W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  As soon as that was accomplished, the convoy of army trucks began to move again. Without thinking about it. Commander Delojo began to count them. Twenty-six trucks passed through the intersection. Each of them was loaded with infantryman in German-style steel helmets sitting shoulder to shoulder and holding their rifles erect between their knees.

  This was possibly a routine maneuver, Commander Delojo decided. But on the other hand, it was also possible that the troops were somehow connected with the coup d'‚tat that everybody expected.

  It was worth calling the duty officer at the Embassy, Delojo decided. His telephone was dead.

  At that point, Commander Delojo put on his uniform, checked to see that he had both his diplomatic passport and the carnet issued to diplomats by the Argentine Foreign Ministry, and left his apartment. Obviously it was his duty to notify the OSS as soon as possible that the long-expected coup d'‚tat was fi-nally taking place.

  Nothing now on the street indicated what had roused him from his sound sleep but the first police car. The other police cars and the convoy were nowhere in sight.

  A taxi came down the street. He flagged it and ordered the driver to take him to the United States Embassy.

  En route to the Embassy the taxi was stopped twice by roadblocks, one manned by half a dozen members of the Corps of Mounted Police and the other by a platoon of soldiers of an Engineer Battalion. The Mounted Police passed him through immediately, but the two Engineer lieutenants held a whispered discussion that lasted ten minutes before deciding they should pass the Ameri-can diplomat.

  While he was waiting for their discussion to conclude, Delojo reconsidered his original idea to urgently message the OSS in Washington that the coup d'‚tat was now taking place.

  For one thing, he did not know for a fact that it was. He really should not message Washington unless he could transmit facts. And prudence suggested that just sitting on the nest waiting to see what breed of chick emerged from the egg was the proper course of action.

  Yesterday, Vacuum-Mr. Milton Leibermann of the Federal Bureau of In-vestigation-put his head in the door and in an unexpected and frankly unwel-come spirit of interagency cooperation informed him that he had just learned that one of Frade's enlisted men, Sergeant David Ettinger, was missing from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and was very possibly in great danger, and that he thought Delojo should know about it.

  Oracle would certainly want to know about that. Theoretically, Frade or his parachutist deputy would have relayed that information to Washington. But that was a dangerous presumption to make. Perhaps Frade didn't know about it, and Lieutenant Whatsisname-Pelosi-could not be relied upon to act in a respon-sible manner. He was, in fact, a demolitions man, not an intelligence officer.

  On one hand, Delojo reasoned, if he messaged Oracle about the missing sergeant, it might make the point that he was staying on top of the situation in Buenos Aires. But on the other hand, doing so raised two potential areas of dif-ficulty. Frade was responsible for reporting on his own men. After that unnec-essarily curt message from Donovan about his role with respect to Frade, it might appear that he was trying to put his nose in somewhere it wasn't wel-come. Furthermore, if he did inform the OSS that the sergeant was missing, he would be expected to reveal the source of his information, Leibermann. Direc-tor Donovan had told him personally that he was to have as little to do with the FBI as possible-preferably nothing.

  It was near six a.m. when Commander Delojo reached the Bank of Boston Building. Just before he entered it, he decided that the most prudent course of action was to find out as much about the coup d'‚tat as possible-if that's really what it was-and to see if he could learn anything about the missing sergeant, but not to message Oracle unless he had facts to report.

  As Delojo entered the narrow corridor where his office was located, one of the cryptographic section's enlisted men was approaching from out of the corridor. He was a large, tall, corn-haired Iowa farm boy to whom Commander Delojo had been introduced-the Embassy Security Officer thought it a good idea for cryptographic clerks to be personally acquainted with officers authorized to dis-patch or receive TOP SECRET material-but he could not at the moment recall his name.

  "Morning, Commander," the sergeant said. "I was just looking for you."

  "Is that so?"

  "Poop from the group for you," the sergeant said, extending a clipboard to Delojo. "Just came in. If you'll sign that, please?"

  Commander Delojo held the opinion that the U.S. Army did not instill in its enlisted men a proper respect for commissioned officers-enlisted Army per-sonnel were, if anything, worse than their Marine counterparts-but he did not think this the place or the time to have a word with the sergeant about his infor-mality.

  He took the clipboard and signed for Message 3002, TOP SECRET NO COPIES, handed the clipboard back, and reached for the message's envelope.

  "What the hell's going on outside, Commander?"

  "I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the Argentines are stag-ing a coup d'‚tat," Delojo said.

  "No shit? Against who?"

  That did it. The next time I see the cryptographic officer I will have a word with him about this young man.

  "By definition, Sergeant, a coup d'‚tat is made against the existing head of state. Here that would be President Castillo."

  Commander Delojo carried the envelope to his office, closed and locked the door after him, then tore open the envelope.

  URGENT TOP SECRET NOT TO BE COPIED

  FROM ORACLE WASHDC

  MSG NO 3002

  DIR 0050 GREENWICH 19 APRIL 1943

  TO STACHEBP AGGIE

  STACHIEP BUENOS AIRES

  ADDRESSEE WILL REPLY QUICKEST MEANS GIVING TIMERECEIPT THIS MESSAGE

  RELIABLE INTELLIGENCE GIVES ETA GROCERYSTORE TWO MOUTH RIVER PLATE 1600 GREENWICH 20 APRIL 1943.

  DETERMINE AND ADVISE QUICKEST MEANS:

  A. LOCATION AGGIE.

  B. LOCATION TEX AND PARROT AND OPERATIONAL STATUS OP PARROT.

  C. LOCATION SNOOPY AND TEAM AND EQUIPMENT AND OPERATIONAL STATUS EQUIPMENT.

  4. QUERY SOURCE GALAHAD POSSIBLE REASON SPECIAL INTEREST AT HIGHEST LEVELS BERLIN IN SECURITY OF QUOTE REPATRIATION PLAN MATERIEL ENDQUOTE POSSIBLY ABOARD GROCERYSTORE TWO.

  5. WHOEVER ESTABLISHES FIRST CONTACT WITH AGGIE WILL RELAY FOLLOWING: PRESIDENT DESIRES EARLIEST POSSIBLE IDENTIFICATION AND MOTIVATION OF GALAHAD.

  DONOVAN END

  TOP SECRET NOT TO BE COPIED

  "Damn!" Commander Delojo said, realizing that the message placed him in an even more difficult position than having to decide whether or not to mes-sage Oracle vis-a-vis the coup d'‚tat and Sergeant Whatsisname.

  Obviously, if he was to locate Aggie-Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR- that meant he was down here somewhere.

  Why? Has something else gone wrong that I'm not aware of?

  Delojo had no idea where Tex-Major Cletus H. Frade, USMCR-was ex-cept that he had left Buenos Aires by train five days ago.

  The last word he had from Snoopy-Captain Maxwell Ashton III, AUS- was that he was in Santo Tome and his team and their equipment were in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

  Porto Alegre was the last known location of Parrot-the airplane that Frade had gone to Porto Alegre to pick up and, against Delojo's objections, bring into Argentina black, while carrying the rest of Team Snoopy and their radar equip-ment with him.

  Since he had no idea of the identity, much less the motivation, of Galahad, he obviously could not locate him and query him regarding the " 'repatriation plan materiel' possibly aboard grocerystore two," whatever the hell that might be.

  But an order was an order, and there was nothing to do but reply to Oracle's 3002, even though he was quite sure it was going to make him look like a fool. He sat down and rapidly typed his reply on a blank sheet of paper:

  TOP SECRET URGENT

  FROM STACHTOF BUENOS AIRES OO1O GREENWICH 19 APR 43

  TO ORACLE WASH DC REFERENCE YOUR 3003

&nb
sp; RECEIVED 1050 GREENWICH 19 APR 43.

  HAVE BEGUN EFFORT TO LOCATE AGGIE.

  LOCATION TEX UNKNOWN LAST REPORTED ENROUTE BIRDCAGE. NO INFORMATION AVAILABLE RE SNOOPY, TEAM, OR EQUIPMENT. HAVE BEGUN EFFORT TO DEVELOP REQUESTED INFORMATION.

  CANNOT QUERY GALAHAD INASMUCH AS IDENTITY UNKNOWN.

  UNUSUAL MILITARY AND POLICE ACTIVITY EARLY THIS AM SUGGESTS POSSIBILITY COUP DETAT MAY BE UNDERWAY. PRESENTLY AVAILABLE INTELOGENCE INSUFFICIENT TO PREDICT OUTCOME.

  UNCONFIRMED INTELLIGENCE REPORTS SARNOFF MISSING.

  END

  STACHEF BUENOS AIRES

  TOP SECRET

  He carefully read what he had typed, then took it to the cryptographic offi-cer and instructed him to dispatch the message immediately.

  Of all the missions Oracle had ordered, he decided, the priority mission was the location of Colonel Graham. The problem was that he had absolutely no idea where Colonel Graham might be.

  The best thing to do, he concluded, was stay right where he was. For one thing, if Colonel Graham were here and became aware the coup d'‚tat was probably taking place, he would either contact the Embassy or telephone. If that was true, it was his place to be available. Furthermore, the Embassy was prob-ably the best place to gather additional information about the coup d'‚tat.

  Delojo returned to his office, left it to pick up a cup of coffee from the ma-chine in the room housing the typing pool, and returned to his office.

  He stepped out on the balcony and gazed down at the street. A group of na-tives was in the process of rocking a bus. As Delojo watched, they succeeded in turning it onto its side. Gasoline began to spill from the fueling mouth. Some-one tossed a match, and the gasoline caught fire.

  A minute or so later, the gas tank exploded.

  Delojo stepped back from the edge of the balcony. There was no point in making oneself conspicuous in a situation like this.

  An Argentine Army Piper Cub flew overhead, from the direction of the Casa Rosada. Delojo had several questions about it. Was it a loyalist, so to be speak, aircraft, or aligned with the revolutionaries? And what was it doing? De-lojo had had several conversations with the Army Attach‚ about such aircraft. For the Attach‚ had discussed with his Argentine Army counterparts the con-cept of direction of artillery fire by airborne forward observers, and had been told that this would be quite impossible until Argentine Army artillery units were equipped with radios capable of communicating with aircraft.

  Commander Delojo set out to find the Army Attach‚. This was an interest-ing development, and discussing it with the Army Attach‚ would be a fruitful way of passing the time until something happened.

  [TWO]

  Aboard Argentine Army Air Service Light Aircraft Type 42 #6

  Above Plaza San Martin

  Capital Federal

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  OB 15 19 April 1943

  After a brief period of considerable-and visible-uneasiness and uncertainty, General of Division Arturo Rawson, President of the Governing Council of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina, quickly became not only a believer in the amazing capabilities of light aircraft, but quickly applied those capabilities toward the execution of Outline Blue.

  General Rawson had of course previously flown in Type 42 Aircraft (a high-wing monoplane powered by a 75-horsepower Continental A-75-8 engine and known commercially as the Piper J-4 Cub); but on those flights the pilots were Argentine Army Air Service officers with a deep interest in doing nothing that would make a general officer feel uncomfortable or give him any cause whatever to suspect that they were anything but sober, careful airmen devoted to all aspects of aviation safety.

  Today, he was being flown by a pilot who had soloed, illegally, in a Piper Cub at thirteen years of age, after six hours of illegal, if careful, flight instruc-tion by his uncle. Later, Marine Aviation Cadet Frade, C.H., had three times come very close indeed to being dropped from the program at the United States Navy Aviation Training Base, Pensacola, Florida. Cadet Frade's problems with the program had nothing to do with his ability, or inability, to fly the Stearman "Yellow Peril" basic training aircraft, or with the academic portion of the train-ing syllabus, but with his difficulty in learning to fly "The Navy Way" at the Navy's pace, while paying strict attention to the Navy's deep concern for flight safety.

  For example, some improvised variations from normal procedures during his first solo cross-country flight in the Stearman brought him for the first time before a board of stern-faced Naval Aviators who were considering his possible expulsion from the program.

  The flight plan called for him to fly from Saufley Field to an auxiliary field just across the 'Florida-Alabama border, shoot a touch-and-go, and then return to Saufley Field.

  He did that. But he was also observed en route by a flight instructor who re-ported that Cadet Frade not only engaged in twenty minutes of unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers in the Stearman, but followed this outrageous deviation from his authorized flight plan by returning to Saufley Field via the Gulf Coast beaches, along which he flew at no more than 200 feet above the surf, while waving at female civilian sunbathers on the beach.

  After his third appearance before the Elimination Board, Cadet Frade real-ized that any further infractions against the Navy's Flight Regulations, particu-larly those involving unsafe flight maneuvers, would almost certainly keep him from receiving his wings of gold and second lieutenant's commission.

  No more infractions of any kind were laid against him during the rest of his Primary Flight Instruction, nor during Advanced Flight Training, nor-after he was rated a Naval Aviator and commissioned second lieutenant, USMCR- while undergoing the prescribed courses of instruction which saw him rated as an F4F "Wildcat" pilot.

  Things changed slightly when he was assigned to VMF-221 at Ewa, Terri-tory of Hawaii. The Marine Air Group Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, greeted him there with a speech. Its most pertinent point devel-oped the notion that now that Second Lieutenant Frade had learned to fly a Wildcat safely, it was his duty, before entering combat, to learn how far he per-sonally "could push the Wildcat's envelope."

  "The Envelope" was defined as the limits (in terms of speed, various maneuvers, stress, and so forth) to which the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics had de-termined the Wildcat could be safely subjected.

  Second Lieutenant Frade accepted this order with enthusiasm. By the time he landed his Wildcat on Guadalcanal on the just-captured airfield-not even yet named "Henderson" after a Marine aviator who had died in the Battle of Midway-he had proved to himself that the Wildcat's actual envelope permit-ted, among other things, close-to-the-ground maneuvering at speeds far beyond those given in the official BUAIR envelope.

  The day after First Lieutenant Frade became an ace by downing five enemy aircraft in his Wildcat, he was summoned before Lieutenant Colonel Dawkins, the Marine Air Group Commander. Colonel Dawkins told him he had seen his flight records, which included civilian flying experience, and reported that Cletus H. Frade had passed the Civil Aviation Administration's Flight Examination in a Piper Cub; and had received his private pilot's license in the second week of his fourteenth year; and had subsequently acquired 930 hours of time in the Piper Aircraft Company's Model J-4.

  Colonel Dawkins then explained that there had been unexpected losses of Marine aviators, mostly Flying Sergeants, who had been flying the First Marine Division's Piper Cubs, aircraft that were used for artillery spotting, liaison, and aerial ambulance purposes. Dawkins then asked him if he would be willing to fly a Piper Cub until replacement pilots could be brought to Guadalcanal from the States.

  On one hand, stepping down from a Wildcat to a Cub was obviously be-neath the dignity of a Marine fighter pilot; but on the other, lieutenant Frade had been in the Corps long enough to understand that when a lieutenant is asked to do something by a lieutenant colonel, the expected response is "Aye, aye, Sir."

  Before strapping General Rawson into the backseat of the Argentine
Army Air Service Light Aircraft Type 42 #6, Major Frade's last significant flight ex-perience in a Piper Cub had been to locate, and then drop messages and essen-tial supplies, to the First Raider Battalion operating in mountainous jungle terrain some fifty miles behind Japanese lines.

  General Rawson, of course, knew nothing of any of this. All he knew was that the Cub he was flying in now was being flown in a different manner-a frighteningly different manner-than he was accustomed to.

  For one thing-because Clete had decided the best way to find the Argen-tine Navy's School of Naval Engineering was to find and then fly down Avenida del Libertador-their altitude between Campo de Mayo and the place where the Navy was holding up the progress of the First Infantry Regiment never ex-ceeded 300 feet and was often considerably less. Frade often flew the Cub around-rather than over-brick smokestacks and other high structures in his flight path.