all attempts to revive the lad had proven futile.

Brian Thompson was dead.

[further reading] ...
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/GordonHelsby/photos/p_FrontCover.htm

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