Navy Pilot Charles Augustus; Twice Shot Down and Captured
Charles V. Augustus, a Navy pilot who was imprisoned by both the Germans and the Japanese during World War II, died Sunday of lung cancer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.
Augustus, a retired Navy commander, was 67.
In 1942, flying from a carrier, Augustus was shot down and captured during the Allied invasion of North Africa. Set free in 1943 when the Germans surrendered, Augustus was reassigned to the Pacific, where he was again shot down, this time during an air battle over the Mariana Islands.
Augustus was taken prisoner and shipped to Japan, where he remained until the war ended. When he was freed, his weight had dropped from 185 pounds to 106, the result of a daily diet of three small cups of chicken feed mixed with hot water. He also was beaten regularly, he told the Long Beach Press Telegram in an interview shortly before his death.
He was assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Italy after the war and retired in the 1960s.
His survivors include a daughter, Barbara; his mother, Elizabeth; three brothers and a sister.
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