Sign Language In Unbroken

Unbroken, a novel written by Laura Hillenbrand, outlines the horrors of being captured by Japanese troops during the Second World War. Because of the ethics that the Japanese people had, the Geneva Convention was hardly ever followed, and the captives were rarely ever treated well. The Red Cross was blatantly lied to, meaning that to the outside world, the Japanese Prison Camps were treating their husbands and sons well. On the interior, however, it was apparent that the prisoners had to do whatever it would take to survive. Men stole goods, communicated in many ways, and even had ploys to either kill camp officials, or to even run away. Communication was a key to information while being in camps. Men would use sign language when the guards

Information was highly craved by the captives, and the men would do anything to get it. Hillenbrand wrote, “Newspapers rarely appeared, but when one did, stealing it became a camp wide obsession.” Outside of human resources, newspapers had diagrams, charts, and entire segments in English about the Allied success across both Europe and the Japanese controlled islands. Food was also required to the point of theft. The men would try to live off of what they were given, and make every morsel they received count. However, Hillenbrand said, “But the men were fed so little and worked so hard that they felt they had to steal to survive.” There were elaborate sugar and vegetable stealing lines set up. Men would take sharpened bamboo reeds and stick them into sacks of sugar and drain it into socks and deliver it into camps. A similar technique was also used with

There were often two goals: Kill the camp officials, or escape. One plot was to kill the most evil man of all the camps, Watanabe. “The Bird” is what he was commonly referred as. The Bird was a vile man, and many men wanted him dead. The plot involved poisoning the Bird, and killing him slowly by putting it in his meals throughout the span of about a week. Richard Whitfield and Alfred Weinstein had made a plan to put atropine and morphine in his food. The plan, however, was spoiled by the Bird who had all the medications locked up the day before the plan was set into motion. Escaping was another thing that offered great morale. In the original plan, the men were going to escape the compound and reach a plane. Tinker, a pilot, was asked if he could fly a plane out of the area, ““If it has wings,” was his response. However, the plan was shut down with the attempted escape of other men the day before their plan had been set in