Herman Perry was an African-American soldier in the U.S. Army during World War II, who deserted the army after killing an officer.
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. 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." 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 bamboostructure on stilts built over a pig sty, hich 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 familirarity with their language undoubtly helped and he also offered them goods which he had taken from the military store. 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. He was caught twice by the Army but escaped both times. After being captured the second time he was tried for murder and convicted, being sentenced to death by a military court on September 4, 1944. He was finally captured in Assam on March 9, 1945, and his death sentence—by hanging—was carried out on March 15. His story was recounted 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 "A fascinating, untold story of the Second World War, an incendiary social document, and a thrilling, campfire tale adventure."
