The evidence does not suggest that the Chinese deliberately tried to starve the POW’s with the end of extermination in mind, in the footsteps of the Nazis. When in late winter the death rate climbed alarmingly, to twenty-eight men each day, the Chinese commandant of Camp 5 showed signs of concern; he ordered the American doctors in the camp to stop the deaths, at once. More medicines were made available — but the commandant angrily resisted the Americans’ demands for more food.
He admitted the POW’s were fed worse than the guards — but they were receiving the same diet that class enemies of the Chinese state received, who not only had to undergo two or more years of reorientation on such ration, but hard labor, too.
[...]
And one fact that stands out starkly among the pieces of evidence is that while 50 percent of the American POW’s died, and a percentage of British that caused grave concern later to her Majesty’s Government, few South Koreans experienced much difficulty, and not one Turkish prisoner of war died.
[...]
The Turks were a completely homogeneous group, with common background and common culture, and with a chain of command that was never broken.
They remained united against the enemy, and they survived.
The Turks did not come from an admirable society. Only a few decades back in time, Turks were slaving in Egypt, and conducting vast pograms in Armenia. In the last century Turks still blew living men from the mouths of cannon for minor crimes and punished more serious ones by impalement — a peculiarly horrible form of execution, in which a man was seated on a sharpened tapered stake, toes off the ground, and his body weight, and movements, slowly drove him downward.
There had never been anything approaching freedom, or democracy, in Turkey. Election have been held, but the loser normally wind up in jail.
Turkey had journeyed partway into the twentieth century only under the iron fist of Kemal Atatürk and his successors, who were just as determine as the Chinese Communists to destroy an ancient, backward, Oriental way of life.
Atatürk was determined to Westernize his people by force. He broke the power of the Moslem clergy, revised education, changed the traditional head-gear and alphabet.
But in the middle of the century the Turkish soldier who served his country’s colors was still a fanatically devout custom-ridden peasant, close to the soil and survival, accustomed to the fiercest discipline of all his life, from father, state, and army — but with a barbarian’s pride in himself and his people.
He would take baths only with his clothes on in the prison camps, or allow a nonbeliever friend such as Schlichter to view his Koran only through the seven veils, and he went white with outrage if venereal disease were even discussed. But he was completely aware of what he was — he was a Turk, and a Turk was unquestionably the finest of all possible things to be, even as there was no God but Allah. These matters he felt no need to prove or argue; he had imbibed them with his mother’s milk, and his mind had not been cluttered with other notions since.
He knew Russians were Communists, and he knew Russians were enemies, always had been, always would be. He hated Russians; he hated Communists. The matter was not arguable.
He was close to the soil, and knew hardship; he ate what Allah or the dogs of Communist Chinese provided, without complaint. He also knew enough to eat any scrap of greenery he could place his hands on, and in the camps many better-educated Americans watched him eat weeds in amazement. Later, many of them followed suit.
He was barbarian-proud of his manhood and his fighting ability. He knew, dimly, that his ancestors had been the backbone of Near Eastern armies since the Empire of Rome and that their courage with cold steel had rarely been equaled. He knew, dimly, that firepower had vanquished his vaunted empire and that economically he was backward, but this had not lessened his faith in Turks or Turkdom. What schools he had attended used no economic argument in teaching the greatness of Turks.
Even after thirty years of state anticlericalism, his faith in his God was childlike, ignorant, and complete.
He had enlisted for a minimum of six years, and he could not hope to become a sergeant until after that first six year. He had served long with the men about him in these camps, and he expected to serve beside these same men again, if Allah willed him to survive. He could not understand these Americans who often acted like strangers to one another, and as if they would never see on another again.
His senior enlisted man took command in the prison camp, because he was senior. Neither he nor the British N.C.O.’s held an election, as did the Americans — who elected in Camp Five a corporal masquerading as a sergeant who was popular with the Chinese guards.
His senior enlisted man ran a detail roster daily. There was never any question of who would chop the wood, haul the water, or care for the sick — while American N.C.O.’s and doctors and chaplains often begged men to feed the sick, wash the unconscious, or go outside for firewood — and were told, “Go to hell, you’re no better than I am!”
When his senior enlisted man was threatened by the guards for defiance, it did them no good to remove him. The second, the third, even the hundredth senior man took over, and nothing changed.
When on Turk was too friendly with the Chinese, court was hel, and Sergeant Schlichter was invited to observe. The senior N.C.O. sat as judge, and trial was held, with argument and testimony. When one Turk was found guilty of amiability toward the enemy, he was severely beaten. His defense counsel was beaten, too, for daring to extol such a traitor.
When Schlichter asked, “What happens if he does this again?” he was told,
“Then we shall kill him.”
It was a rigid society, far from admirable by Western standards. Disturbingly, it had the best record of any group in Communist captivity.
Americans should remember that while barbarian may be ignorant they are not always stupid.
