Farting for Hirohito

AT FIRST, THERE WAS ONLY SILENCE AND ISOLATION. AT night,

all Louie could see were walls, stripes of ground through the
gaps in the floorboards, and his own limbs, as slender as reeds.
The guards would stomp down the aisles, occasionally dragging
a man out to be beaten. There were men in cells around Louie,
but no one spoke. Come daylight, Louie was suddenly among ”

Excerpt From: Laura Hillenbrand. “Unbroken: A World War II

Story Of Survival, Resilience & Redemption.” Apple Books.

“them, hustled outside and herded in crazy circles; with his

eyes trained obediently on the ground and his mouth
obediently closed, Louie was no less alone. 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.
In stolen glances, nods, and hushed words, Louie sorted out the
constellations of Ofuna. His barracks was inhabited by new
captives, mostly Americans, survivors of downed aircraft and
sunken seacraft. Down the hall lived two emaciated American
navy officers, the ranking Allied servicemen. First in rank was
Commander Arthur Maher, who had survived the sinking of his
ship, the Houston, in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait. He had swum to
Java and fled into the mountains, only to be hunted down.
Second in rank was thirty-five-year-old Commander John
Fitzgerald, who had fallen into Japanese hands after he’d
scuttled his burning submarine, the Grenadier, which had been
bombed. The Japanese had attempted, in vain, to torture
information out of Fitzgerald, clubbing him[…]”

Excerpt From: Laura Hillenbrand. “Unbroken: A World War II

Story Of Survival, Resilience & Redemption.” Apple Books.