The Corp - Counterattack Part 38

"Sir, they frown on officers, particular senior ones, carrying luggage."

"Oh, h.e.l.l. OK- Go get someone, then."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

Pickering got out from behind the wheel, walked to the edge of the wharf, and looked up at the stern of the s.h.i.+p. Her once-glistening white hull was now a flat Navy gray, PRESIDENT MILLARD G. FILLMORE was painted in enormous letters across her stern. But if you looked closely, you could see where the raised lettering PACIFIC PRINCESS SAN FRANCISCO had been painted over.

Her superstructure was still mostly white, although her funnels were also in Navy gray, probably so that the Pacific & Far Eastern logo on them could be obliterated. Pickering had learned from the Admiral the day before that they were carrying a work crew aboard in order to finish the painting and to make other modifications under way. s.h.i.+pping s.p.a.ce was so tight they could not afford to take her out of service for modifications any longer than was absolutely necessary.

What I should be doing is standing on her bridge, preparing to take her to sea, not functioning as a make-believe Naval officer and high-cla.s.s errand boy for Frank Knox.

"It's sad, seeing her in gray," Patricia said softly, at his elbow.

"It has to be done, I suppose," he said. "Anyway, she's now the Navy's. Not ours."

(Six) One by one, the umbilicals that tied the President Millard G. Fillmore to the dock were cut. Finally, only one gangplank remained, and there seemed to be no activity on that.

From the boat deck, Ensign Barbara Cotter, NC, USNR, looked down at the small crowd of people on the dock. Ernie Sage was there, and her Ken McCoy, and Joe. They had waved excitedly at each other when Barbara had found a place for herself at the rail. But that was forty-five minutes ago; now they just forced smiles and made little waves at each other.

Finally, three people appeared on the single remaining gangway, a Marine officer, a Navy captain, and a civilian woman.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Ernie Sage said. "Ken, that's Pick's father and mother."

"Where?" McCoy asked.

"The Navy guy and the woman coming down the gangway."

"You want me to get their attention, or what?"

"No!"

"I know them. I met them when we graduated from Quantico."

"If they see me here, Aunt Pat would feel obliged to tell my mother," Ernie said.

"Just where do you think your mother thinks you are? She doesn't know what you're doing?" McCoy said.

"Will you just leave it, please?"

Right in front of them, two sailors pulled an enormous hawser free of a hawser stand, and it began to rise up along the steep side of the s.h.i.+p.

Joe Howard looked down the dock. Nothing now held the President Millard G. Fillmore to the sh.o.r.e.

"It's moving," Ernie said.

A rather small Navy band began to play "Anchors Aweigh."

The President Millard G. Fillmore was an enormous s.h.i.+p and difficult to get into motion. When the band finished "Anchors Aweigh" and segued into "The Marine Hymn" there were only a few feet of water between the s.h.i.+p and the dock. Then, in deference to a battalion of U.S. Army Engineers aboard, the band played "The Caissons Go Rolling Along." By the time that was finished, twenty feet of water separated the sh.o.r.e and the s.h.i.+p.

Then the s.h.i.+p added the power of her engines to that of the tugs; there was a swirl of water at her stern, and her stern moved farther away from the dock.

The band began to play "Auld Lang Syne."

Barbara Cotter and Joe Howard waved bravely at each other.

"You OK, Joe?" Ken McCoy asked.

"This is not the way it's supposed to be," Joe Howard said. "I'm the G.o.dd.a.m.ned Marine, and here I am on the G.o.dd.a.m.ned sh.o.r.e, waving good-bye as my girlfriend goes overseas."

The band stopped playing; and to the ticking of drumsticks on drum rims, they marched off toward a Navy-gray bus.

First Lieutenant Joe Howard walked to the end of the dock and stood there watching until the President Millard G. Fillmore sailed out of sight.

(Seven)

TOP SECRET.

Eyes Only-The Secretary of the Navy

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN.

ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY.

Melbourne, Australia Sat.u.r.day, 21 March 1942 Dear Frank: Despite a nearly overwhelming feeling that this should be addressed "Dear Mr. Secretary, " I am complying with your orders to write this in the form of a personal letter; to include my opinions as well as the facts as I understand them; and to presume that I am your sole source of information regarding what is going on in this area of the world.

This is written in my apartment in the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, which I was able to get through the good offices of our (Pacific & Far East) agent here. It is my intention to deliver it, triply sealed, into the hands of the Captain of the USS John B. Lester, a destroyer which put in here for emergency repairs (now just about completed), and that is bound directly for Pearl Harbor. Using my letter of authority from you, I will direct Captain (Lt. Commander) K. L. White to deliver it into the hands of Mrs. Feller, or, if for some reason that is impossible, to burn it.

His willingness to comply with those orders, it seems to me, depends on whether he accepts your letter of authority at face value. The whipping we have taken so far seems to me to have produced a lack of confidence here-perhaps even an aura of defeatism. What I'm suggesting is that he may decide either to throw this whole thing away or to open it, or to do something other than what I am ordering him to do. Ellen Feller-if she gets this-will be able to determine whether or not it has been opened. I would very much appreciate your advising me of the receipt of this, including when, and to tell me if this is the sort of thing you would like to have me continue to do.

Obviously, I did not get into the Philippines. Haughton's message that MacArthur had been ordered to leave Corregidor was waiting for me when I arrived in San Francisco from San Diego on March 10. I left the next morning for Hawaii aboard a Navy Martin Mariner. At CINCPAC, I was told that the only way into the Philippines, either Corregidor or Mindanao, would be by submarine. I had just missed the Permit, which was scheduled to be at Corregidor on the 13th, and another "courier" submarine was not scheduled.

I could not have reached Corregidor, in other words, until after MacArthur was gone. And it was made clear to me that it would be very difficult to leave the Philippines once I got there. Under those circ.u.mstances, I decided not to go. I visited the Special Detachment and told the commanding officer of your special orders to Mrs. Feller. He was very cooperative, and I feel there will be no problems with him.

The next morning, I left Hickam Field, TH, aboard an Army Air Corps B-17 , one of a flight of four en route from Seattle to Vice Admiral Herbert F. Leary's command in Australia. We arrived without incident early on March 13.

I presented myself to Admiral Leary and showed him my letter of authority from you. He was obviously torn between annoyance at having someone from Was.h.i.+ngton looking over his shoulder and a hope that perhaps I could convince "those people in Was.h.i.+ngton" of the terrible shape things are in here.

The only bright light in the whole area, he said, was that elements of Task Force 6814, including some Engineer troops, had the day before landed on Efate Island. If Admiral King's order to recapture Rabaul as soon as possible can be carried out at all, it is essential for them to construct an air base on the island. I sensed that Leary is not overly confident that the Army can build such a field in a short time.

Leary also told me that a radio message had come from Corregidor reporting that MacArthur, his wife, and small son, together with President Quezon and some others, had left Corregidor at sunset, March 11, bound for Mindanao. They were aboard four PT boats; and there had been no report on them since then. Leary said he was not yet concerned; the boats were under the command of a Lieutenant Buckley, whom he knows, and considers an extraordinarily competent officer.

He was far more concerned to learn that the j.a.panese have occupied the island of Buka, 170 miles southeast of Rabaul, and that aerial reconnaissance has shown them unloading the engineer equipment for building an airfield.

While I was in his office, he and I learned that MacArthur and his people had turned up safe. A radio came from General Sharp's headquarters on Mindanao reporting that "the s.h.i.+pment was received" but that it would "require some maintenance." Leary and I decided (correctly, it turned out) that this meant the trip had been rough on MacArthur and/or Quezon and/or the others. MacArthur is, after all, sixty-two, Quezon is even older, and they had just completed a long voyage in small boats across rough seas.

At this point Major General George S. Brett, the senior Army Air Corps officer here, entered the picture. Brett wanted Leary to dispatch four B-17s to Mindanao to pick up the MacArthur party and bring them here. Leary refused, citing as his reasons that the four planes had just flown from the United States and required maintenance; and that in any event, he needed them for operational use. He had just learned that the 20,000-odd Dutch troops on Java had surrendered, and in his opinion that had removed the last obstacle the j.a.panese had to overcome before invading Australia. He could not spare heavy bombers to carry pa.s.sengers, no matter how important the pa.s.sengers.

I was privy to this conversation. I think Leary knew what Brett wanted of him, and wanted me to hear it so that it would be reported to you.

Brett was highly upset. Part of it, I think, was that he placed more importance on getting the MacArthur party out of Mindanao than Leary does; and part of it was the humiliation an Air Corps officer felt about asking a Navy officer for Army Air Corps airplanes, and then getting refused. Anyway, Brett stormed out, promising that the President would hear about this and make it right. Leary said he did not see the need for immediate action; Sharp has 30,000 effective troops, and Mindanao is not in immediate danger of being overrun. The MacArthur party, he feels, can be safely taken off by submarine. I was p.r.o.ne to agree with Leary.

Brett came back shortly afterward, saying that he had learned of a B-17 that was available. Leary was already aware of it; it was an early model, old and worn, and he could not guarantee how safe it was. Brett insisted, and Leary gave in.

The plan was for MacArthur and party to be flown in the B-17 from Mindanao to Darwin, which is on the northern coast of Australia. There they would transfer to two civilian DC-3s Brett chartered from the Australian airlines and fly across the continent to Melbourne. General Brett graciously allowed me to fly to Darwin on one of the civilian airplanes.

We expected to find the MacArthur party waiting for us at Darwin. But on landing we learned that MacArthur had inspected the B-17 sent to pick him up, and had refused to fly in it. The airplane then returned to Australia without pa.s.sengers.

Brett shortly afterward learned that Leary had changed his mind about the newer B-17s, and three of the four took off to get MacArthur. One of them had to turn back when it developed engine trouble over the Australian desert; the other two made it to Mindanao just before midnight on Monday (March 16). (These details from Lt. Frank Bostrom, Army Air Corps, who was the senior pilot, and who flew MacA's airplane.) An engine supercharger on one of Bostrom1 s engines went out en route. He could have made it back without having it repaired, but it would have lowered his weight-carrying ability and caused other problems I don't really understand. He managed to get it repaired, however, which meant that he and the other B-17 could carry all of the MacArthur party (but none of their luggage).

But then another of Bostrom's engines acted up during takeoff, and he was really afraid he couldn't get the airplane off the ground. In the end, though, he managed it. After that, it was a five-hour flight to Darwin-about the same distance as from New Orleans to Boston-and there was violent turbulence en route. Nothing had been done to convert the airplanes from their bombing role. Mrs. MacArthur and the boy had the only "upholstery," a mattress laid on the cabin floor. MacArthur rode in the radio operator' s seat.

Along with his immediate family, the general brought his staff out with him, none of whom, frankly, I care for- although MacArthur feels they are to a man superb officers. To me they're more like the dukes who used to surround a king.

As soon as they were able to establish radio contact with Darwin, they were informed that Darwin was under j.a.panese air attack and that they should divert to Batchelor Field, which is about fifty miles away. I was already there with the two Air Australia DC-3s, when they landed about nine in the morning (Tues., Mar 17 ). A good deal of what follows may well be unimportant-certainly, some of it is petty-but you wanted my opinion of MacArthur, his thinking, and the people around him.

He seemed very disturbed to find on hand to greet him only Brigadier Royce (who had been on the Air Australia plane with me), representing General Brett. For good cause, certainly, he looked exhausted.

I told his aide, a man named Huff, that I was your personal representative, and that I wished to pay my respects to MacArthur and ask him for his evaluation of the situation so that I could pa.s.s it on to you. Huff made it plain that MacArthur was ent.i.tled to a far more senior Navy officer than a lowly captain. He also felt that I had seriously violated military protocol by not presenting myself to Admiral Rockwell before daring to approach the throne of King Douglas. Rockwell was the former senior Navy officer in the Philippines, and he came in on the second B-17.

Admiral Rockwell was displeased with me, too, and you may hear about that. There was a scene that in other circ.u.mstances would have been humorous, during which he kept demanding to know who was my immediate superior, to which I kept answering "Secretary Knox," to which he kept replying, ad infinitum, "You' re not listening to me. I mean your immediate superior. During all this, he simply refused to look at my letter of authority from you until I answered the simple question of who was my immediate superior.

This little farce came to an end when Mrs. MacArthur recognized me. Not as a Naval officer, but as my wife's husband. Apparently, they had met in Manila, and Mrs. MacA. regards Patricia as a friend. Or at least a social peer. She told her husband of my connection with Pacific & Far East, and I was permitted to approach the throne.

I had met MacArthur only briefly once or twice before, and I am sure he did not remember those occasions; but he greeted me warmly and told me he was anxious to learn (these are his words as closely as I can remember them) "details of the buildup in Australia; troop and naval dispositions; and the tentative timetable for the recapture of Luzon. "

I explained to him that there was no buildup; that there were only about 34,000 troops of any description in Australia ; that the only unit of any size was the understrength 1st Brigade of the 6th Australian Division; and that the strategic problem as I understood it was to attempt to keep the j.a.panese from taking Australia which might not be possible and that, consequently, nothing whatever had yet been done about attempting to take Luzon back from the j.a.panese.

His eyes glazed over. He turned to another of his aides, a brigadier general named Sutherland, and said, "Surely he is mistaken." Then he marched off to a small shack where breakfast (baked beans and canned peaches) was served.

Brigadier Royce, who is a nice fellow, followed him into the shack. And later he emerged from it looking dazed. Mrs. MacArthur did not wish to fly anymore, perhaps ever again, and General MacArthur had therefore ordered Royce to immediately form a motorcade to transport the party to the nearest railhead. Royce had informed MacArthur that the nearest railhead was in Alice Springs, about as far away across the desert (1,000 miles or so) as Chicago is from New Orleans, and that, among other things, there were no vehicles available to form a motorcade.

MacArthur's response was, "You have your orders; put them into execution. "

This apparently impossible situation was resolved by Major Charles H. More-house , an Army doctor who had come out of the Philippines with them. He told Royce that such a trip would probably kill the MacArthur boy, Arthur, who is five or six, and who was ill. Morehouse was feeding him intravenously. Morehouse also said that he could not guarantee whether MacArthur himself would live through a 1,000-mile automobile trip across the desert.

Royce somewhat forcefully suggested to Dr. Morehouse that he make this point emphatically to MacArthur. So Morehouse went into the shack. After several minutes MacArthur came out and announced, "We are prepared to board the aircraft. " It was the royal "we, " Frank.

We got on the airplanes. As the engines were being started, the air-raid sirens went off; several of the j.a.panese bombers attacking Darwin had broken off their attack and were headed for Batchelor Field. Whether or not they knew the MacArthur party was there, I don't know.

All the same, we got off safely, and made the trip to Alice Springs without incident. Alice Springs looks like a town in a cowboy movie, and it's the northern terminus of the Central Australian Railway . . . and it lies a good deal beyond the range of the j.a.panese Mitsubis.h.i.+ bombers.

Alice Springs, MacArthur announced, was as far as he intended to fly. He could not be moved from this position even after he was told that the next train would not come for six days. And then Amba.s.sador Hurley flew in to tell MacArthur that MacA. had been named Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific , by Prime Minister Curtin and President Roosevelt. He also tried to get MacA. to take a plane to Melbourne, but he had no more luck than anybody else.

So a special train was ordered up. We still had the Air Australia DC-3s. So Hurley and most of MacA.'s staff-except Huff, Sutherland, and Dr. Morehouse, the intimate guardians of the throne-flew off to Melbourne. I was sorely tempted to fly with them, and I might have gone-until General Sutherland imperiously ordered me to do it.

I guess I "m learning the Machiavellian rules of the game : I did not think the Personal Representative of the Secretary of the Navy should place himself under the orders of an Army officer.

'Patrick Jay Hurley, formerly Secretary of War and then Amba.s.sador to New Zealand.

The train arrived the next morning. It too looked like something from a cowboy movie: a tiny locomotive, two third-cla.s.s coaches, and a caboose. The tracks there-between Alice Springs and Adelaide, a thousand-odd miles-are three feet between the rails. Should the j.a.panese invade Australia, this single-track, narrow-gauge railroad, with rolling stock to match, will simply not be adequate to supply, much less to transport, anything close to an infantry division. Which doesn't matter, I guess: we don't have an infantry division to transport; and if we did, one division would obviously not be adequate to repel a j.a.panese invasion.

The first coach of the train had wooden seats; and the second held an Australian Army nurse, a couple of Australian Army sergeants, an army field stove, and a supply of food. It was a three-day trip. For the first twenty-four hours, no one spoke to me but the sergeants.

Then MacArthur sent for me. He ran Sutherland and Huff off and began a nonstop lecture that lasted several hours. Obviously, he was playing to you, vicariously , through me. He began with j.a.panese economics and politics and how these made the war in the Pacific inevitable. Then he discussed j.a.panese strategy generally and in the Philippines specifically. He had at his fingertips a literally incredible encyclopedia of dates, names, and figures (tonnages, distances, etcetera).

By the time it was over, I was dazed. Using the word very carefully, the man is clearly a genius. I shall never think of him again as just one more general. It seems to me now that he fits in the same category as Roosevelt and Churchill. I also believe that, like Roosevelt and Churchill, he sees himself as a latter-day Moses, divinely inspired to lead his people out of the desert. In this connection, he feels a personal obligation to the Filipinos.

MacA. seems to understand that Roosevelt's decision to aid Britain (and the Russians) first is irrevocable and that, as a good soldier, he will of course support it. But he also makes it plain that he believes the decision was the wrong one, made because (a) Churchill can play Roosevelt like a violin (and I rather agree with that), and (b) George Marshall, who has Roosevelt' s ear, is determined that MacArthur shall not be allowed to demonstrate his military genius (which, of course, is absurd).

General Marshall (MacA. 's Deputy C/S; not the other one, obviously) boarded the train at a small station several hours before we got to Adelaide the next afternoon. I started to leave, but MacA. motioned for me to stay. Marshall then confirmed what I had told MacA. in Darwin ; that there were no troops to speak of in all of Australia; and that there was doubt that Australia itself could be held.

Marshall said something to MacA. about creating a "Brisbane Line" ; the Australian General Staff was planning to abandon the northern ports, including Darwin, to the j.a.panese, and attempt to hold the population centers along the southern and eastern coasts.

"They can just forget that, " MacArthur said. "We shall hold Australia. "

Logic told me, Frank, that that was highly improbable. But my heart told me that we would indeed hold Australia. Mac-Arthur had just said so.

Marshall also reported that two companies of the 182nd Infantry and a company of Army Engineers had landed on Efate with orders to build an airfield, "whatever the h.e.l.l that means. "

Without reference to a map, and more important, without my having told him that Admiral King had ordered the recapture of Rabaul-and if I hadn't told him, who else had this knowledge and could have?-Mac-Arthur explained that Efate was an island in the New Hebrides, about 700 miles southeast of Tulagi, and that "someone with a knowledge of strategy" had seen the establishment of an air base there as essential to the recapture of Rabaul, which was itself essential to deny the j.a.panese a chance to make a successful landing on the Australian continent.

Marshall also told him that there would be reporters waiting for him in Adelaide, and that some sort of a statement would be expected.

The two of them started to work on that, and were still working on it when he arrived at Adelaide. This is, essentially verbatim, what he said there : "The President of the United States ordered me to break through the j.a.panese lines for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against j.a.pan, a primary object of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through, and I shall return. "

If you want to know what he's thinking, Frank, I suggest you study that short speech carefully. It was not off the cuff.

The Commissioner of Railroads had sent his own private car to Adelaide, where it was attached to the Melbourne Express. From Adelaide to Melbourne, the track is standard width. I scurried around getting a sleeper on the train, and had just succeeded when Huff found me. I was, so I was informed, to have one of the staterooms in the private car. I don' t know who was more surprised, Huff or me.

We got to Spencer Street Station, Melbourne, just before ten a.m. the next day. We backed in, with MacA. standing like a politician on the rear platform of the private car. There were half a hundred reporters in the station, and even an honor guard.

MacA. delivered another speech, which I am sure was as carefully prepared as the "I shall return" speech in Adelaide. In it, again just about verbatim, he said, "success in modern war means the furnis.h.i.+ng of sufficient troops and materiel to meet the known strength of the enemy. No general can make something out of nothing. My success or failure will depend primarily upon the resources which the respective governments place at my disposal."

He cold-shouldered General Brett and General Royce at the station, rather cruelly I thought; and I think he's going to hold a grudge about the B-17s. There is no excuse for it that I can see. Nor-as I just learned from Huff-is there any excuse for recommending the award of a Presidential Unit Citation to every unit on Corregidor except the 4th Marines. His reason for not giving it to the Marines, again quoting Huff, is that "they have enough publicity as it is. "

He also, politely, refused the offer of several mansions and moved into the Menzies. I can only wonder what will happen when he finds out that lowly Captain Pickering, USNR, occupies an identical apartment directly above him.

I don't think he has made up his mind what to do about me, and for the moment, at least, I am considered a member pro tem of the palace guard.