General Dean, held in solitary confinement for much of his three years’ captivity, stated the greatest problem facing a prisoner of war is “maintaining his judgment—he has no one on whom he can try out his ideas before turning them into decisions.”[606] Possibly this was also Colonel Schwable’s problem. Many drafts of his confession were made before the Chinese were satisfied that specific details reinforced the information earlier obtained in other prisoners’ false statements. The confession that finally evolved in December cleverly combined factual order of battle data and technical terminology to create a most convincing lie. It was more sophisticated than efforts of earlier captives and was, unquestionably, damaging.
[606] Ibid., p. 182.
Problems and Performance of Marine POWs[607]
[607] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: PacFlt EvalRpt No. 6, Chap. 10; MacDonald, POW; Fehrenbach, Kind of War.
Problems faced by Marine and other UNC prisoners ranged from the fundamentals of sheer survival to more abstract questions involving honor and duty that have less sharply defined interpretations. Was it, for instance, a prisoner’s duty to overtly resist the enemy at all costs and on all possible occasions? Or was an attitude of passive resistance that created less hostility and attention better in the long run? Were such passive techniques liable to render a POW unable to continue making fine distinctions in his conduct and behavior so that he unwittingly went over the line to become a collaborator with the enemy? What about a ranking POW’s responsibility of leadership?
In a practical, day-in, day-out way, every prisoner had to decide for himself as to how actively or passively he would resist the enemy. In a number of cases Marine (and other Allied) POWs gave deliberately false or misleading information in response to threats, coercion, or maltreatment. Three Marines at Pak’s regularly held counsel “to determine their courses of action and to coordinate their false stories.”[608] Captain Fink’s list of ships, all sunk in World Wars I and II, was similar to the story told by an Air Force officer of the new B-108 bomber (three B-36s).
[608] MacDonald, POW, p. 121.
Not infrequently a POW faced threats of death, reduced rations, still worse medical care, solitary, or physical beatings and torture if he failed to make some response to questions. Major Richardson finally wrote untruthful answers to five questions about the Navy, although his NKPA interrogators told him his lies were detected. Master Sergeant Cain authored a fanciful report about the Fleet Logistic Wing, an organization about which he knew nothing, not too surprisingly since it did not exist. He later admitted, however, that he felt he’d “made a mistake at that time [his first interrogation] by lying about inconsequential things.”[609]
[609] Ibid., p. 185.
Expressed in simplistic terms, a spirit of cohesion and of group identity seemed to be the key factor in—to use a bromide that is particularly apt here—separating the men from the boys. Even when avowed reactionary leaders were removed to serve one of their many solitary tours, there seems little doubt that their example served to instill a spirit of resistance (either open or underground) in fellow POWs. This was particularly true when the leadership gap was filled by the next senior man and the chain of command remained unbroken.