The makeshift American flag, made 69 years ago from bedsheets, was a symbol of defiance, perseverance and patriotism to the American prisoners of war who were beaten, tortured and starved by their Japanese captors at the Omori POW Camp during World War II.
Richmond native James “Denny” Landrum, an electrician’s mate first class who had just turned 20 when captured, was among them.
He and his fellow submariners of the USS Grenadier were taken prisoner after their ship was attacked and eventually scuttled on April 22, 1943, off Penang, Malaysia.
Landrum eventually made it home. But the flag he helped to secretly create and later waved in an iconic photograph taken as he and his fellow POWs were liberated on Aug. 29, 1945, vanished over time.
