From the September 7, 1944 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Birmingham, Ala. — Arnold Earnest, 24, who lived for three years in a cave to avoid the draft, began serving a five-year Federal Prison sentence today.

The farm boy was minus his bushy mustache, long hair and carefree manner as he was led from the courtroom where he was sentenced. He said it was “powerful hard” to sleep in jail.

Earnest lived in the woods of Fayette County, Ala., during the years he was a fugitive, eating berries and trapped animals. His shelter was a cave. 

When arrested by Federal agents, he had not heard of Pearl Harbor.•