What was A.L. Beardon doing ?

A very good source of info on Aaron Bearden (not Beardon) is "The Rats of Rangoon" by RAAF W/Cdr Lionel "Bill" Hudson, himself a POW in Rangoon Jail. Here are excerpts from the book which mention Bearden. The material is a bit lengthy. Part of it is Hudson's secret prison diary.

Regards,

Matt
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Pg 41:

...Next morning it was my turn. 'Huddison,' the guard called as he
unlocked our cell. I grabbed my mess tins and was marched upstairs
to Cell 41 to join Herb [Ivens, RCAF pilot] and the Texan.

'What is going on, for Christ's sake?' I asked after the guards had
gone.

"Search me,' said Herb shaking his head. Then he formally
introduced me to Lt Aaron L. Bearden, from Houston, Texas, a P38
pilot who had baled out after his aircraft had collided with another
P38 while dive bombing a bridge near Mandalay.

I was a trained journalist, so naturally I started asking questions.
Herb was strangely uncommunicative. He just shrugged his
shoulders. The Texan offered no theory.

'After you've been in here a while,' he said, 'you'll give up trying to
work out why the Nips do things.'

Then I caught a furtive look in Herb's eyes that promptly shut me
up. I switched to more mundane questions. What happened to you?
How did you 'buy it' ? Herb said he was doing a low-level strafe at 400
miles an hour in his P47 at Meiktila when the ack ack hit him. He lost
consciousness for a brief period but managed to crash-land his
aircraft. He had head and leg injuries. The Burmese captured him
and handed him over to the Japanese.


Pg 42:

The Texan said the Burmese had also handed him over. The
Kempei Tai had given him a rough time for four days before he woke
up to himself and told them a heap of bullshit. That was nearly five
months ago. He stretched out on his bedboard and closed his eyes.

Without taking his eyes off him Herb sketched a three-legged stool in
the air with his finger and fluttered his hands. I nodded. The message
was loud and clear. The Texan was a stool pigeon. He certainly had
not lost any weight during his five months in captivity and it was hard
to imagine any other reason why he should suddenly be put into a cell
with two new arrivals.

We had other warnings. The fellow in the cell opposite wrote a
'take care' message in the air to us and half-a-dozen of our fellow
prisoners touched their closed lips at various times during the next
few days.

The Texan must have been aware of all these warnings. He did not
seem to care and spent most of the day and night on his back while
Herb and I kept busy exercising and discussing every subject under
the sun except matters that might be of interest to our enemy. I
should record that not once did the Texan ask a leading question. He
did not ferret for information.


Pg 43:

...The Texan left us after four or five days. 'Weary Willy', the
Japanese interpreter, took him away one morning. I thought he
looked slightly self-conscious as he left the cell. We did not wish him
good luck. The whispered story from one of his fellow Americans in
the cell opposite that night was that Bearden lived in a house outside
the walls of the gaol and that he was plentifully supplied with food,
cigars and Burmese women.

What worried me at the time was that it was all too blatant. There
had to be something more to it. No way could I imagine anyone with
an iota of intelligence thinking he could get away with something like
this. Perhaps he had a plan . . . perhaps he was, for some reason,
playing a game with the Japanese and thought he could double-cross
them at a critical stage and do something for the prisoners or for our
war effort. Perhaps I was being too generous . . . perhaps he was a
man who would do anything for a belly-full of rice and his belly on a
woman. At any rate, his fellow Americans made no secret of their
shame in his actions.

With the third man out of our cell Herb and I felt we could talk more
freely. In fact, we never stopped. Both of us were obsessed with how
lucky we were just to be alive.


Pg 49:

...Our cell by this time was bristling with irritation. Jack and I had
made out fairly well in Cell 6. At least, to me it was an agreeable
relationship. Granted, we were both stunned and very sorry for
ourselves. We needed each other.

At first, when we were thrown together like fowls to be plucked,
Herb and I seemed to be kindred souls. We had a lively rapport
and sparked off each other. We were a team, too. It was us against
the Texan. A day or so after he left for better pastures Herb and I
clashed over some trivial remark or incident. I forget just what it
was. Then, on 12 January, all the airmen in the cell block, except
Herb and me, and one or two others, were moved to No 8 com-
pound. There were nearly 100 altogether and it was great for them.
They were free to talk and walk about the yard. They could sit in
the sun.

Why were Herb and I left to rot in the cell? We were angry,
exasperated and frightened. We were like caged lions. The other few
prisoners left in the cell block were, as far as we could ascertain,
recent arrivals. It was becoming obvious that we had been selected
for special treatment. The Texan had told us a handful of prize
prisoners had been shipped off to Singapore, even to Tokyo. Was
this to be our fate?


Pg 111:

March 27 [1945. This is from Hudson's prison diary.]

Stripped to my boots and socks ready to do my 4-mile evening walk
in 20 yard laps last night I was told 'Bearden is back.' Magic words. I
found 2/Lt Al Bearden, P 38 pilot, U.S.A.A.F., in an upstairs room
flush with cigarettes and centre of attraction . . . striking real
matches and telling an amazing story of the outside world to
goggle-eyed men. Today I went around every room and told
everybody in compound something. My fingers are too tired to put
down everything. I must be very, very careful.


Pg 131:

14 April, 1945

...Talk with W. Willy for Bearden yesterday. Then out with all
belongings. He said to No 5 block-cells. Still stool-pigeoning? [Hudson is saying that the Japanese interpreter, Weary Willy, talked with Bearden, and then Bearden left the cell with all of his belongings. Hudson wondered if Bearden was continuing his stool pigeoning in the cells of No 5 block, where Bearden said he was headed.]


Pg 137:

21 April

...Bearden back in compound with depressing news of Burma
campaign and the estimate that we won't be free for three months.
How much can you trust a fellow who gets holidays away from the
gaol courtesy the enemy?

Bearden thinks Roosevelt dead. He brought back with him this
time three books . . . one by Agatha Christie called Murder in the
Mews and another crime paper back. Third is J. A. Spender's Short
History of Our Times which was intended for use as cigarette paper
but I have had it reprieved. Surprising interest in the history book -
crime novels overshadowed. 'Tear up crime novels for cigs' is cry.
Anyway, I have organized communal reading of history book and
week for week system of holding it. I read first chapter today and


Pg 138:

loved every word of it. History is going to be my forte when I get
out . . . and that will not be in three months either. I consider
Bearden to be our worst source of news in the circumstances.
Another bean meal tonight. Rations good again . . . vegetables
galore. They are feeding us up for the kill ... or something.

Bearden tells about a crazy inmate of the cell block. He sings all
day and appears sublimely happy. Joe Wilson, our mental case, is
unworried too.


Pg 178:

[These is Hudson's recollections, not his diary excerpts. Hudson describes a time in late April 1945 after the Japanese had force marched 400-plus prisoners from Rangoon Jail, leaving behind the sick and others, including Lionel Hudson and Al Bearden. They were liberated soon thereafter.]

...All was not rosy inside the gaol walls either. Captain Meyer, the
American pilot who took over the air force compound, confided to
me that two or three of his fellow Americans were threatening to
'deal' right now with Lt Bearden, the Texan P 38 pilot.

'They're saying they don't want the world to know that the United
States Air Force had a stool pigeon in its ranks and want to bump him
off,' whispered Captain Meyer. 'The cover story would be that he
just disappeared.'

I could not agree with that sort of kangaroo court justice. So I told
Captain Meyer that Bearden was his responsibility. He could lock
him up in one of the cells with a guard for his own safety if he wished.


Pg 213:

Postscript

The date is March 6, 1987. The proofs of this book are due any day
now from London so that I can check them before publication. One
nagging worry persists: It is the Lt Bearden enigma that has haunted
me for 42 years. What was the whole truth about this Texan pilot
who had been branded a Japanese collaborator by so many of his
fellow prisoners? A slither of doubt about this accusation still lurks in
my mind.

It was just before dawn, a time when, for me, thinking is sharpest.
I lay there reproaching myself for not trying harder to get Bearden's
side of the story. Now it was too late. He was dead. Rangoon
Ramblings, the newsletter of the American POWs who survived the
Japanese prison in Rangoon, Burma, listed A. L. Bearden as having
died in the years after liberation. There was a report that he had died
in 1985 and was interred in the Fort Sam Houston National
Cemetery in Houston, Texas. A few years ago I had tried, in
Washington D.C., to track down Lt Bearden and got nowhere. More
recently, I had contacted the United States Military Personnel
Records Centre in St Louis, Missouri. The fact that the Texan had
finished up in a national cemetery was proof that he had been
honourably discharged and I wanted confirmation of this. However,
you needed to be a next-of-kin to get any information from the
records centre.

Without the full story, the least I could do was to make the point in
this book that there was no slur against Lt Bearden's name when he
died. I owed him that, but first I had to be sure he had been buried at
the National Cemetery.

I was not conscious of having made the decision to do it but, in the
dim, dawn light I found myself sleepily dialling international


Pg 214:

directory assistance. There was an A. L. Bearden listed in Houston.
Again I hesitated.

'How can you be so insensitive to call a widow like this out of the
blue?'

My wife's words were ringing in my ear while my fingers were
dialling. A woman's voice answered.

'My name's Hudson. I'm calling from Sydney, Australia. Would
there by any chance be someone at this number who is related to Lt
Bearden, a pilot, who was in prison in Rangoon, Burma, during the
war?'

'Al's here himself. Would you like to talk with him?

Now I was fully awake.

‘This is Al Bearden.’

'You couldn't be the Lt Bearden who was in Rangoon Gaol during
the war?'

'I sure am.'

'But you're supposed to be dead. All the blokes in the gaol with us,
they said you died two years ago and were buried in the Fort Sam
Houston Cemetery.'

'Well, I'm not feeling too good, but I'm not dead yet.'

'That's good news. I'm glad the report of your death was
exaggerated.'

There was a chuckle over the phone.

'So am I.'

'How come? How could this have happened?'

The 80th Fighter Group in Assam got it wrong. They listed me as
killed in action. That started it off . . .'

I knew by heart his entry in my gaol records: '0-748524 Lt
Bearden, Aaron L., Houston. Texas 459 Sdn. P 38. On 3.9.44 D.
bomb Myting, bridge. Rammed other P 38. Baled out, captured by
Burmese, handed to Japs in Mandalay. Slight ill-treatment at
interrogation, 4 days. Then talked bull. 14.9.44 City Jail. Leg
wounded, no med. treat. 'til C. J. Rangoon Prison 22.9.44. Cell 29.'

I had to be 100 per cent sure this was my man.

'How old would you be?'

'Sixty-nine.'

What were you flying?

P 38.'


Pg 215:

'Where were you shot down?' This was my trick question.

'I wasn't shot down. I rammed into another P 38 over the target.'

Yes, this was our Bearden. We chatted on. To my surprise he had
never heard of the newsletter, Rangoon Ramblings.

'I haven't kept in touch with any of the guys,' he told me. 'Too
busy getting on with my life.'

Neither had he heard about the Rangoon POW reunion in St
Louis, Missouri in two months time. Anyway, he would not be able
to make it.

'I'm not much on reunions. In any case, I'm not well enough.'

I said I was sorry about that, told him to look after himself and
hung up.

I stood there for minutes agonizing over my dilemma and hating
myself for not having had the guts to go further. Did he, or did he
not, collaborate with the Japanese?

I dialled Texas again.

'Al, do you mind talking a bit about the gaol?'

'Shoot.'

'Well, you know most of us thought you were collaborating with
the Japs?'

'Yes, I knew you were talking about me. Nothing I could do about
it. You didn't know what I was going through.'

'Were you in trouble when you got out, back in Calcutta?'

'Oh, there was a lot of investigation stuff. First of all there was an
air force investigation. They cleared me. Then the FBI.'

The FBI?'

'Yes, I cleared myself with the people who count. They couldn't
have been too worried about me. I was recommended for a Silver Star
after my release. General George Stratemeyer gave me a commenda-
tion. I brought a Jap rifle back with me. They gave me a letter to
carry it home. I've still got that rifle.'

'But, Al, the Japs kept taking you out of the gaol. It looked to us
you were collaborating.'

'I never did. Hell, no. I was feeding them false information, and
they were buying it.'

I reminded him how he was put into a cell for a few days with Herb
Ivens, a Canadian, and myself.

'No, it was a Canadian and an English pilot.'


Pg 216:

That was me. I'm Australian. I was just flying with an RAF
squadron, and I say in a book I've just written that you did not ask us
any leading questions.'

'That's right. I didn't want to know anything factual. In that way I
could not let anything slip. At one time they had a half-colonel, an
American pilot, and they were beating the hell out of him until I
persuaded them to let me have a go. We made up a lot of bull between
us and after that they laid off him.'

The incredible thing, I told Al, was that he didn't say anything
about all this to the other Americans when he was put back into the
gaol.

'All the time I was lying to the Japs. I had to be real careful. If they
had found out they would have slit my throat.'

'But feelings were running pretty high. A lot of us were convinced
you were a stool pigeon.'

That didn't bother me. I had no option. I was in a tough spot. If
they told you to do something you did it, or else. You know that.'
'Yes, no doubt about that, if you wanted to survive. But, later,
after the Japs had left, I had to tell Captain Meyer to put you into a
cell for your own protection. Why didn't you speak up then?'

Things were happening fast. Nobody wanted to listen to me.
Carl, my buddy, knew the truth.' (T-1643 Beardslee Carl M.
Elmira,N.Y. 459 F. Sqdn. P38. On 11.3.44 straffed Heho, attacked
by Oscars. On fire. Baled out. Hit tail. Unconscious five days. No
memory opening chute. 17.3.44 City Jail. R. Prison 17.7.44. Cell
18.')

'What happened when they took you out of the gaol? We all had
the idea you were living off the fat of the land.'

'Yea? I went in at 170 lbs and came out weighing 110. No, they
treated me like a dog. Believe me, I'd rather have stayed in gaol.

They used to take me to a house near the gaol. The main interrogator
came from Saigon. Their intelligence H.Q. was there. I had to keep
my wits about me to survive. There were always two guards on me.
We all slept in a double bed with me in the middle. If I moved a
muscle they were on to me. I tell you, it was hairy. I'd say it was
worse being knocked around outside the gaol than inside.'

'What about this story that you were helping the Japs to
reassemble a wrecked P 38 near Rangoon?'


Pg 217:

'Ah, you heard about that. That was a wild idea the Japs had. They
had all sorts of parts from P 38s and had the crazy idea they could
reconstruct one. I led them on for as long as I dared, knowing they'd
never get it into the air. They were like little kids getting parts from a
dump yard to build a motor car. Let me tell you a story. It was
around the end of December, 1944. This Jap captain from Saigon
asked me how long I thought the war would last. I said about two
years. He insisted it would be all over next August. I said again the
American people would fight on for another two years. But, he
confided, not the Japanese people. They could last only until
August. Japan would lose, he said, and then I will shake your hand
and be your friend. But right now you are my prisoner. Then, slap,
slap. He gave me a hell of a beating. Let me qualify that. It was just
slapping, but those Jap hands are hard. As you know, we dropped
the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6.'

'Wish I'd heard all this before. Can I write about it?'

'I don't care. Write what you like. Look, I'm pretty tired. I'd
better get back to bed.'

'What's wrong with you, Al?'

'Cancer. Cancer of the lung and the hip. They say it's terminal.'

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you mind if I tell the other fellows
who were in the gaol with us?'

'I wouldn't bother. Who would be interested? Do what you like.
I'd better get back to bed.'

So, at last, I'd heard Lt Bearden's side of the story. At one point he
had said, 'I don't want to talk about it. That's all over and done with.'
Yet the feeling came through as we talked that he had been wanting
for a long time to put the record straight.

Karnig Thomasian, a gunner turned advertising man, and his
wife, Diana, co-editors of Rangoon Ramblings, were stunned and
happy at the news that Lt Bearden was still alive. Their information
about his demise had come from the Veterans' Administration. They
put me on to Roy Wentz, a navigator in the gaol, now an attorney in
Wilmington, Delaware. He had mentioned the Bearden case in his
diary of events in Rangoon Gaol written up after the war.

'Yes,' Roy told me, 'I wrote after the war that the whole compound
was widely split over the situation. Many believed he was helping the
Japs. However, through my daily walks with another P 38 pilot, Carl


Pg 218:

Beardslee, Al’s best friend and probably the only one in his
confidence, I learned that Bearden was finding it tough fooling the
Japs and he was fearful of his ability to stall them for much longer.
Carl was convinced the Texan was really performing a veritable
service to the United States.'

Yes, that was an important 'phone call.