WWII story - POWs and rude gestures?

[Jekeira]

Here's a story, as told to me over ten years ago by one of my high school teachers:

The Japanese captured a group of American GIs. They took the soldiers' picture, posing them in such a way as to suggest that the GIs had deserted to the Japanese side and were now enjoying Japanese culture. The picture was used as propoganda to shame Americans and to hearten Japanese at the sight American dishonor.

But every American who saw the picture knew immediately that it was staged, because the GIs in the picture all managed to give the camera "the finger" - a gesture that was not recognized by the Japanese.

That's the story. Is it true? If true, where can one see the picture?

(Apologies if this is not the first time you've seen this question - I did search.)

[puddleglum]

I do not know about WWII but during Vietnam there was a situation similar to this. A POW, John McCain I think, was posed for a picture to show how healthy he was and how well he as being treated and he put both middle fingers down to show he was not participating freely in the photo and his captors did not realize what he was doing and released the picture to the US media. The picture made it to the cover of Life magazine, however the middle fingers were airbrushed out so as to not offend the delicate sensiblities of its readers.

[tomndebb]

It gives off a definite aroma of UL, to me. It is not impossible, but it seems as though such a picture would show up in any number of WWII retrospectives.

The first problem, of course, is the idea that the Japanese would have attempted that sort of propaganda in that particular war, where hatred was a staple of both sides.

(Placing it in the Korean War would have provided some plausibility, since that was a war of "ideas" and we and the Reds were always looking to show that, "given a chance," people would opt for the other guy's philosophy.)

There have been a few incidents of messages sent past censors using cultural knowledge. A reporter during the Spanish Civil War was trying to wire back a report of a big incident in the face of very strong censorship. He wrote a nice little memo using the words that the censors wanted to see, ending in the epithet "Horsefeathers." He then described the same event, using sports jargon and street argot. The censors didn't catch on and the story got out.

(I don't know that you can play that game twice, though. Back when Reagan and North were arranging to barter hostages to arm the Contras, one of the hostages was allowed to contact his family. He made the note say exactly what the kidnappers wnated to hear, but embedded code words indicating that his story was told under duress. Some stupid TV news outfit broadcast that the note had a hidden message and the kidnappers proceeded to beat the hostage over the incident (and seriously reduced the amount of communication that any subsequent hostages were allowed).

[Gregor Samsa]

It was the crew of the USS Pueblo, captured by the North Koreans in 1968.

A picture appears here.

[dustMagnate]

Thanks Pipeliner. I saw the TV-play, forget the name, with Hal Holbrook. As they beat him bloody to force a confession as to the true meaning of the gesture, he allowed that it simply meant disrespect.

[Arnold Winkelried]

I don’t quite understand what I’m seeing in the second picture at the link given by Pipeliner. Doesn’t the legend say that it’s a class-reunion picture, not a picture taken by Korean captors of american POWs?

[SmackFu]

Here are some more pictures:
http://www.usspueblo.org/v2f/captivity/goodluck.html

[Jekeira]

Pipeliner and smackfu, thank you for the links. Like Tomndeb I thought the story must be a legend. It makes much more sense in a Korean-conflict context.

[nebuli]

I don’t quite understand what I’m seeing in the second picture at the link given by Pipeliner. Doesn’t the legend say that it’s a class-reunion picture, not a picture taken by Korean captors of american POWs?

It appears to be saying both. From the context I'm guessing they meant a class reunion-style picture.

[Montfort]

So, if I'm ever taken hostage, is it a good idea to indiscreetly give the finger when being photographed?

Or, have the "bad guys" caught on to this?