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Herman Perry

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Lt. Col. Earl O. Cullum (left) and Capt. Joseph J. Armand (right) with Herman Perry (center) after the manhunt.

Herman Perry (May 16, 1922 – March 15, 1945) was an African-American soldier serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, who deserted after killing an unarmed, white lieutenant attempting an arrest on him. After being sentenced to death, he escaped custody, and a man-hunt was launched while he lived in the jungle. Perry was eventually re-captured and once again court-martialed, later hanged for murder and desertion, making him the only American executed in the China Burma India Theater during World War II.[1]

Biography

He was born near Monroe, North Carolina. As a soldier in the army's 849th Engineer Bn. he served in the China-Burma-India Theater, helping to construct the Ledo Road.[1]

On March 3, 1944, Perry's CO, Lt. Harold Cady, attempted to apprehend him for dereliction of duty and place him in the area's military prison. Perry had previously served time in this prison and was well aware of the abuses that went on there. When he was found he was holding a rifle and repeatedly warned Cady not to approach him and to "Get back."[1]

Cady continued to advance and Perry fired his rifle, killing Cady. He fled into the wilderness and lived out a fugitive's life of jungle survival, happenstance finding a morung; a bamboo structure on stilts built over a pig sty, which served as a bachelors’ quarter for a tribe of the Naga people of northeastern India and northern Burma. It is unknown exactly how Perry managed to win the tribe over, but his familiarity with their language undoubtedly helped and he also offered them goods which he had taken from the military store.[2] [3] After adapting to the headhunting lifestyle of the tribe which the Ang, or village chief, told him was called Tgum Ga by the Burmese, he eventually won the Ang's respect and approval to the extent that he even married the Ang's 14-year-old daughter with whom he also had a child.[2][4]

The Army appointed Lt. Col. Earl Owen Cullum, a former Dallas police officer and Commander of the 159th Military Police Battalion in the China Burma India Theater, to lead the manhunt.[5][6] Perry was nearly caught twice by the Army but escaped both times. The initial encounter left Perry simply grazed on the ankle by a bullet, but by the second he suffered more serious wounds that injured his Achilles tendon. After being captured in the third encounter, he was court-martialed for murder and convicted, being sentenced to death on September 4, 1944.[7] He was finally captured in Assam on March 9, 1945, and his death sentence—by hanging—was carried out on March 15.[8]

His story was initially covered up by Army leadership, but soon-after revealed by the same leader of the manhunt, Lt. Col. Earl Owen Cullum.[6] Years later, Cullum would further publicize his first-hand accounts of the chase in his personally-published book, "Manhunt in Burma and Assam: World War II in the China-Burma-India Theater". The Herman Perry story would later be republicized in 2008 as Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight From the Greatest Manhunt of World War II by Brendan I. Koerner; George Pelecanos called it[9] "A fascinating, untold story of the Second World War, an incendiary social document, and a thrilling, campfire tale adventure." Other major news outlets would later pick up the story as a greater, complex reflection of race relations between African Americans and commanding white officers in the military, especially during the Jim Crow era.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Koerner, Brendan I. 'Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II'. New York: Penguin Press, 2008: 142. ISBN 978-1-59420-173-8
  2. ^ a b "Herman Perry | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers". murderpedia.org.
  3. ^ Kumar, Anu. "When a WWII African-American soldier lived among Naga head-hunters as the 'Jungle King'". Scroll.in.
  4. ^ a b "Soldier fled justice — and injustice — long ago". The Seattle Times. June 7, 2008.
  5. ^ Cullum, Earl Owen (January 1, 1990). Manhunt in Burma and Assam. E.O. Cullum.
  6. ^ a b Sarma, Amitabh. "Story of Private Herman Perry". Bearded Traveling Soul.
  7. ^ Koerner, Brendan I. The Greatest Manhunt of World War II. Slate Magazine, March 29, 2008.
  8. ^ "Soldier Sentenced to Death Escapes, Becomes Jungle King || Insane True Story". YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ "Marco Vigevani Agenzia Letteraria » Maintenance Mode" (PDF). Retrieved 1 March 2017.
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