Imus Talks to Authors and Main Character of Book "Tears in the Darkness"

Imus welcomed back to the show today Michael and Elizabeth Norman, authors of the book “Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March,” now available in paperback.

The Bataan Death March took place in 1942, following a 99-day battle in The Phillippines between American and Japanese forces. “Seventy-six thousand men under American command surrendered, and the Japanese marched them north 66 miles to a railhead,” Michael explained. “During that march, anybody that dropped out essentially was either bayoneted to death, shot, or beaten to death.”

Roughly 500 men were killed along the way, and another 1,200 died in prison camps within 90 days because of disease, hunger, or thirst. One of the survivors was a ranch hand from Billings, Montana named Ben Steele, who became the central character of “Tears in the Darkness.”

Now in his nineties, Steele once worked for Will James, the famous author and artist of the American West. He joined Imus this morning from his home in Billings, and learned he had an admirer in more than just one member of the Imus family.

“I told my son that you knew Will James,” Imus told Steele. “It was like you’d met a rock star!”

Steele, who is also an artist, met James working in an art supply store as a kid, and on several occasions watched James draw with charcoal. “That inspired me at the camp to do what I did,” said Steele, who sketched in charcoal on the prison floor after the March.

As for whether the accounts in James’s books were true, Steele said most probably were. “He didn’t ruin a good story with the facts, you know,” he added.

The Normans met Steele while researching their book, and quickly decided to make his story the center of “Tears in the Darkness,” which was a New York Times Bestseller.

“The book itself is an epic, and we knew we needed one voice to hold it all together so that people could follow from the first page to the last,” said Elizabeth, who also wrote a book about the 77 American military nurses who survived Bataan. She cooed about Steele, “You won’t find a more intelligent, humane man than him.”

Steele spent 1,244 days as a Japanese prisoner of war in the Philippines following the Bataan Death March, and remembers how awful it was; at one point, he went nine days without a meal.

Steele harbors no ill-will toward the Japanese, calling hatred “a very destructive force.” A former art professor, Steele had many Japanese students over the years, and they helped him get past his anger.

“The first one I met, I didn’t know what I was going to do with him,” said Steele. “But I said, I’ve got to treat him like all the rest of the students. We got to be good friends, and we are to this day.”

Imus commented that his guest has had a great life (except for, you know, all that Death March-y stuff). Steele agreed, but said things get iffy at 93 years old.

“I don’t buy green bananas anymore,” he noted.

-Julie Kanfer