Captain Kenneth Schacht was a young officer on the USS Perch (SS-176) on 3 March 1942, when she was severely damaged by Japanese destroyers during the invasion of Java in the Netherlands East Indies. After scuttling their submarine, Schacht and the rest of the crew were captured and spent the next three and a half years in a series of camps in Japan: Ofuna, Yokohama, Zentsuji, and Roku Roshi. These sketches, and the verse and prose that accompany them, were made by Schacht during his internment. They reveal the brutal harshness of life as a POW in the Pacific Theater, as well as the rare opportunities for levity that punctuated an otherwise bleak existence. Completing 30 years in the Navy, Captain Schacht served as the commanding officer of the Naval Station, Annapolis, and retired in 1965. He passed away in 1985, and his sketches are published now with the permission of his daughter, Mrs. Marcia Mclnerney.
‘A Thing of Fear, and Pain, and Strife’
In never-before-published sketches and poetry, a Navy submariner offers a glimpse of the three-and-a-half years he spent imprisoned by the Japanese.
By Captain Kenneth G. Schacht, U.S. Navy (Retired)
