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Re: What was A.L. Beardon doing ?
I confess this story has puzzled me. On the one hand, why even admit to fellow POWs that he was supposedly helping erect a P-38 (whether he was or not) when that would put him in jeapordy with his fellow prisoners ?
On the other hand, we have the report, "He then told us that he had been carrying out a sort of independent counter-espionage program against the Japanese in that they had been asking him for invasion plans and other military information and that he had been giving them answers which would have hindered more than helped. He said that he was not able to tell us this before because he was afraid that in some way or other it would get back to the Japanese and then he would not be able to do anything.".
This sort of "free-lancing" was, to say the least, foolish and dangerous. My undertanding was that personnel were briefed that, if captured, they were not to reveal information and - equally important - not to fabricate information, since consequences would be unpredictable. Hence, the policy was one of \"Thou shalt not BS the enemy - just say nothing."
If Beardon was shooting a line, who was he doing it with ? His fellow POWs ? or his captors ? And if the latter, why ? To get a bit more food (and perhaps some fresh air) at the risk of discovery and beatings ?
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