15. Richard Antrim was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions as a prisoner of war
Richard Antrim was a US Naval officer serving as the executive officer of USS Pope when World War II in the Pacific broke out in 1941. The ship was sunk during the Battle of the Java Sea, and after three days in the water the survivors were picked up by the Japanese, Antrim among them. The Japanese turned the Americans, now prisoners of war, over to a POW camp near Makassar, in the Celebes Islands. There the Americans were quickly subjected to the brutality of life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, where food was scarce and what there was abysmal, forced daily labor (in violation of the Geneva Convention) was a requirement, medical care and medicines were unavailable, and the prisoners were subjected to the individual violent tendencies of the camp guards. Beatings were commonplace and often severe.
When Antrim observed a Japanese guard administering an exceptionally brutal beating on an American prisoner, Lieutenant Junior Grade Allen Fisher, he physically intervened to stop the violent attack on the helpless prisoner, demanding that he be allowed to receive the remaining punishment. The action placed him at considerable risk, and he eventually was awarded the Medal of Honor for it. In another act of defiance, when the Americans were ordered to dig slit trenches for their protection during air raids, Antrim convinced the Japanese to allow him to lay out a pattern of trenches which would be more effective. He laid out the trenches so that from the air they spelled out US. Had his deception been detected he would have been subject to execution by beheading. Antrim remained on active duty until his retirement in 1954.
