Late in the Pacific campaign my uncle Sage Johnston was flying a carrier based Dauntless when a Zero kamikazied him and his gunner down into the Pacific. He survived the kamikaze and was picked up by a patrol boat. Unfortunately for him it was flying the rising sun. He spent the rest of the war in Tokyo at Ohana prison, a vety bad place. He witnessed the random beheading of American officers. Later he returned to Tokyo and testified on behalf of some of the kinder and more humane guards. A photo of him and a few other US POWs from the liberation of Ohana survives - He looked like death on a cracker. About 90 pounds on a 6’1” frame. He suffered from beei beti and was routinely beaten by guards and tortured by suspending him backeard from his elbows high on a wall from a bamboo pole. Sage was from Boligee, Alabama and lived well into his 80s. Sage’s remains rest about fifty yards downhill from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington. I was privileged to draft and probate his last will and testament and to witness the inurnment ceremony on a chilly, breezy, cloudless day in November, 2014. I gotta say, the air was rather dusty that day. Sage treated each day like Christmas Eve and suffered no fools. Makes sense. He did NOT talk about the war as a rule but would pipe up if you asked an intelligent question. After the war, he met a beautiful lady from Rennes in Brittany, she a veteran of the French Resistance, and they married and had three boys together, Sage, Derrick and Brett. He flew for PanAm for many years iin the 50s and 60s.
He told me he and many of the other Navy prisoners at Ohana wanted to shank a fellow prisoner trusty who gave out their meager ration of food each day. He had mastered the art of dropping tidbits of meat and rice into the knee pockets of his flight suit (prisoners wore what they eere captured in) as he brought out a platter of food. Sage said the guards knew he was doing it but didn’t care.