“Aye, aye, Sir,” Moore said.
When he got to the Hotel Menzies, Moore realized that he had no idea where to find Major Banning.
Lieutenant Hon will know, he decided. He rode the elevator to the basement and made his way to the steel-doored room.
“I thought you were playing chauffeur?” Hon greeted him.
“I was outside the Australian Navy building when Lieutenant Donnelly sent for me. He gave me a message for Major Banning. Made me memorize it. And then told me to deliver it. I don’t know where he is, Sir.”
“What’s the message?” Hon asked. He saw the look of concern on Moore’s face. “Hey, I’m cleared for everything.”
“The airfield at Lunga Point is being built by the 11th and 23rd Pioneers, IJN,” Moore recited. “Estimated strength 450. They are equipped with bulldozers, rock crushers, trucks, and other engineer equipment.”
“Christ!” Hon said, “that’s bad news.”
“Commander Feldt said ‘that’s as good as gold,’ ” Moore added.
Hon looked at Moore thoughtfully. “You don’t have the faintest idea what that means, do you?”
“No, Sir.”
Hon went to an open file drawer, took from it and unfolded a map of Guadalcanal, and pointed to Lunga Point.
“That’s Lunga Point,” he said. “We already heard—had aerial photos—that the Japanese had burned the grass off a flat area, a plain, here. Feldt sent Coastwatchers he had on Guadalcanal across the island from here,” he pointed, “through the jungle to see what was going on. And now we know—Feldt said his information was ‘as good as gold’—that the Japanese are making a real effort to build a major airfield there. Pioneers are what we call Engineers. They’ve got 450 Engineers in there with rock crushers and bulldozers.”
“I realize I must sound stupid, but is that really so important?”
“If they can base aircraft there—even fighters, but especially bombers—we’re in real trouble. Always keep that airfield in the back of your mind when you’re reading the MAGICS. Let me know if anything—anything—arouses your curiosity.”
“Yes, Sir. Sir, what do I do about getting this to Major Banning?”
“He and Captain Pickering are on their way down here,” Hon replied, and then handed Moore a sheet of onion skin. “I just got my hands on this.”
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
TOP SECRET
WASH DC 0015G 2JUL42
FROM: THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
TO: EYES ONLY
ADMIRAL NIMITZ COMPOA PEARLHARBOR
INFORMATION: EYES ONLY
GENERAL MACARTHUR SHSWPA MELBOURNE
VICEADMIRAL GHORMLEY COMSOPAC AUCKLAND1. NO FURTHER DISCUSSION OF OPERATION PESTILENCE OR ALTERNATIVES THERETO IS DESIRED.
2. DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, EXECUTE OPERATION PESTILENCE AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY BUT NO LATER THAN 10 AUGUST 1942.
FOR THE CHAIRMAN, THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF:
HANNEMAN, MAJGEN, USA, SECRETARY, JCS
“What’s ‘Operation Pestilence’?” Moore asked, as he handed the onion skin back.
“The invasion of the Solomon Islands,” Hon replied. “Or three of them, anyway. Tulagi, Gavutu, and Guadalcanal. Where the Japs are building this airfield. MacArthur and Ghormley think it’s a lousy idea.”
The steel door creaked open.
“You should have bolted that,” Hon said.
Captain Fleming Pickering and Major Ed Banning came into the tiny room.
“What was that, Pluto?” Pickering asked.
“Nothing, Sir,” Hon said. “This just came in, sir. I thought you would want to see it right away.”
Pickering took the onion skin. His eyebrows rose as he read it. He handed it to Banning.
“Does General MacArthur have that yet?”
“He and Mrs. MacArthur are having lunch with the Prime Minister. One of the crypto officers is on his way over there with it.”
Pickering grunted. “What brings you here, Moore?”
“He has a message for me,” Banning answered for him. “Let’s have it, Sergeant.”
“The airfield at Lunga Point is being built by the 11th and 23rd Pioneers, IJN. Estimated strength 450. They are equipped with bulldozers, rock crushers, trucks, and other engineer equipment,” Moore recited, and added, “Commander Feldt says ‘that’s as good as gold.’ ”
Pickering snorted. “Repeat that, please,” he said.
Moore did so.
“What can they accomplish in a month, five weeks?” Pickering asked.
“They can probably have it ready for fighters,” Banning replied. “I don’t know about bombers.”
“They already have float mounted Zeroes on Tulagi,” Pickering said thoughtfully. Then he looked at Moore. “You’d better get back to driving Colonel Goettge around,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you, do I, that Colonel Goettge is not to know about this? Or what you just relayed from Commander Feldt?”
“No, Sir,” Moore said. He started to walk out of the room.
“Moore!” Banning called, and Moore turned. Banning held out a thin stack of envelopes to him. “Mail call. It came in on this morning’s courier.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
In the elevator en route to the lobby, Moore thumbed through the half dozen envelopes. There were two letters from his mother; one each from his two sisters; one from Uncle Bill; and one with the return address, Apartment “C”, 106 Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His heart jumped. He resisted the temptation to tear Barbara’s letter open right there.
I’ll save it until I’m alone.
He raised it to his nose and thought he could smell, ever so faintly, Barbara’s perfume and then he put the letters in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket.
He walked out of the Menzies Hotel, got in the Studebaker, and drove back to where he was supposed to be waiting for Colonel Goettge and Major Dillon.
They were outside, waiting for him, and Colonel Goettge was visibly annoyed that he had been kept waiting.
“Sergeant,” Goettge said, somewhat snappishly, “I thought that you were aware I have a luncheon appointment with Colonel Willoughby.”
“Sorry, Sir,” Moore said. “I had to do something for Major Banning.”
“So we have been informed,” Goettge said, as he got in the car. Moore closed the door after him and drove back to the Menzies Hotel.
“Don’t disappear again without letting me know,” Colonel Goettge said, as Moore held the rear door open for him.
“No, Sir,” Moore said.
Moore watched the two of them disappear into the lobby and then took the stack of envelopes from his pocket. He was hungry and knew that he should try to eat, but that could wait.
He carefully opened the letter from Barbara, sniffing it again for a smell of her perfume, and then unfolded it. It was brief and to the point:
Philadelphia, June 23, 1942
Dear John,
There is no easy way to break this to you, so here goes: My husband and I have reconciled.
I’m sure, when you think about it, that you will realize this is the best thing for all concerned. And I’m sure you will understand why I have to ask you not to write to me.
You will be in my prayers, and I will never forget you.
Barbara.
He felt a chill. He read the letter again, then very deliberately took his Zippo from his pocket and set the letter on fire, holding it by one corner until it became too hot, and then dropping it on the floorboard, wondering, but not caring, if it was going to set the carpet on fire.
Then he banged his head on the steering wheel until the tears came.
(Two)
AOTEA QUAY
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND
5 JULY 1942
It was cold, windy, and raining hard on the Quay, and Major Jake Dillon’s allegedly rainproof raincoat was soaked through.
What he faced, he thought more than a little bitterly,
was one hell of a challenge for a flack. Even a flack like him ... The Hollywood Reporter had once run a story about the gang that showed up every Saturday at Darryl Zanuck’s polo field. The cut line under a picture of Jake Dillon and Clark Gable on their ponies read, “The King of the Movies and the King of the Flacks Playing the Sport of Kings.”
For once, Jake Dillon thought at the time, the Reporter had stuck pretty close to the facts. He hoped there was still some truth in the line about him ... The King of Flacks would need every bit of his royal Hollywood experience if he was going to make a success of what he had in mind to do:
He was going to put together a little movie about the Marine invasion of Bukavu, Tulagi, and Guadalcanal. He’d made the decision solely on his own authority; nothing about it was put on paper; and he didn’t tell anyone about it except his cameramen.
His film would come in addition to the footage the combat cameramen shot when the invasion was actually in progress. As soon as possible, that would be sent undeveloped to Washington, where somebody else would soup it, screen it, and do whatever they decided to do with it, passing it out to the newsreel companies and whatever.
What Jake Dillon had in mind was to have his people shoot newsreel feature stuff—as opposed to hard news. The emphasis would be on the ordinary enlisted Marine. They’d follow the 1st Division as the Division prepared to go to the Solomons, and then of course, they’d be with them when they got there.
He had a number of scenes in mind. Training shots, primarily. Life in tent city here in New Zealand. Life in the transports en route to the rehearsal in the Fiji Islands, and then as they sailed for the Solomons, and then after they landed. Human interest stuff.
In point of actual fact, it would be the first movie that he had ever produced. But he had been around the industry for a long time and knew what had to be done and how to do it. The idea was not intimidating; God only knew how many successful movies had been produced by ignoramuses who couldn’t find their own asses with both hands without the assistance of a script, a continuity girl, and two or three assistant directors to put chalk marks on it for them.
He learned early on in Hollywood that a good crew makes all the difference when you are shooting a movie. If you have a crew who know what they are doing, all you have to do is tell them what you want, and they do it. And even if it was a damned small one, he had a good crew here with him.
They understood what he wanted to do; and, just as important, they thought it was a pretty good idea.
That meant, for example, that he could tell them that he wanted to show equipment being off-loaded from transports, and they would go shoot it for him. He didn’t have to stand around with a script and a megaphone in his hand, yelling at somebody to get a tight shot of the sweating guy driving the truck. His people made movies for a living; they knew what was needed, and how to get it.
As Dillon walked down the Quay, he thought, If I was making a movie called “The Greatest Fuck-Up Of All Time,” I could finish principal photography this morning right here on this goddamned dock.
Jake Dillon had seen some monumental screw-ups in his time, but this took the goddamned cake: The ships carrying the supplies of the 1st Marine Division had not been “combat-loaded” when they sailed from the United States. That meant they all had to be reloaded here, since they could not approach the hostile Solomon Island beaches the way they were originally loaded.
The term “combat-loaded” refers to a deceptively simple concept: Logisticians and staff officers spend long hours determining what equipment will be needed during the course of an invasion, and in what order.
As a general rule of thumb, the ships carrying the invasion force would have in their holds supplies for thirty days’ operations. Adequate stocks of ammunition, obviously, had to be put on the beach before the chaplain’s portable organ, or the Division’s mimeograph machines. But the barges and small boats ferrying supplies from the ships to the beach would be a narrow pipeline. Thus it would not be prudent to fill that pipeline with ammunition and nothing else. For other supplies were no less vital: The men had to eat, for example; so there had to be rations in the pipeline. And all the complex machinery on the beach needed its sustenance too—what the services call POL (Petrol, Oil, and Lubricants). And so on.
When the obvious priorities had been determined, then the loading order was fine tuned. This wasn’t simply a case of saying off-load so much ammunition, then so many rations, then so many barrels of POL, and repeating the process until all the important supplies are ashore, after which you could off-load the nonessentials, like typewriters.
For example, while a radio operator receiving messages intended for the Division Commander could take them down by hand, he would be far more efficient in terms of speed and legibility using a typewriter. So, while a typewriter might not seem to be as necessary in the early stages of an invasion as, say, a case of hand grenades, at least one typewriter would head for the beach early on, probably with the first ammunition and rations supplied.
When all the priorities had been established and fine tuned, the ships of the invasion force were ready to be “combat-loaded.” This followed the logic of “Last On, First Off”: Once The Division was on the Solomon Islands beaches, the supplies needed first would be loaded on last.
Doing this was proving far more difficult than it sounded—the combat-loading planning for an amphibious invasion has been described as a chess game that cannot be won.
One major problem the 1st Marine planners faced—though it was by no means their only major problem—was that since the ships were not originally combat-loaded back in the States, the supplies had to be removed from the holds of the ships and sorted out before they could be reloaded.
This problem was compounded by the Wellington Longshoreman’s Union, which had very strong views about how ships should be unloaded and loaded; and by whom; and on what days during what daylight hours. They had come to an understanding with management regarding the role of longshoremen in the scheme of things only after long hours on the picket line and extensive negotiations over many years. They had no intention of giving up these hard earned prerequisites for anything as insignificant as a war with the Japanese Empire.
The Americans solved the labor problem by using a cut-the-Gordian-knot approach: American Marines were unloading the ships around the clock, seven days a week. At the same time, they let it be known that armed Marines were posted at various spots around the Quay, with orders to shoot at anyone or anything interfering with unloading and loading of the ships.
Jake hoped the threat would suffice. While it wouldn’t have bothered him at all if half the longshoremen in Wellington got shot between the eyes, the flack in him was concerned with how “MARINES MASSACRE THIRTY NEW ZEALAND LONGSHOREMEN IN LABOR DISPUTE” headlines would play in the papers in the States.
Technically, it was not his problem, since he was not the PIO for the 1st Marine Division. But he was over here to “coordinate public information activities,” and he suspected that if there was lousy publicity, he would get the blame.
While the supplies were being off-loaded for sorting, another major problem had come up: There was no way to shelter the off-loaded supplies from the dismal New Zealand July winter weather (the seasons were reversed down under). It was raining almost constantly.
For openers, the supplies for the First Marine Division—not only rations but just about everything else, too—were civilian stuff. The quart-size cans of tomatoes, for example, had been bought from the Ajax Canned Tomato Company, or somesuch. These cans had been labelled and packed with the idea in mind that they would wind up on the shelves of the “Super-Dooper Super-Market” in Olathe, Kansas. They had paper labels with pictures of pretty tomatoes attached to the metal with a couple of drops of cheap glue. There were six cans to a corrugated paper carton. The carton was held together with glue; and a can label was glued to the ends.
As soon as the cases were off-loaded from the cargo holds of the ships ont
o Aotea Quay and stacked neatly so they could be sorted, the rain started falling on them. Soon the cheap glue which held the corrugated paper cartons together dissolved. That caused the cartons to come apart. Not long after that, instead of neatly stacked cartons of tomato cans, there were piles of tomato cans mingled with a sludge of waterlogged corrugated paper that had once been cartons.
And then the rain saturated the paper labels and dissolved the cheap glue that held them on the cans ...
The people in charge of the operation had put a good deal of thought and effort into finding a solution to the problem. But the best they had come up with so far was to cover some of the stacks of cartons with tarpaulins; and when the supply of tarpaulins ran out, with canvas tentage; and when the tentage ran out, with individual shelter-halves. (Each Marine was issued a small piece of tentage. When buttoned to an identical piece, it formed a small, two-man tent. Hence, “individual shelter-half.”)
As he walked down the Quay, Jake Dillon saw this wasn’t going to work: There were gaps around the bases of the tarpaulin-covered stacks. The wind blew the rain through the gaps, and then the natural capillary action of the paper in the corrugated paper cartons soaked it up like a blotter. Moisture reached the glue, and the glue dissolved. The cartons collapsed, and then the stacks of cartons.
Major Jake Dillon found Major Jack NMI Stecker standing behind the serving line in a mess fly tent—essentially a wall-less tent erected over field stoves. A line of Marines was passing through the fly tent, their mess kits in their hands. As soon as they left the fly tent, rain fell on their pork chops and mashed potatoes and green beans.
It was the first time in Dillon’s memory that he had ever seen Jack Stecker looking like something the cat had dragged in. He looked as bedraggled as any of his men. In China with the 4th Marines, Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker used to come off a thirty-mile hike through the mud of the Chinese countryside looking as if he was prepared to stand a formal honor guard.
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