No Ordinary Joes (27 page)

As he and the other prisoners started running around the perimeter of the camp, he glanced to his left and spotted a familiar face. He could barely contain himself: it was Captain Fitzgerald. The last time he’d seen him was at the Convent on Light Street when Fitzgerald was being dragged away unconscious after being waterboarded.

* * *

Bob turned his back to the door of his cell, shielding his hands from view in case a guard was watching him through the peephole. It was Captain Fitzgerald’s birthday, and Bob was preparing a present for him, a ball of rice that he was crafting out of portions he’d set aside from his own servings over the last few days. If he was caught, surely he’d get another beating.

Still black and blue from the last beating administered for talking during an exercise period, Bob gently squeezed the rice ball, molding it into shape. To Bob’s surprise, the gummy rice was holding together well. He knew his biggest problem would be smuggling it out of his cell past the guards and sneaking it to Captain Fitzgerald during exercise, but it was worth the risk; Bob would do anything for his captain.

Bob Palmer’s hero wasn’t Joe DiMaggio, or FDR, or his father: it was Captain James Fitzgerald. He admired everything about the man: the fact that he’d been a boxing champ at the Naval Academy, the aggressive way he pursued the enemy, the considerate way he’d peek his head into the yeoman’s office and ask Bob how he was doing, the remarkable courage he’d demonstrated under torture. For Bob, who had been convinced that the Japanese had killed Fitzgerald, arriving at Ofuna and discovering that his revered captain was still alive lifted his spirits like nothing had since being captured.

By the rules of the Geneva convention of 1929, officers were not supposed to be beaten or made to perform labor. But of course the Japanese had not agreed to these rules, and had been even harsher in their treatment of Fitzgerald. In Penang, he and Lieutenant Whiting and Lieutenant Hardy were the only men who’d received the water torture, and Fitzgerald had been subjected to far worse. After one episode of his water torture he’d been beaten so badly that he couldn’t even move when he woke up. On the morning he was taken out of camp, he was told to take a bath, but his right arm was paralyzed and his body was so sore that Whiting had to bathe him.

Bob slowly paced his small cell, contemplating the best way to smuggle out the rice ball. Maybe he could hide it in his armpit. If he hid it in
his crotch it might make him limp, though that wouldn’t necessarily raise suspicion.

Bob’s physical condition had deteriorated since his arrival at Ofuna. He hadn’t had a bowel movement in over two months; there were boils on his legs and he weighed less than 120 pounds. He had bruises all over his body. On his first night in camp, four guards entered his cell and beat and stomped him over and over while he curled into the fetal position, covering his head with his arms, just hoping to survive.

The routine at Ofuna, Bob quickly learned, was tightly regimented. Each morning at five minutes before reveille, a guard marched down the corridors yelling at the prisoners to get up. After folding their blankets and placing them in a corner of their cells, they were marched outside and forced to run around the compound, usually for a distance of three or four miles or until a prisoner fell. Guards armed with baseball-bat-sized clubs were positioned at four different places round the perimeter. Anyone lagging behind was beaten across the back and legs. Almost all of the prisoners were either malnourished or suffering from beriberi, so few made the run without being beaten or collapsing, including Bob. Twice in his first month he was caught trying to whisper to other prisoners and the guards made everyone stand at attention for ten straight hours. But their favorite trick to punish Bob was something he called the Ofuna Crouch—bent at the knees, back straight, arms overhead, and up on the balls of his feet. As soon as he wavered or fell, which he always did, a guard beat him with a club and forced him to resume the position. Each day, after exercise period was over, he and the other prisoners were marched back to their rooms and fed one teacup of rice and a cup of thin soup, precisely measured.

Fitzgerald had been taken to the interrogation center and questioned almost daily by officers he’d named the QKs, or Quiz Kids. One focus of their questioning was where the
Grenadier
and other American submarines were based. (Someone on the crew—and nobody knew for sure who it was—had coughed up the real name of the sub.) Fitzgerald was determined to provide them with no useful information, no matter the consequences. From their questions, he determined that they believed American subs
were stationed in Sydney on the east coast of Australia, so he played along, telling them the
Grenadier
had arrived there directly from Pearl Harbor by traveling east of the Marshals and past the Fiji Islands. They also wanted to know how many American subs had been sunk or damaged. Again he lied, telling them fifty subs had failed to return and over forty were seriously damaged. On questions about the design and specifics of the
Grenadier
, he provided them only with information that was readily available in
Jane’s Fighting Ships
, a book he knew they had in their possession. When they intercepted a radio broadcast from Australia that mentioned American subs refueling at Exmouth on the northwestern Australian coast, he maintained he knew nothing about that, even though the
Grenadier
had taken on fuel there on its fateful last patrol. To make sure that Lieutenant Hardy and the other crew members told the same story, he left short, cryptic messages in the
benjo
after each interrogation or whispered to them as they exercised. Bob had been questioned several times and he had repeated the same story.

Still holding the rice ball, Bob paced the four steps across his cell and then back the other way. By his calculations he still had a couple of minutes before the guard opened his door.

Pacing his cell was what he did every day, pacing and thinking. Usually his thoughts went to Barbara. He relived their wedding night—the late-night ceremony at the church on Dolores Street in San Francisco, dinner at Vanessi’s, making love in the apartment on Pine Street. He pictured what it would be like if he survived all this: She would greet him as he got off the ship and walked down the gangplank. She would be wearing the new charcoal-colored dress and pillbox hat she’d bought for their wedding. She’d be so beautiful, so happy to see him. It would be the happiest day of his life. He’d been unfaithful on leave in Australia, but in his mind, that had nothing to do with how much he loved Barbara. Getting home to her was what mattered. Maybe he’d stay in the Navy; before he left he’d talked to Barbara about maybe trying to become an officer. That had impressed her. Or maybe they’d move back to Oregon. In his head he designed the house they’d live in on the Rogue River. He would be able to fish right
from the porch. Barbara would cook the trout and serve it with sweet potatoes and huckleberry ice cream. And then they’d make love. And there would be kids. Maybe three, maybe four.

In his darkest hours, he worried that Barbara had given him up for dead and had already met someone else.

Hearing the guard’s footsteps approach his cell, he stuffed the rice ball under his arm and waited. The door opened; it was Big Stoop.

Walking toward the door, Bob felt the rice ball start to slip and pressed his elbow closer to his side, pinning it more firmly in place. He wasn’t worried about being beaten; he didn’t want the rice ball to be taken away before he could give it to Captain Fitzgerald.

Moving briskly down the long corridor, he made it outside and stashed the rice ball under a bench, then turned to look for Fitzgerald; there was no sign of him.

“Speedo, speedo,” Big Scoop gave the command to start running.

Forty-five minutes later, exhausted and sore from being clubbed several times, Bob finally wobbled to a stop; there was still no sign of Fitzgerald. Shoved along by Big Stoop, he headed back toward his cell, the rice ball still hidden under the bench.

Sitting at the bar in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Barbara Palmer eyed her watch. It was January 1944, nine months after Bob had been captured. She’d come to the hotel with friends, a married couple who had arranged to have a male friend come and join them for a drink. The guy was already ten minutes late.

In May 1943, a month after the ship had gone down, she had been at home early one evening when there was a knock at the door. It was Western Union with a telegram from the Department of the Navy, informing her that the
Grenadier
had been lost on patrol and the whereabouts of the crew were unknown. She cried herself to sleep that night. For a week she stayed home from her filing job with Southern Pacific on Montgomery Street, alternately crying and checking with the Red Cross and the Navy
to see if there was any news on the crew. She heard nothing. She took a bus home to Medford to spend a few days with her parents and Martin and Cora, Bob’s father and stepmother. Her father was surprisingly supportive. He and Bob had gotten along better on Bob’s last trip home, Bob winning points by talking with her father about the workings of the submarine. Barbara’s mom, although sympathetic, was quick to remind her what she’d said about the hardships Barbara would encounter raising a baby if anything happened to Bob. For his part, Bob’s father refused to accept the possibility that his son was dead, diverting the conversation to talk about what a lousy job FDR was doing and how his policies were responsible for Bob’s being missing. Barbara was not political, but she wondered why Martin disliked FDR so much, considering that it was a WPA project building the roads and lodge at Crater Lake that had employed him during the Depression. But questioning her elders wasn’t part of her personality.

Still seated at the bar, Barbara checked her watch again. Her “date” was now twenty minutes late.

Coming to the Sir Francis Drake had become one of her favorite things to do in the last couple of months. She loved the hotel’s elegance and high style, with its classic crystal chandeliers, gilded ceilings, curved marble staircase, and a lounge that overlooked Union Square and the Powell Street cable cars. Plus, it was a favorite spot of naval officers, and she took every opportunity to ask them if they’d heard anything about the
Grenadier
. None had, of course, but they usually bought her a drink. She appreciated their company.

Since returning from visiting her parents in Oregon, Barbara had done her best to keep busy. With friends, she went to several USO events. It made her feel better to dance with the servicemen and feel like she was helping the war effort. She went to Grace Cathedral, where volunteers gathered to help sort supplies to be sent to servicemen. And not a week went by that she didn’t check with the Red Cross and Navy for any possible news about the
Grenadier
. In November 1943 on a trip to the Red Cross, seven months after the sinking, she saw a new listing:

The names were listed in alphabetical order, from Ralph Adkins to Peter Zucco. Her eyes went straight to the P’s: Piaka, Pierce, Poss, Price … but no Palmer. She read it again, over and over, and could not find Bob’s name. She counted the names: forty-one. She didn’t know the exact number of men on the ship, but thought it to be around sixty. She looked for Captain Fitzgerald’s name. It was not there either. Did some of the men survive and not others? Had Bob drowned? Was he shot trying to escape? She went to the Navy offices on Treasure Island and she called back to the Red Cross almost daily, and always got the same answer: “I’m sorry, we have no further information at this time.” She cried every night, every morning.

In early December 1943 a small package arrived at her apartment on Pine Street with an Australian postmark. She hesitated to open it; she didn’t think she could take any more bad news. Finally, she unwrapped it, and her knees nearly buckled. It contained Bob’s Navy dog tags and wallet and a short note from a woman named Leslie Phillips, informing her that Bob had left these at her house before his last patrol, and she figured Barbara would want them back. There was no explanation of why Bob had been at her house. Barbara assumed the worst.

The more she thought about it, the angrier and more hurt she got. Instead of continuing to cry herself to sleep every night, she resolved to start going out again. “I guess if he could go out, so can I,” she told her cousin Margie.

A naval officer in his dress whites sat down next to her at the Sir Francis Drake bar. He signaled the bartender for a cocktail. She noticed he wore the dolphin insignia, the symbol of the submarine service.

As she usually did when she met Navy men, she told him that her
husband had been on the
Grenadier
and was reported lost at sea. The officer expressed his regrets, then introduced himself. His name was Robert Kunhardt, and his submarine, the
Sawfish
, had just returned to San Francisco for a major overhaul after suffering damage from depth charges on its last patrol. He would be in town for three weeks.

The bartender brought his drink. He was, by Barbara’s initial estimate, well mannered and nice looking, 5 feet 7 inches, with broad shoulders and blue eyes.

Three hours and several drinks later, they said good-bye, making a date for the next night. Her original date never showed. Returning to her apartment, Barbara shared her excitement with her roommate. “He’s a graduate of Annapolis and an officer,” she enthused. “I can’t wait to see him again.”

Through the thin walls of his cell, Bob heard a guard’s footsteps coming down the corridor. He quickly finished urinating and moved the floor plank back into position. Normally prisoners were supposed to summon a guard when they had to go to the toilet, but sometimes the guards didn’t respond, and prisoners had learned to remove one of their floor planks and relieve themselves on the ground below, a practice that ran the risk of a beating if detected.