Just for curiosity's sake, from a book I'm reading at the moment, "War in the Pacific", newspaper articles Marine Brig.Gen. Jerome Hagen (ret.) was writing.
"THE LIE OF MARCUS McDILDA
On the evening of August 8, 1945, in Osaka, Japan, several kempei tai (Japanese secret police) were questioning an American flyer who had been shot down earlier in the day. The flyer, Lt. Marcus McDilda, had been recovered from the ocean, bound, blindfolded, and forced to walk the gauntlet of angry civilians through the city streets. When the beatings at the hands of the civilians ended, McDilda was taken to a typical kempei tai interrogation room where Japanese officers began to question him.
McDilda was questioned for hours. The same questions would be asked again and again, and each time he was beaten if his responses were not to the liking of his questioners. The questioning intensified as did the beatings. What did he know of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima two days earlier? Absolutely nothing, McDilda responded.
Believing that they were on to something, the kempei tai brought in a general officer just before midnight to break McDilda. The general demanded that McDilda tell him about the atomic bomb. When McDilda said nothing, the general drew his sword and held it before McDilda's face. Then he jabbed forward, cutting through McDilda's lip. Blood streamed down the pilot's chin and flight suit. The general screamed, "If you don't tell me about the bomb, I'll personally cut off your head." Then he stalked from the room.
McDilda had been beaten up enough. His body ached from the beatings received during the march, his Up throbbed from the sword cut, and now a fresh crew of questioners approached. According to author WilUam Craig, McDilda embarked upon a lie worthy of the best storyteller.' McDilda began:
"As you know ..., when atoms are split, there are a lot of pluses and minuses released. Well, we've taken these and put them in a huge container and separated them from each other with a lead shield. When the box is dropped out of a plane, we melt the lead shield and the pluses and minuses come together. When that happens, it causes a tremendous bolt of lightning and all the atmosphere over a city is pushed back! Then when the atmosphere rolls back, it brings about a tremendous thunderclap, which knocks down everything beneath it."4
When pushed to further describe the bomb, McDilda added that it was about 36 feet long and 24 feet wide. The interrogators were delighted but needed to know one thing more. Where was the next target for the new weapon? McDilda chose the two Japanese cities he could think of and responded, "Kyoto and Tokyo. Tokyo is supposed to be bombed in the next few days." The kempei tai continued to ask questions, but McDilda had reached a point where he could only go back and repeat his lies. One of the interrogators left the room and put through a call to the headquarters of the secret police in Tokyo.
The next morning, McDilda was flown from Osaka to Tokyo where he became a "very important person" to the Japanese secret police. McDilda's questioner in Tokyo was a civilian who wore a pinstripe suit. "I am a graduate of CCNY College," he told McDilda, "and most interested in your story about the atomic bomb." McDilda repeated his story again. After several minutes, the official knew that McDilda was a fake who knew nothing about nuclear fission. When asked why he was telling such a lie, McDilda responded that he had tried, without success, to tell his interrogators that he knew nothing about the bomb but had to invent the lie to stay alive. The Japanese official laughed. McDilda was taken to a cell, given some food, and waited for the unknown.
McDilda, at the time, had no idea that his lie had saved his life. Shortly after the emperor had broadcast the news of defeat, more than 50 American prisoners at the Osaka secret police headquarters were beheaded by vengeful Japanese soldiers.8
Nineteen days later, on August 30, the Fourth Marine Regiment landed near the Omori POW camp on the Tokyo waterfront. Cmdr. Harold Stassen, USN, later senator from Minnesota, walked to the gates of Omori where he was challenged by the Japanese commandant, who said that he had no authority to turn the prisoners over to him. Stassen kicked him squarely in the backside (yeah!  ), looked coldly at the officer, and said, "You have no authority period." Among the prisoners released were McDilda and Pappy Boyington, the marine corps ace of the South Pacific."
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