Did you know how a Medal of Honor recipient tricked his Japanese captors?

Richard Nott Antrim is not among the most famous World War II recipients of the Medal of Honor (The Medal of Honor), but his story deserved wider recognition. A naval officer and aviator, he was captured by the Japanese in March 1942, during the early, desperate days of the Pacific War. The actions that earned him the highest American military decoration are highly unusual as they occurred in captivity, rather than combat. And, after saving a fellow officer’s life in a prisoner of war camp, he later went on to play a dangerous game to trick his captors and save even more American captives.
 
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Antrim was serving as the executive officer of USS Pope, a destroyer built shortly after World War I that was “old enough to vote.” The Antrim and Pope fought in three battles in January and February 1942, with Antrim earning a Navy Cross and consideration as commander of a destroyer, but the ship was inevitably sunk by Japanese naval and air power. Antrim and the rest of the crew (except one man who was lost) was picked up by a Japanese ship and taken to a prisoner of war camp.

Beatings and torture by the short-tempered guards was common, and one Lieutenant (junior grade) Allan Jack Fisher became a victim in April after he didn’t bow low enough for a guard. Once the man fell on the ground under the strikes of the guard’s swagger stick, Antrim could no longer hold himself back and stepped forward, asking the guard for mercy. This further incensed the guards, who quickly held a kangaroo court and sentenced Fisher to 50 lashes with a hawser, a thick rope. Fisher fell unconscious after 15 lashes, but the punished continued to be dealt out to the immobile man and was clearly going to kill him. Antrim intervened once more, demanding that the rest of the punishment be applied to him in Fisher’s stead. This elicited a roar of acclaim from the ranks of the prisoners and surprised the guards so much that they stopped the beating. His intercession and self-sacrifice earned him not the first, but one of the first Medals of Honor of the war.

Antrim, however, was not done risking his own life for his comrades. Later in the war, the Japanese at the camp put him in charge of a work detail digging trenches for protection against Allied air raids. He suggested changes to the layout of the trenches, which the guards approved. They didn’t realize that the new layout spelled out the letters “U S” when seen from the air, alerting Allied planes that the trenches were occupied by prisoners. Had the Japanese realized what Antrim was doing, they would have beheaded him on the spot. As it were, the letters were noticed by Allied recon planes, and the lives of hundreds of prisoners were likely saved. After the war, Antrim continued to serve until 1954, and was advanced to the rank of rear admiral on the retired list on the basis of his combat awards.