(One)
Headquarters
U.S. Marine Corps Parachute School
Lakehurst Naval Air Station
Lakehurst, New Jersey
8 April 1942
First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, (Acting) Commanding Officer, USMC Parachute School, had a problem. He had been directed by TWX from Headquarters USMC to furnish by TWX the names of volunteers for a special mission. The volunteers must be enlisted men of his command who met certain criteria. He was to furnish these names within twenty-four hours.
That special mission was officially described as “immediate foreign service of undetermined length; of a classified nature; and involving extraordinary hazards. Volunteers will be advised that the risk of loss of life will be high.”
The criteria set forth in the TWX directed that “volunteers should be at least corporals but not higher in rank than staff sergeants; and have no physical limitations whatever.
“The ideal volunteer for this mission will be an unmarried sergeant with at least three years of service who has, in addition to demonstrated small-arms and other infantry skills, experience in a special skill such as radio communications, demolitions, rubber-boat handling, and parachuting.
“Especially desirable are volunteers with French and Japanese language fluency, oral or written. Individuals who are now performing, or in the past have performed, cryptographic duties are not eligible.”
In compliance with his orders, Lieutenant Macklin had his First Sergeant gather together all the corporals, sergeants, and staff sergeants of his command in the brand-new service club, where, after warning them that the subject of the meeting was classified and was not to be discussed outside the room where they had gathered, he read them the pertinent portions of the TWX.
There were twenty-one men present. Nineteen of them lined up before the First Sergeant, and he wrote their names down on a lined pad on his clipboard.
Viewed in one way, nineteen of twenty-one eligibles volunteering for an undefined mission where “the risk of loss of life will be high,” could be interpreted as one more proof that young Marine noncoms were courageous, red-blooded American patriots, eager for an opportunity to serve their country, regardless of the risk to their very lives.
Viewed in another, more realistic, way, Lieutenant Macklin was very much afraid that if he forwarded the names of all nineteen, as he had been directed, questions would be asked as to why ninety percent of his junior noncoms were willing to take such a chance. It suggested, at the very least, that they didn’t like their present assignment and would take a hell of a chance to get out of it.
And that would tend to reflect adversely on the professional reputation of First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC.
And of course, if he sent the names forward and only half of them wound up on orders, that would play havoc with the parachute training program. And if the program collapsed, that too would reflect adversely on his professional reputation.
Lieutenant Macklin was very concerned with his professional reputation, especially since Colonel Neville had jumped to his death before there had been time for him to write an efficiency report on Macklin. Macklin didn’t even know who was going to write his efficiency report, now that Neville was dead.
But he did know that unless he handled this volunteer business the right way, he was in trouble.
He flipped through the stack of service records on his desk.
Every one but two of those ungrateful, disloyal sonsofbitches volunteered! Goddamn them! Willing to leave me in a lurch like this, making me look like some Captain Bligh with a mutiny on his hands! The ungrateful bastards, after all I’ve done for them!
He wondered who the two loyal Marines were. He compared the names of the volunteers against the roster.
Staff Sergeant James P. Cumings, the mess sergeant, was one of those who had not volunteered. Cumings was in his middle thirties, a career Marine, married and with a flock of kids.
Nor had Corporal Stephen M. Koffler. He was the little sonofabitch who went AWOL and then turned out to be the first one to reach Colonel Neville’s body on The Day That It Happened.
And then he had been painted as some sort of hero and given an unjustified promotion to corporal—just because he happened to be next out of the airplane when the Colonel jumped to his death.
He was practically useless around here, too. The first sergeant had him driving a truck.
Christ, you’d just know that the one sonofabitch you would like to get rid of would be the only one that doesn’t want to go!
Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, tapped his pencil absently against his white china coffee cup as he thought the problem through.
The basic question, he thought, is what is best for the Corps?
While it’s probably true that whatever these volunteers are needed for is important, I don’t know that. What I do know is that parachutists are the wave of the future, and ergo, that the parachute school is very important, perhaps even critical, for future Marine operations in the Pacific and elsewhere. It follows logically from that that if I lose all, many, or even any of my middle-ranking noncommissioned officers to whatever it is they have volunteered for, I am setting parachute training back for however long it would take to train their replacements. I don’t think I have the right to do that to the Marine Corps.
I do know that Corporal Stephen M. Koffler is not needed around here. Truckdrivers are a dime a dozen.
First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin made his decision.
“First Sergeant!” he called.
(Two)
First Sergeant George J. Hammersmith, having determined that Corporal Koffler had not been given a pass and that he was not in his barracks, looked for him first in the slop chute, and finally located him in the service club.
The service club was a new building that had been put up in a remarkably short time not far from the huge dirigible hangar. It was a large building, two stories tall in the center, and with one-floor wings on either side. It had been furnished with upholstered chairs and couches, tables, magazine racks, and pool and Ping-Pong tables. Somewhere down the pike there was supposed to be a snack bar and a small stage for USO shows and for a band, for dances.
With the exception of Corporal Koffler and two hostesses in gray uniforms, it was now empty. Lieutenant Macklin thought that parachutist trainees had more important things to do in their off-duty hours than loll around on their asses, and had placed the service club off limits to trainees except on weekends.
The permanent party did not patronize the club very much. There was a club, with hard liquor, for noncommissioned officers, and a slop chute, beer only, for corporals and down. Furthermore, the permanent party was well aware that the First Sergeant and other senior noncoms held the belief that only candy-asses would go someplace where you couldn’t get anything to drink or do anything more than smile at the hostesses.
Corporal Koffler was sitting in an upholstered armchair, a can of peanuts at his side, reading the Newark Evening News, on which there was a banner headline: BATAAN FALLS; WAINWRIGHT’S FORCES WITHDRAW TO FORTRESS CORREGIDOR.
That news had been on the radio all day, and it had bothered George Hammersmith. He had a lot of buddies with the 4th Marines, and the last he’d heard, they’d taken a real whipping. And he’d done his time in the Far East. There was no way that Corregidor could hold out for long. The fortress had been built on an island in Manila Bay to protect Manila; and Manila was already in the hands of the Japanese.
That little shit probably doesn’t have the faintest fucking idea where the Philippines are, much less Corregidor. Sonofabitch probably never even looked at the front page, just turned right to “Blondie and Dagwood” in the comic section.
First Sergeant Hammersmith restrained a surprisingly strong urge to knock the paper out of Koffler’s hands, but at the last moment he just put his fingers on it and jerked it, to get Koffler’s attention.
“Jesus!” Koffler said. He was, Hammersmith saw, surprised but not afraid. So far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with Koffler except that Macklin had a hard-on for him. He had never explained why, and Hammersmith had never asked.
“Got a minute, Koffler?”
“Sure.”
“You was at the formation when they asked for volunteers, wasn’t you?”
“I was there.”
“I was sort of wondering why you didn’t volunteer.”
Because I’m not a fucking fool, that’s why. “Volunteers will be advised that the risk of loss of life will be high.” I learned my lesson about volunteering when I volunteered for jump duty. So I didn’t volunteer for whatever the fuck this new thing is.
“I didn’t think I was qualified,” Steve said.
“Why not?”
“They want people with special skills. I don’t have any. I don’t speak Japanese or French, or anything.”
“You’re a Marine parachutist,” Hammersmith said.
“I just made corporal,” Steve said. “I ain’t been in the Corps a year.”
“You’re yellow, is that it?”
“I’m not yellow.”
“You didn’t volunteer.”
“That don’t mean I’m yellow; that just means I don’t want to volunteer.”
“What’s Lieutenant Macklin got on you?”
“I don’t know.”
“He doesn’t like you.”
“Maybe because they promoted me.”
“Maybe. But I do know he doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re a worthless shit.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t like you, either,” Hammersmith said. “You’re supposed to be a Marine, and you’re yellow.”
“I’m not yellow.”
“You were given a chance to volunteer for an important assignment, and you didn’t. In my book that makes you yellow.”
“They said ‘volunteer.’”
“And you didn’t.”
“What do you want from me, Sergeant?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Then I don’t understand what this is all about.”
“Just a little chat between Marines,” First Sergeant Hammersmith said, “is all.”
“You want me to volunteer, that’s what this is all about.”
“If I made you volunteer, then you wouldn’t be a volunteer, would you?” Hammersmith asked. “Don’t do nothing you don’t want to do. But you know what I would do if I was you?”
“No.”
“If I was in an outfit where my company commander thought I was a worthless shit, and my first sergeant thought I was yellow, I would start thinking about finding myself a new home.”
(Three)
San Diego, California
17 April 1942
Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, arrived in San Diego carrying all of his worldly possessions in two canvas Valv-Paks.
That fact—that he had with him all he owned—had occurred to him on the Lark, the train on which he had made the last leg of his trip from Los Angeles. He had flown from Washington to Los Angeles.
He had once had a good many personal possessions, ranging from books and phonograph records to furniture, dress uniforms, civilian clothing, a brand-new Pontiac automobile, and a wife.
Of all the things he’d owned in Shanghai six months before, only one was left, a Model 1911A1 Colt .45 pistol; and that, technically, was the property of the U.S. Government. The 4th Marines were now on Corregidor. Banning sometimes mused wryly that in one of the lateral tunnels off the Main Malinta tunnel under the rock, there was probably, in some filing cabinet, an official record that the pistol had been issued to him and never turned in. The record—if not Major Ed Banning or the 4th Marines—would more than likely survive the war. And his estate would receive a form letter from the Marine Corps demanding payment.
His household goods had been stored in a godown in Shanghai “for later shipment.” It was entirely credible to think that some Japanese officer was now occupying his apartment, sitting on his chairs, eating supper off his plates on his carved teak table, listening to his Benny Goodman records on his phonograph, and riding around Shanghai in his Pontiac.
He did not like to think about Mrs. Edward J. (Ludmilla) Banning. Milla was a White Russian, a refugee from the Bolshevik Revolution. He had gone to Milla for Japanese and Russian language instruction, taken her as his mistress, and fallen in love with her. He had married her just before he flew out of Shanghai with the advance party when the 4th Marines were ordered to the Philippines.
There were a number of scenarios about what had happened to Milla after the Japanese came to Shanghai, and none of them were pleasant. They ranged from her being shot out of hand to being placed in a brothel for Japanese enlisted men.
It was also possible that Milla, who was a truly beautiful woman, might have elected to survive the Japanese occupation by becoming the mistress of a Japanese officer. Practically speaking, that would be a better thing for Milla than getting herself shot, or becoming a seminal sewer in a Japanese Army comfort house.
Ed Banning believed in God, but he rarely prayed to Him. Yet he prayed often and passionately that God would take mercy on Milla.
He was profoundly ashamed that he could no longer remember the details of Milla’s face, the color of her eyes, the softness of her skin; she was fading away in his mind’s eye. Very likely this was because he had taken another woman into his bed and, for as long as the affair had lasted, into his life. He was profoundly ashamed about that, too. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it away, in the end it was a betrayal of the vow he had made in the Anglican Cathedral in Shanghai to cleave himself only to Milla until death should them part.
He had met Carolyn Spencer Howell in the New York Public Library. He had been sent to the Navy Hospital in Brooklyn, ostensibly for a detailed medical examination relating to his lost and then recovered sight. But he was actually there for a psychiatric examination. During his time in Brooklyn he was free—indeed, encouraged—to get off the base and go into Manhattan. (There’d also been strong hints that female companionship wouldn’t hurt, either.)
Carolyn was a librarian at the big public library on 42nd Street in Manhattan. He went to her to ask for copies of the Shanghai Post covering the months between the time he had left Milla in Shanghai and the start of the war. He also wanted whatever she had on Nansen Passports. As a stateless person, Milla had been issued what was known as a Nansen Passport. He had a faint, desperate hope that perhaps the Japanese would recognize it, and that she could leave Shanghai somehow for a neutral country. Because Banning had given her all the cash he could lay his hands on, just over three thousand dollars, Milla didn’t lack for the resources she’d need to get away. Would that do her any good? Probably not, he realized in his darkest moments.
He did not set out to pursue Carolyn as a romantic conquest. It just happened. Carolyn was a tall, graceful divorcee. Her husband of fifteen years, whom Banning now thought of as a colossal fool, had, as she put it, “turned her in for a later model, without wrinkles.”
They met outside the library in a small restaurant on 43rd Street, where he’d gone for lunch. And they wound up in her bed in her apartment. Banning and Carolyn were very good in bed together, and not only because being there ended long periods of celibacy for each of them. They both had a lot of important things they needed to share with someone who was sensitive enough to listen and understand. He told her about Milla, for instance, and she told him about her fool of a husband.
It was nice while it lasted, but now it was over. He could see in her eyes that she knew he was lying when he said good-bye to her and told her he would write. And she actually seemed to understand, which made him feel even more like a miserable sonofabitch.
Since Carolyn knew about Milla from the beginning, they managed to convince themselves for a while that they were nothing more than two sophisticated adults who enjoyed companionship with the other, in bed and out of it. They both told themselves that it was a temporary arrangement, with no possibility of a lasting emotional involvement—much less some kind of future with a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road. They thought of themselves as friends with bed privileges, and nothing more.
But it became more than that. Otherwise, why would a sophisticated, mature woman be unable to keep from hugging her friend so tightly, not quite able to hold back her sobs, while a Marine major tried, not successfully, to keep his eyes from watering?
The bottom line seemed to be that he was in love with two women, and he was in no position to do anything for either of them.
Major Jack NMI Stecker, USMC, was waiting on the platform when Major Ed Banning threw his Valv-Paks down from the club car. There was nothing fragile in the bags except a small framed photograph of Carolyn Howell she had slipped into his luggage. He had found it while rooting for clean socks when the plane had been grounded for the night in St. Louis.
They shook hands.
“How’d you know I’d be on the train?” Banning asked.
“Colonel Rickabee called and told me what plane you were on. And I knew you couldn’t get a plane further than L.A. And I didn’t think you would take the bus.”
“Well, I’m grateful. When did you put the leaf on, Major?”
“Day before yesterday. I just cleared the post. You can put me on the train in the morning.”
“You didn’t stick around because of me, I hope?”
“Well, sort of. I got you an office, sort of, in a Quonset hut at Camp Elliott, and I thought I should show you where it is. You’ve already got eight people who reported in. I put the senior sergeant in charge and told him you would be out there in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Banning said, simply.
They walked to Stecker’s Ford coupe. When Stecker opened the trunk, there were two identical Valv-Paks in it. There was not enough room for two more, so one of Banning’s was put in the backseat.
Stecker got behind the wheel and then handed Banning a sheet of teletype paper.
HEADQUARTERS US MARINE CORPS
WASHINGTON DC 1345 9APR42
COMMANDING GENERAL
2ND JOINT TRAINING FORCE
SAN DIEGO, CAL
1. SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14 USMC IS ACTIVATED 9APR42 AT CAMP ELLIOTT CAL. DETACHMENT IS SUBORDINATE TO ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INTELLIGENCE, HEADQUARTERS USMC.
2. INTERIM TABLE OF ORGANIZATION & EQUIPMENT ESTABLISHED MANNING TABLE OF ONE (1) MAJOR; TWO (2) CAPTAINS (OR LIEUTENANTS); AND SIXTEEN (16) ENLISTED MEN.
3. COMMANDING GENERAL 2ND JOINT TRAINING FORCE IS DIRECTED TO PROVIDE LOGISTICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT AS REQUIRED.
BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDANT:
HORACE W. T. FORREST, BRIG GEN USMC
Stecker started the car. After Banning had read the teletype message, he said, “That came in day before yesterday. The G-2 here is very curious.”
“I’ll bet he is,” Banning said. “Do I get to keep this?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Banning looked out the window and saw they were not headed toward Camp Elliott.
“Where are we going?”
“Coronado Beach Hotel,” Stecker said. “I figured before you begin your rigorous training program, you’re entitled to one night on a soft mattress.”
“What training program? My orders are to collect these people and get them on a plane to Australia.”
“You just can’t do that,” Stecker said. “There’s a program to follow. You have to draw your equipment—typewriters, field equipment, a guidon, field stoves, organizational weapons, training films and a projector to show them—all that sort of thing. Then you start the training program. If there’s no already published training program, you have to write one and submit it for approval.”
Banning looked at Stecker with shock in his eyes, and then saw the mischief in Stecker’s eyes.
“Jack?”
“Well, that’s what I’m going to have to do the minute I get to New River and start to organize a battalion,” he said. “And I figured that if I have to do it, you should.”
“You had me worried.”
“You are going to have to do some of that stuff. You’re going to have to turn in a morning report every day, which means you will need a typewriter and somebody who knows how to use it. There’s all kinds of paperwork, Ed, that you just won’t be able to avoid—payrolls, allotments, requisitions.”
“That never entered my mind.”
“That’s why I brought it up,” Stecker said. “Maybe one of the people you’ve recruited can handle the paperwork, but just in case, I had a word with the G-1 about getting you a volunteer who can do it for you.”
“Jesus!” Banning said.
“The Marine Corps, Major,” Jack Stecker said solemnly, “floats upon a sea of paper.”
“I’d forgotten.”
“Your manning chart calls for two company-grade officers,” Stecker said. “You got them?”
“No. I asked for McCoy—and not only because he speaks Japanese. But I got turned down flat.”
“You know what McCoy is up to. That didn’t surprise you, did it?”
“I guess not.”
“I know a guy—Mustang first lieutenant—named Howard. He doesn’t speak Japanese. Before the war, he was on the rifle team. He’s been seeing that the 2nd Raider Battalion got all the weapons they thought they wanted. That’s about over. Good man.”
“How come you don’t want him for your battalion?”
“I do. I offered him a company.”
“And?”
“He told me he wasn’t sure he could handle it. He was at Pearl on December seventh. He panicked. He found himself a hole—actually a basement arms room—and stayed there. After he saw that the arms were passed out.”
“That doesn’t sound so terrible.”
“He thinks it makes him unfit to take a command.”
“You don’t, I gather?”
“No. And I told him so. I think he would be useful to you, Ed.”
“Would he volunteer?”
“I don’t know. All you could do is ask him, I suppose.”
“Where would I find him?”
“You’ll see him tomorrow. I told him to keep an eye on your people.”
“All this and the Coronado Beach Hotel, too? Or are you pulling my leg about that, too?”
“No,” Stecker chuckled. “That’s where we’re going. Truth being stranger than fiction, I’ve got the keys to the Pacific & Far Eastern Shipping Company suite there. They keep it year round for the officers of their ships who are in port.”
“How the hell did you work that?”
“The guy that owns the company and I were in France together.”
“His name is Fleming Pickering, and he’s a captain in the Navy reserve.”
“How’d you know?”
“He’s the man I’m to report to in Melbourne,” Banning said. “I didn’t know about you and him. Or that he’d been a Marine.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you were supposed to tell me that.”
“I’m sure I wasn’t.”
“Then I won’t ask why you did. But at least that solves the problem of where you sleep while you’re out here.”
“You mean in the hotel?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m sure Pickering would want me to give you the keys. And speaking of keys, I’m going to leave you the Ford, too.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“Well, cars are getting harder and harder to come by. They’ve stopped making them, you know, and people are buying up all the good used cars. I figure that I’ll be out here again, or my boy will, or else friends who need wheels. So why sell it? I’ve got two cars on the East Coast.”
“Jesus, Jack, I don’t know…”
“I’ve already arranged to park it in the hotel garage. Just leave the keys with the manager when you’re through with it.”
“Things are going too smoothly. A lot of that, obviously, is thanks to you. But I always worry when that happens.”
“You know what the distilled essence of my Marine Corps experience is?” Stecker said.
“No,” Banning chuckled.
“You don’t have to practice being uncomfortable; when it’s time for you to be uncomfortable, the Corps will arrange for it in spades. In the meantime, live as well as you can. I’m surprised you didn’t learn that from McCoy.”
Stecker pulled up in front of the Coronado Beach Hotel.
“Here we are,” he said. “Of course, if you’d rather, I can still drive you out to Elliott, and the Corps will give you an iron bunk and a thin mattress in a Quonset hut.”
“This will do very nicely, Major Stecker, thank you very much.”
“My pleasure, Major Banning.”
(Four)
Headquarters Motor Pool
2nd Joint Training Force
Camp Elliott, California
18 April 1942
When First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard, USMCR, walked up to the small shack that housed the motor pool dispatcher, he gave in to the temptation to add a little excitement to the lives of the dispatcher and the motor sergeant. Both of them, he saw, were engrossed in the San Diego Times.
He squatted and carefully tugged loose from the ground a large weed and its dirt-encrusted root structure. Then he spun it around several times to pick up speed, and let it fly. It rose high in the air.
“Good morning,” Lieutenant Howard said loudly, marching up to the dispatch shack.
The weed reached the apogee of its trajectory, and then began its descent.
The motor sergeant looked up from his newspaper and got to his feet.
“Good morning, Sir,” he said, a second before the weed struck somewhere near the center of the tin roof of the dispatch shack. There was a booming noise, as if an out-of-tune bass drum had been struck.
“Holy fucking Christ!” the motor sergeant said, “what the fuck was that?”
“Excuse me?” Lieutenant Howard said. “Were you speaking to me, Sergeant?”
The motor sergeant, still wholly confused, looked at Lieutenant Howard suspiciously.
“If the chaplain,” Joe Howard said, still straight-faced, “heard a fine noncommissioned officer such as yourself using such language, Sergeant, he would be very disappointed.”
The sergeant’s wits returned.
“What the fuck did you do, Lieutenant?” he asked. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“You’re not really suggesting that an officer and gentleman, such as myself, would do anything to disturb your peace and quiet, are you, Sergeant?”
“No, Sir, I’m sure the Lieutenant wouldn’t do nothing like that,” the motor sergeant said, “but I used to know a wiseass armorer corporal at Quantico who had a sick sense of humor.”
Howard laughed. “Les, you looked like you were coming out of your skin.”
“You shouldn’t do things like that to an old man like me.”
“I’m trying to keep you young, Les.”
“Christ, you got a letter,” the motor sergeant said.
“Huh?”
“Mail clerk brought it over,” the motor sergeant said. “He called over here yesterday, looking for you. Said the letter had been there three days. I told him you would be here this morning. Wait till I get it.”
He rooted in a drawer and came out with a small envelope and handed it to Howard. There was no stamp on the envelope, just a signature. As a member of the armed forces of the United States serving overseas, the sender was given the franking privilege.
Howard’s heart jumped when he saw the return address. He tore the envelope open and resisted the temptation to sniff the stationery; he thought he detected a faint odor of perfume.
He was afraid to read the letter. He hadn’t heard from Barbara since she’d sailed, and was beginning to wonder if he ever would. His fear grew when he saw how short the letter was, and how it began:
Special Naval Medical Unit
Fleet Post Office 8203
San Francisco, California
My Dearest Joe,
Well, here I am. I can’t tell you where.
We have been told that, because we are officers and can be trusted not to write home things that would interest the enemy, our mail will not be censored. It will be, however, subject to “random scrutiny.” What that means, I think, is that the senior nurses here will open outgoing letters they think will be interesting, in terms of intimacy. Consequently, I will not write the things I would like to write. I don’t consider what we have to be a spectator sport, and I don’t want a bunch of dried-up old maids giggling over my correspondence.
On the way over here, I had a lot of time to think about us, and you are constantly in my thoughts here “somewhere in the South Pacific.” There is not much for us to do, except prepare for what we all know is going to happen.
I have carefully considered what happened between us, and I’ve given a lot of thought to our different backgrounds. I am fully aware that the both of us behaved very foolishly, and that any marriage counselor worthy of hanging out his shingle would have to conclude that the odds against us getting married in the first place, much less making a success of it, are very long indeed.
Having said that, I have concluded that meeting you was the best thing that’s happened to me in my life. Until you, I really had no idea what being a woman really meant. I will not be alive until I feel your arms around me again.
I love you. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.
May God protect you, Barbara
PS: Picture enclosed, so you don’t forget what I look like.
Joe Howard had trouble focusing his eyes on Barbara’s picture; they seemed to be full of tears.
He put the letter back into its envelope and carefully put it into his pocket.
“Thanks very much, Les,” he said.
“Ah, hell, Lieutenant,” the motor sergeant said. Then he raised his voice, and the tenor changed. “Well, get off your ass, asshole,” he said to the dispatcher, “and go get the Lieutenant’s truck.”
(Five)
Headquarters
Special Detachment 14
Camp Elliott, California
18 April 1942
The Quonset hut was so called because it had been invented at the Quonset Point Naval Station. It was originally envisioned as an easy-to-erect shelter—sort of a portable warehouse—not as barracks. The huts were built out of curved sheets of corrugated steel, which formed the sides and roof in a half-circle. And there was a wooden floor, the framework of which visibly traced its design to forklift pallets.
When they were to be transported, the curved sheets of corrugated steel could be nestled together. Then they, and the framework which supported them, could be steel-banded together on top of the plywood floor and its underpinning. So packed, they took up little cubic footage, and could be erected quickly at their destination by unskilled labor using simple tools.
Quonset huts had sprouted like mushrooms over the rolling hills of Camp Elliott. Many of these had been put to use as barracks in lieu of tents, “until adequate barracks could be erected.”
Major Edward J. Banning followed Major Jack NMI Stecker up to one of them and stepped through the door behind him in time to hear someone call “Ten-hut.”
The hut was furnished with two folding metal chairs, two small folding wooden tables, on one of which sat a U.S. Army field desk, and a telephone. There were eight Marines in the forty-foot-long room. They were now all standing erect, at attention; but most of them, obviously, had a moment earlier been sprawled on mattresses on the floor. Their duffel bags, some of them open, were scattered around the floor. Their stacked ’03 Springfield rifles were at the far end of the room.
Banning wondered idly why Jack Stecker didn’t put them at rest, and then he belatedly realized that Jack was deferring to him, as the commanding officer.
“At ease,” Banning said. He smiled. “My name is Banning. I have the honor to command this splendid, if brand-new, military organization.”
There were a couple of chuckles, but most of them looked at him warily. That was understandable. Reporting aboard an ordinary rifle company was bad enough. The unknown is always frightening; and you naturally wonder what the new company commander and first sergeant will be like, how you will be treated, where you will be going, and what you will be doing. Reporting in here posed all those questions, plus those raised by the words “classified”; “involving extraordinary hazards”; and “the risk of loss of life will be high.”
And there wasn’t much he could do to put their minds at rest. This was one of those (in Banning’s judgment, rare) situations where the necessity for secrecy was quite clear. It was even possible that the Japanese didn’t know of the very existence of the Coastwatchers. Sometimes, not often, the Japanese were quite stupid about things like that; this might be one of them. If the Japanese did not yet know about the Coastwatchers, then every effort, clearly, should be made to keep them from finding out, as long as possible. They inevitably would, of course. When that happened, the less they learned the better.
All I can do is try to get these people to trust me. I can’t even tell them where we’re going, much less what we’re going to be doing, until we’re on the ship. Or maybe not even then. Not until we get to Australia. If we go over there on a troopship, I can’t afford to have everybody else on the ship talking, and talk they would, about that strange little detachment with the strange mission.
Banning had long ago learned that enlisted Marines trust their officers on a few occasions only: first, when the officer knows more about what’s expected of them than they do; second, when he will not ask them to do something he will not do himself; and, third, perhaps most important, when he is genuinely concerned with their welfare.
There were two staff sergeants, five buck sergeants, and a corporal. Banning went to each man in turn and shook his hand. He asked each man his name, what he had been doing up to now in the Corps, and where he was from.
“Who’s senior?” Banning asked, after he’d met them all.
One of the staff sergeants took a step forward.
“Richardson, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Well, for the time being, Sergeant, you’ll act as First Sergeant. Your first orders are to get some bunks and bedding to go with those mattresses.”
Staff Sergeant Richardson looked uncomfortable.
“Problem with that, Sergeant?”
“Sir, the warehouse is a hell of a ways from here, and we don’t have any motor transport.”
“You seem to have managed to draw mattresses and get them here without transport,” Banning said.
That made Sergeant Richardson look eyen more uncomfortable. Banning glanced at Major Stecker, whose eyes looked mischievous again. And then Banning understood: somewhere on the post, much closer than the issue point for bedding, another Marine Corps unit was dealing with the problem of eight missing mattresses.
That was clearly theft, or at least unauthorized diversion of government property—in either case a manifestation of a lack of discipline. On the other hand, getting mattresses to sleep on when the Corps didn’t provide any could be considered a manifestation of initiative, which was a desirable military quality.
“Well, I’ll look into the problem of transportation, Sergeant. What I would like to do, right now, is have a look at everybody’s service record, and then I’d like to talk to you one at a time.”
“Yes, Sir,” Staff Sergeant Richardson said, visibly relieved that the subject of the source of the mattresses seemed to have been passed over.
“Sergeant, has Lieutenant Howard been over here today?” Jack Stecker asked.
“Yes, Sir. He was here about oh-six-hundred to make sure we were going to get breakfast. He said he would be back”—he raised his wrist to look at his watch—“about now, Sir. He said he would be back before you got here, Sir.”
As if on cue, there came the sound of tires crunching and an engine dying. A moment later, Lieutenant Joe Howard came through the door.
“Good morning, Sir,” he said to Stecker. “Sorry to be late. I had a little trouble getting wheels from the motor officer.”
“Major Banning,” Stecker said. “This is Lieutenant Joe Howard.”
“How do you do, Sir?” Howard said.
Banning liked what he saw. Like others before him, he thought that Joe Howard looked like everything a clean-cut, red-blooded, physically fit young Marine officer should look like. And then he remembered what Jack Stecker had said about Howard having found, and stayed in, a safe hole during the attack at Pearl Harbor.
I’m in no position to be self-righteous about that. When the Jap barrages began, I would have swapped my soul for a safe hole to hide in.
“I’m happy to meet you, Howard,” Banning said, putting out his hand and raising his voice just enough to make sure everyone in the hut heard him. “Major Stecker speaks very highly of you. I’ve known him a long time, and he doesn’t often do that.”
Lieutenant Howard looked as uncomfortable as Staff Sergeant Richardson had a moment before.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Stecker said. “I can’t miss that plane. Howard can drive me.”
He put out his hand to Banning. “Good luck, Ed. Send a postcard.”
“Take care of yourself,” Banning said. “Say hello to Elly.”
“I will,” Stecker said, and then turned to the men watching curiously. “Listen up,” he said. “You guys have fallen in the you-know-what and come up smelling like roses. Major Banning is one hell of Marine. He probably wouldn’t tell you, so I will: He’s already been in this war, wounded and evacuated from the 4th Marines in the Philippines. Before that, he was with the 4th Marines in China. When he tells you something, it’s not coming out of a book, it’s from experience. So pay attention and do what he says, and you’ll probably come out of what you’re going to do alive. Good luck. Semper Fi.”
And then, without looking at Banning again, Stecker quickly walked out of the Quonset hut. Banning found himself alone with his new command; they were now looking at him almost with fascination.
That was a hell of a nice thing for Jack Stecker to do, Banning thought.
“Well, Sergeant Richardson,” he said, “now that we have wheels, we can get bedding. Take half the men and the truck and go get it.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“And when you’ve finished, take the mattresses here back where you got them.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“Try not to get caught,” Banning said.
“Yes, Sir.”
“I want to talk to each of you alone,” Banning said, after Richardson and the men he took were gone. “I’ll start with you, Sergeant. The rest of you wait outside.”
The first man, the other staff sergeant, a thirty-year-old named Hazleton, was a disappointment. By the time he finished talking with him, Banning was sure he had volunteered for a mission “where the risk of loss of life will be high” because he was unwelcome where he was. That he had, in other words, been “volunteered” by his first sergeant or company commander. For all of his last hitch before the war, he had been the assistant NCO club manager at Quantico. Rather obviously, he had been swept out of that soft berth when the brass was desperately looking for noncoms to train the swelling Corps.
And at 2nd Joint Training Force, where the broom had swept him, Hazleton had been found unable to cut the mustard. When the TWX soliciting volunteers had arrived, his company commander had decided it was a good, and easy, way to get rid of him.
Banning was not surprised. That was the way things went. No company commander wanted to lose his best men. Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee had warned Banning that was going to happen, and he had made provision to deal with it. The staff sergeant’s name would be TWXed to Rickabee, and shortly afterward there would be a TWX from Headquarters USMC, transferring the staff sergeant out of Special Detachment 14.
Banning wondered how many of the others would be like the staff sergeant. With one exception, however, none were. To Banning’s surprise, the others were just what he had hoped to get. They were bright—in some cases, very bright—young noncoms who were either looking for excitement or a chance for rapid promotion, or both.
Unfortunately, none of them spoke Japanese, although four of them had apparently managed to utter enough Japanese-sounding noises to convince their first sergeants that they did. That wasn’t surprising either. Japanese linguists were in very short supply. Officers who had them would fight losing them as hard as possible. Nevertheless, Rickabee had promised to pry loose as many as he could (maybe four), and send them directly to Melbourne.
The last man Banning interviewed, the only corporal who had so far arrived, was the second disappointment. Corporal Stephen Koffler had come to Special Detachment 14 from the Marine Corps Parachute School at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes for Banning to extract from him the admission that he had “been volunteered.” The kid’s first sergeant had made what could kindly be called a pointed suggestion that he volunteer.
“Why do you think he did that, Koffler?”
“I don’t know, Sir. So far as I know, I didn’t do nothing wrong. But right from the first, Lieutenant Macklin seemed to have it in for me.”
“What was that name? Who ‘had it in’ for you?”
“Lieutenant Macklin, Sir.”
“Tall, thin officer? An Annapolis graduate?”
“Yes, Sir. Lieutenant R. B. Macklin. He told us he went to Annapolis. And he said that he had learned about the Japs from when he was in China.”
I’ll be damned. So that’s where that sonofabitch wound up! Doesn’t sound like him. You could hurt yourself jumping out of airplanes. But maybe that pimple on the ass of the Corps was “volunteered” for parachute duty by somebody else who found out what a despicable prick he is, and hoped his parachute wouldn’t open.
“I believe I know the gentleman,” Banning said. “Tell me, Koffler, what were you doing at the Parachute School? Some kind of an instructor?”
Even if this kid is no Corporal Killer McCoy, if he’s rubbed Macklin the wrong way, he probably has a number of splendid traits of character I just haven’t noticed so far. “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.”
“No, Sir. They had me driving a truck.”
“I don’t suppose you can type, can you, Koffler?”
There was a discernible pause before Corporal Koffler reluctantly said, “Yes, Sir. I can type.”
“You sound like you’re ashamed of it.”
“Sir, I don’t want to be a fucking clerk-typist.”
“Corporal Koffler,” Banning said sternly, suppressing a smile, “in case you haven’t heard this before, the Marine Corps is not at all interested in what you would like, or not like, to do. Where did you learn to type?”
That question obviously made Corporal Koffler just as uncomfortable as he’d been when he was asked if he could type at all.
“Where did you learn to type, Corporal? More important, how fast a typist are you?”
“About forty words a minute, Sir,” Koffler said. “I got a book out of the library.”
“A typing book, you mean? You taught yourself how to type?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Why?”
“I needed to know how to type to pass the FCC exam. You have to copy twenty words a minute to get your ticket, and I couldn’t write that fast.”
“You’re a radio operator?” Banning asked, pleased.
“No, Sir. I’m a draftsman.”
“A draftsman?” Banning asked, confused.
“Yes, Sir. That’s why I volunteered for parachuting.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sir, they wanted to keep me at Parris Island as a draftsman, painting signs. The only way I could get out of it was to volunteer for parachute training.”
“In other words, Corporal Koffler,” Banning said, now keeping a straight face only with a massive effort, “it could be fairly said that you concealed your skill as a radio operator from the personnel people…”
“I didn’t conceal it, Sir,” Koffler said. “They didn’t ask me, and I didn’t tell them.”
“And then, since the personnel people were unaware of your very valuable skill as a radio operator, they elected to classify you as a draftsman?”
“That’s about it, Sir.”
“And then you volunteered for the Para-Marines because you didn’t want to be a draftsman, and then you volunteered for the 14th Special Detachment because you didn’t want to be a Para-Marine?”
Koffler looked stricken.
“It wasn’t exactly that way, Sir.”
“Then you tell me exactly how it was.”
There was a knock at the door of the Quonset hut.
“Come!” Banning said, and Lieutenant Joe Howard entered the hut.
“Major Stecker got off all right, Sir. I’ve got the keys to his car for you.”
“Stick around, Lieutenant. I’ll be with you in a minute,” Banning said. “Corporal Koffler and I are just about finished. Go on, Corporal.”
“I don’t know what to say, Sir,” Steve Koffler said unhappily.
Banning glowered at him for a moment.
“I will spell it out for you, Koffler. This is the end of the line for you. There’s no place else you can volunteer for so you can get out of doing things you don’t like to do. From here on in, you are going to do what the Marine Corps wants you to do. You are herewith appointed the detachment clerk of the 14th Special Detachment, U.S. Marine Corps. And if there are any signs to be painted around here, you will paint them. Am I getting through to you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Any questions?”
“No, Sir.”
“Then report to Sergeant Richardson, tell him I have appointed you detachment clerk, and tell him I said he should see about getting you a typewriter. Do you understand all that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I don’t want to hear that you are even thinking of volunteering for anything else, Koffler!”
“No, Sir.”
“That will be all, Corporal,” Banning said solemnly.
“Aye, aye, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Steve Koffler said, did an about-face, and marched to the door of the hut. When the door had closed, Banning pushed himself back on the legs of his folding chair and laughed.
“Oh, God,” he said, finally.
“What was that all about, Sir?” Howard asked, smiling.
“I’d forgotten what fun it is sometimes to be a unit commander,” Banning said. “That’s a good kid; but, my God, how wet behind the ears! Anyway, I need a clerk, and he can type. He can also paint signs. The square peg in the square hole.”
“He really isn’t what you think of when somebody says, ‘Para-Marine Corporal,’ is he?”
“Until I started talking to him and somebody said, ‘Corporal,’ I usually thought of one I had in the 4th. I used to send him snooping around the Japanese for weeks at a time and never thought a thing about it. I’m not sure that kid could be trusted to go downtown in ’Diego and get back by himself.”
“He might surprise you, Sir. He is wearing parachutist’s wings. He had the balls to jump out of an airplane. I’m not sure I would.”
Banning’s smile vanished as he looked at Howard.
“Talking about balls, Lieutenant. The 14th Special Detachment is accepting company-grade volunteers.”
“Are you asking me to volunteer, Sir?”
“No. I’m just telling you I need a couple of lieutenants. Whether you would care to volunteer is up to you.”
“Sir, there’s something about me I don’t think you know,” Joe Howard said.
“Major Stecker told me all about that. We’re old friends, and we both think you’re wrong about what happened at Pearl Harbor.”
“Sir, with respect, you weren’t there.”
“For Christ’s sake, Howard, anybody with the brains to pour piss out of his boots gets scared when shells start falling. Or sick to his stomach when he sees somebody blown up, torn up, whatever. What the hell made you think you would be different?”
“Sir—”
“You have two options, Lieutenant. Of your own free will, you volunteer for this outfit, or a week from now you’ll report to New River, North Carolina, where you’ll be given a company in the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines.”
Howard’s face worked for a moment. He did not need Banning to remind him of his options. He had been thinking of them carefully. And since getting Barbara’s letter this morning, he had been thinking of little else.
“Actually, Sir, there’s a third option. Colonel Carlson said he would like to have me in the 2nd Raider Battalion.”
“That’s right, you’ve been working with them, haven’t you? You tell Colonel Carlson about this low opinion you have of yourself?”
“Yes, Sir. I mean, I told him about what happened to me at Pearl.”
“And he still wants you?”
“Yes, Sir. He said…just about the same thing that you and Major Stecker said, Sir.”
“Well, make up your mind, Howard. If you don’t want in here, I’ve got to find somebody else.”
“Sir, I’d like to go with you, if that would be all right. But I’ve already told Colonel Carlson I’d volunteer for the Raiders.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle Colonel Carlson. You’re in. Your first job is to teach our new detachment clerk to fill out the appropriate forms to send a TWX to Washington. As soon as he knows how, send one. Here’s the address. The message is to transfer Staff Sergeant Hazleton out and you in.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“You may first have to get Corporal Koffler a typewriter,” Banning said.
“Yes, Sir. I thought about that. I know where I can get one. Actually, two, an office Underwood and a Royal portable. And some other stuff we’re going to need.”
“Aren’t they going to miss you where you’re working?”
“No, Sir. Major Stecker arranged with 2nd Training Force for me to work for you for a week. By the time the week is over, I suppose I’ll have orders transferring me here.”
“Did Major Stecker tell you what they’re going to have us doing?”
“No, Sir. I don’t think he knows.”
“I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think I’d better until we get you officially transferred.”
“I understand, Sir.”
“We won’t be able to tell the men what we’re going to do, or even where we’re going, until we get there. That may be a problem.”
There was no question in Howard’s mind where they were going. They were going to the Pacific. Anywhere in the Pacific would be closer to Barbara than New River, N.C.
“I understand, Sir.”
“OK, Howard. Go get our new detachment clerk a typewriter. As a wise old Marine once told me, the Marine Corps floats on a sea of paper.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
(six)
Eyes Only—The Secretary of the Navy
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY
Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday, 21 April 1942
Dear Frank:
I suspect that you have been expecting more frequent reports than you have been getting. This is my second, and it was exactly a month ago that I sent the first. So, feeling much like a boy at boarding school explaining why his essay has not been turned in when expected, let me offer the following in extenuation:
Your radio of 1 April, in addition to relieving me of my enormous concern that I was not providing what you hoped to get, also told me that it is going to take 7–9 days for these reports to reach you, if they have to travel from here to Hawaii by sea for encryption and radio transmission from there. I see no solution to shortening this time frame, other than hoping that some sort of scheduled air courier service between here and Pearl Harbor will be established. Encryption here, for radio transmission via either Navy or MacA.’s facilities, would mean using their codes and cryptographers, and the problems with that are self-evident.
The only way I see to do it is the way I am preparing this report, all at once, to be turned over to an officer bound for Pearl. This one is being given to Lt. Col. H. B. Newcombe, U.S. Army Air Corps, who has been here visiting General Brett, and is returning to the United States. He is flying as far as Pearl on a converted B-17A Brett has placed into service as a long-range transport.
Let me go off tangentially on that: The service range of the newer B-17s is 925 miles. That is to say, they can strike a target 925 miles from their base and return to their takeoff field. That limitation is going to have a serious effect on their employment here, where there are few targets within a 925-mile range of our bases.
The B-17A on which this will travel has had auxiliary fuel tanks installed; these significantly add to its range, but eliminate its bomb-carrying capacity. This one, which everyone calls the “Swoose,” never even had a tail turret; and it was built up from parts salvaged off the B-17s lost in the early assaults on the Philippines. The Air Corps phrase for this is “cannibalization,” and it applies to much that we are doing here.
In addition to the difficulty of transmission, the week-to-nine-day transmission time seems to me to render useless any “early warning” value my reports might have. By the time my reports reach Washington, you will have already learned through other channels most of what I have to say.
So what these letters are going to be, essentially, are after-action reports, narrating what has happened here from my perspective, together with what few thoughts I feel comfortable offering about the future.
MacA. and his wife and son are still occupying the suite immediately below this one in the Menzies Hotel. That I am upstairs doesn’t seem to bother the Generalissimo, in fact quite the contrary seems true; but it does greatly annoy what has become known as “The Bataan Gang,” that is, those people who were with him in the Philippines.
I have resisted pointed suggestions from Sutherland, Huff, and several others that I vacate these premises in order to make them available to the more deserving (and, of course, senior) members of the MacA. entourage. I have been difficult about this, for two major reasons. First, being where I am, close to MacA., permits me to do what I believe you want me to do. Second, giving in to the suggestion (in the case of Huff, an order: “I have arranged other quarters for you, Captain Pickering.”) that I move out would grant the point that I am subject to their orders. I don’t think that the Special Representative of the Secretary of the Navy should make himself subordinate even to MacA. himself, and certainly not to members of his staff.
I do actually believe the above, but I must in candor tell you that I took great pleasure in telling them, especially Huff, to go to hell. I know I probably should not have taken pleasure in that, but I don’t like them. And they don’t like me. I’m convinced that their hostility mostly arises from MacA. ’s growing tendency to have me around, often alone with him. And I’m sure it is constantly exacerbated by that. Huff, in particular, sees himself as Saint Peter, guarding access to the throne of God. He simply cannot understand MacA. waiving the rules of protocol for anyone, and especially for a civilian/sailor.
I have spent a good deal of time wondering why MacA. does want me around, and have come up with some possible reasons, listed below, not in order of importance.
It began shortly after he was given office space for his headquarters. The Australians turned over to him a bank building at 401 Collins Street. He now occupies what was the Managing Director’s office. The old board room is now the map room.
There was—is—a critical shortage of maps. I was able to help somewhat here when I learned about it.
Going off tangentially again: I learned about the map shortage at dinner, shortly after we arrived in Melbourne. My telephone rang, and in the Best British Manner, one of the Australian sergeants they gave him as orderlies announced to me, “General MacArthur’s compliments, Sir. The General and Mrs. MacArthur would be pleased to have you join them for dinner in half an hour.”
I went downstairs to the restaurant half an hour later and found the Bataan Gang and an assortment of Australians having their dinner. But not MacA. I asked one of the entourage where MacA. was, and was informed that the General dines alone. When I went to the MacA. apartment, I was perfectly prepared to find myself the butt of a practical joke. But I was expected. We dined en famille; in addition to MacA. and his wife, there were little Arthur and his Chinese nurse/governess.
Dinner was small talk—about people Mrs. MacA. knew in Manila, Honolulu, and San Francisco. The war wasn’t mentioned until after dinner. Brandy and a cigar were produced for me, and Mrs. MacA. left us alone. I had the feeling (I realize how absurd this sounds; and please believe me, I gave it a lot of thought before putting it down on paper) that MacA. regards me as a fellow nobleman, the visiting Duke of Pickering, so to speak—with himself, of course, as the Emperor. The rules that apply to common folk—everybody around here but us—naturally do not apply to the nobility. The common folk don’t get to eat, for example, with the Emperor, en famille.
Some of this, I am quite sure, is because I think I am one of the few really well-off individuals he has been close to. I think Mrs. MacA. told him that Pacific & Far East is privately held, and that Patricia is Andrew Foster’s only child, and this has made an extraordinary impression on him. In support of that thesis, I offer this: On 6 April, the Pacific Duchess was part of the convoy that brought the 41st Infantry Division into Adelaide. MacA. informed me of this by saying, “Your ship, the PD, has arrived in Adelaide.” I responded that she was no longer mine, that she now belonged to the Navy. He asked me how much I had been paid for it, and what the taxes were on a transaction like that. I told him. The numbers obviously fascinated him.
On the other hand, most of the special treatment I am getting, I’m sure, is because I am your special representative. MacA.’s clever. More than clever, brilliant. He knows how useful a direct line to your ear will be.
In any event, over my cigar and his cigarette, he discussed his intention to immediately return to the Philippines, and how he planned to do so. In the course of the conversation, he explained how very much aware he is of the vast distances involved, and of the problems that is going to pose. In that connection, he bitterly complained about the lack of maps. He is convinced that the Navy has better maps than he has, and that for petty reasons they are refusing to make them available to him.
I volunteered to look into that. The next day I spoke with Admiral Leary, and then with his intelligence and planning people. And it turned out that MacA. was wrong about the reason he didn’t have decent maps. The Navy was not being petty. The Navy doesn’t have decent maps either. I was astonished to see the poor quality of the charts they had, and equally astonished to see how few charts are available, period.
I don’t pretend to have solved the problem, only to have made a dent in it: but I did manage to gather together charts from the various ship chandlers around (a thought that apparently did not occur to the Navy). The charts I picked up, anyhow, were superior to any the Navy had. I then went to the P&FE agent here and borrowed, on a semipermanent basis, several of his people. They are going to all the masters of ships plying the Southwest Pacific trade, down to the smallest coaster, as they make port; and they’ll get them to update charts, especially for the small islands, based on the mariners’ own observations.
The P&FE agent here has arranged to have the updated charts printed. I offered to make them available to Admiral Leary, but he made it clear that (a) he is not interested: not having come from the appropriate Navy bureaucracy, they cannot be considered reliable; and that (b) therefore it is an effrontery on my part to ask that I be reimbursed for expenses incurred.
MacA., on the other hand, was really grateful for the maps. I think that was the reason I was invited to go with him on March 25, when he was invested with the Medal of Honor. His acceptance speech was brilliant; my eyes watered.
And the next day, for the first time, MacA. met John Curtin, the Prime Minister. Now, in case you don’t know it, Curtin is so far left that he makes Roosevelt look like Louis XIV. All the same, he and MacA. immediately began to act like long-lost brothers. I know for a fact (the P&FE agent here sits in the Australian parliament) that Curtin was flatly opposed to (a) abolishing the Australian Military Board and (b) transferring all of its powers to MacA.
Apparently, neither Willoughby (hisG-2 ) nor our State Department explained to MacA. just who Curtin is or what he’d done. Indeed, MacA. seems to believe exactly the opposite, i.e., that Curtin was responsible for his being named commander-in-chief and given all the powers of the former Military Board. Or else MacA. was told, and regally decided to ignore the implications. With a massive effort, I have obeyed your orders not to involve myself in something like this.
Or—an equally credible scenario—he knows all about Curtin and his politics, and his publicly professed camaraderie and admiration for Curtin is a sham intended for public consumption to bolster the very much sagging Australian morale. The people believe, with good reason, that they are next on the Japanese schedule. Curtin has complained bitterly that Australian (and New Zealand) troops are off in Africa fighting for England when they are needed to defend their homeland. He consequently stands high in the public esteem, even of those who think he is a dangerous socialist.
Into this situation comes MacArthur, promising to defend the Australian continent. The words he used in his Medal of Honor acceptance speech “we shall win or we shall die; I pledge the full resources of all the mighty power of my country, and all the blood of my countrymen” were reported in every newspaper, and over the radio…again and again. There was hope once more.
And right on top of that came word of Colonel Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo. From my perspective here, I think it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of that raid. Militarily, MacA. told me, it will require the Japanese to pull back naval and aerial forces, as well as antiaircraft artillery forces, to protect the homeland. Politically, it is certain to have caused havoc within the Japanese Imperial Staff. Their senior officers are humiliated. And it will inevitably have an effect on Japanese civilian morale. Since MacArthur, not surprising me at all, immediately concluded that the attack had been launched from an aircraft carrier, I decided that the Commander-in-Chief SWPAC was entitled to hear other information the Japanese probably already knew. I therefore provided him with the specific details of the attack as I knew them. An hour or so later, when Willoughby came to the office and provided MacA. with what few details he had about the raid, MacA. delivered a concise lecture to him and to several others, based on what I had told him. It was of course obvious where he’d gotten his facts. The unfortunate result is I am now regarded as a more formidable adversary than before.
But Doolittle’s bombing of Tokyo, added to MacArthur’s presence here and his being named Commander-in-Chief, and his (apparently) roaring friendship with Curt in, gave Australian morale a really big boost just when one was needed. And that surge of confidence would have been destroyed if MacA. had started fighting with Curtin—or even if there was any suggestion that they were not great mutual admirers or were not in complete agreement.
The more I think about it, I think this latter is the case. MacArthur understands things like this.
Turning to the important question “Can we hold Australia?” MacArthur believes, supported to some degree by the intelligence (not much) available to us, that the following is the grand Japanese strategy: While Admiral Yamamoto is taking Midway away from us, as a steppingstone to taking the Hawaiian Islands, the forces under Admiral Takeo Takagi will occupy Australia’s perimeter islands, north and west of the continent.
We have some pretty good intelligence that Takagi intends to put “OperationMo” into execution as soon as he can. That is the capture of Port Moresby, on New Guinea. Moresby is currently manned, I should say undermanned, by Australian militiamen with little artillery, etcetera. They could not resist a large-scale Japanese assault. Once Moresby falls, all the Japanese have to do is build it up somewhat and then use it as the base for an invasion across the Coral Sea to Australia. It’s about 300 miles across the Coral Sea from Port Moresby to Australia.
Both to repel an invasion and to prevent the Japanese from marching across Australia, MacA. has two divisions (the U.S. 32nd Infantry, arrived at Adelaide April 15); one brigade of the 6th Australian Division; and one (or two, depending on whom one chooses to believe) Australian divisions being returned “soon” from Africa. He has sixty-two B-17 bombers, six of which (including the “Swoose,” which carries no bombs) are airworthy. Some fighter planes have begun to arrive, but these are generally acknowledged to be inferior to the Japanese Zero.
MacA. believes further that the Japanese intend to install fighter airplane bases in the Solomon Islands. We have some unconfirmed (and probably unconfirmable) intelligence that major fighter bases are planned for Guadalkennel (sp?) and Bougainville. Fighters on such strips could escort Japanese Betty and Zeke bombers to interdict our ships bound for Australia, cutting the pipeline. We don’t have the men or materiel to go after them at either place.
On top of this, we have had what MacA. feels is an unconscionable delay in reaching an interservice agreement about who is in charge of what. I found myself wondering too, frankly, just who the hell was in charge in Washington. MacA. was not named CIC SWPA until April 18. And even when that happened, it violated a rule of warfare even Fleming Pickering understands: that it is idiocy to split a command. Which is exactly what appointing Admiral Nimitz as CIC Pacific Ocean Areas does.
It means that from this point on, we have started another war. In addition to fighting the Japanese, the Army and the Navy are going to be at each other’s throats. A sailor, or a soldier, MacArthur or Nimitz, should have been put in charge. Somebody has to be in charge.
Under these circumstances, I was not at all surprised, the day Bataan fell, when MacA. radioed Marshall asking for permission to return to the Philippines to fight as a guerrilla. I could hear the snickers when that radio arrived in Sodom-on-Potomac.
He showed me the cable before he sent it. I told him what I thought the reaction would be. He said he understood that, but thought there was a slight chance his “enemies” (George Marshall, Ernie King, and the U.S. Navy) would see that he was given permission as a way to get rid of him.
I think I should confess, Frank, that if he had been given permission, I think I would have gone with him.
Colonel Newcombe just called from the lobby. I have to seal this up and give it to him.
Respectfully,
Fleming Pickering, Captain, USNR