The Corp - Counterattack Part 43

"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 ma.s.sive 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 cla.s.sify 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, G.o.d," 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 G.o.d, 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 j.a.panese 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 b.a.l.l.s to jump out of an airplane. I'm not sure I would."

Banning's smile vanished as he looked at Howard.

"Talking about b.a.l.l.s, 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 p.i.s.s out of his boots gets scared when sh.e.l.ls start falling. Or sick to his stomach when he sees somebody blown up, torn up, whatever. What the h.e.l.l 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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)

TOP SECRET.

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 a.s.saults 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 h.e.l.l. 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 G.o.d. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sortment 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 b.u.t.t 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 n.o.bleman, 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 n.o.bility. 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 d.u.c.h.ess was part of the convoy that brought the 41st Infantry Division into Adelaide. MacA. informed me of this by saying, "Your s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps 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) abolis.h.i.+ng the Australian Military Board and (b) transferring all of its powers to MacA.

Apparently, neither Willoughby (his G-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 ma.s.sive 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 j.a.panese 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 it1 s impossible to overestimate the importance of that raid. Militarily, MacA. Told me, it will require the j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese Imperial Staff. Their senior officers are humiliated. And it will inevitably have an effect on j.a.panese 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 ent.i.tled to hear other information the j.a.panese probably already knew. I there fore 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 friends.h.i.+p with Curtin, 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 .