How Marine POWs Hung Tough
By Gregory J. W. Urwin

World War II  | 3 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Still fit and trim at forty-one, Brown possessed a dynamic personality and impeccable military bearing. “He always had on [a] polished Sam Brown belt, in full ‘Greens’ and shined shoes, neatly shaven and a well-trimmed ‘Ronald Coleman’ moustache,” marveled Pfc. Jack R. Williamson. Brown made it clear to both the North China and Wake marines that they still belonged to the Marine Corps, POWs or not. “We are a military organization,” he preached, “and I intend to see that we remain one. To do that, there must be discipline.” In the prewar Marine Corps, Brown was known as “Handbook” Brown for authoring The Marine’s Handbook, the enlisted man’s primary guide to service life. He was as tough as he was savvy. When one imprisoned leatherneck responded to a reprimand by snarling, “Goddamn the Marine Corps!” the major laid him out with a roundhouse punch to the face.

Brown demonstrated the same indomitableness in dealing with the Japanese. Among Brown’s most prized possessions was a U.S. Army training manual, The Rules for Land Warfare, which contained excerpts from the Geneva Convention on the proper treatment of POWs. Whenever his keepers violated the convention, Brown would march into the commandant’s office to file a forceful and authoritative protest. “He never quit trying to make life better for us,” remembered Cpl. Terence S. Kirk. “Every time I saw him heading for a conference with the Japs, he clutched his international law book like a preacher going to church with a bible.”

Brown never showed the Japanese the slightest hint of fear. When an enemy interpreter slapped him in the face in the presence of the camp commandant, the marine major promptly decked him. On another occasion, Brown disarmed a different interpreter who was drawing his samurai sword to behead Sir Mark Young, the British governor-general of Hong Kong. In another camp, such gestures would have earned Brown a summary execution, but authorities at Shanghai were either too impressed or intimidated by his courage to punish him.

Brown’s heroic exertions were supported by Maj. James Devereux, the commander of the Wake marines. “Hidden behind the routine, under the surface of life in prison camp was fought a war of wills for moral supremacy—an endless struggle, as bitter as it was unspoken, between the captors and the captives,” Devereux recounted. “The stake seemed to me simply this: the main objective of the whole Japanese prison program was to break our spirit, and on our side was a stubborn determination to keep our self-respect whatever else they took from us.”

A notorious martinet before the war, Devereux continued to insist on the strict observance of military courtesy within his captured detachment. “Our morale was good,” he declared, “so much different from some of these places I heard about, because I insisted on military courtesy. As a result of having the respect of the men, we could more properly represent them to the Japanese, and insist upon certain things we thought we were entitled to.” Devereux also did everything in his power to preserve his marines’ sense of group identity and loyalty. “This is a unit,” he would say. “This is the 1st Marine Defense Battalion, Wake Island Detachment. This is a group.” On another occasion, Devereux told his men, “I don’t need to threaten you. You’re still marines. Act like it.” Yearning for the day when Allied troops would liberate Shanghai and the Wake marines could reenter the war, Devereux had an enlisted clerk draw up a complete order of battle, assigning every officer and man to a specific battery and combat assignment.

Devereux did not hesitate to employ harsher means in his struggle to maintain order. When one of Devereux’s corporals started a fistfight with a sergeant, Devereux had the Japanese place the corporal in solitary confinement. He then assembled his marines and warned, “I will sacrifice a few of you to get the rest of you back.”

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.