Howe looked at MacArthur without speaking.
“No comment again?” MacArthur asked.
“General, you’re certainly not asking me for advice?”
“I suppose what I’m asking—the decision has been made, by the way—is what, if you were in my shoes, you would have done.”
“I can only offer what any smart second lieutenant could suggest, General, that you had to make a decision between which was more important, a greater risk to the Pusan perimeter by pulling the Marines out of there, or a greater risk to the Inchon invasion because the Marines were short a regiment.”
“And what do you think your hypothetical second lieutenant would decide?”
Howe met MacArthur’s eyes for a moment before replying.
“To send the Marines to Inchon, sir.”
“And Major General Howe, after seeing what he saw in the Pusan perimeter?”
“To send the Marines to Inchon, sir,” Howe said.
“History will tell us, I suppose, whether the hypothetical second lieutenant, the aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, and the commander forced to make the decision were right, won’t it? X Corps will land at Inchon with the full-strength First Marine Division as the vanguard.”
MacArthur picked up the coffee pitcher and added some to Howe’s cup, then refreshed his own.
“There’s one more delicate question, Howe, that you may not wish to answer.”
“Yes, sir?”
“It has come to the attention of my staff that our friend Fleming Pickering has mounted one of his clandestine operations. I don’t know how reliable the information my staff has is, but there is some concern that it might in some way impact on Inchon.”
In other words, Charley Willoughby’s snoops have heard something—how much?—about the Flying Fish Channel operation. Why should that be a surprise? They’ve been following us around the way the KGB followed me around at Potsdam.
“I thought perhaps this operation might be connected with Pickering’s son,” MacArthur went on. “Who is not just a Marine aviator, but the son of the CIA’s Director of Asian Operations.”
So why don’t you ask Pickering yourself?
“General Pickering doesn’t tell me much about his CIA covert operations, General,” Howe said. “But I’m sure there’s more than one of them, any—or all—of which might have an impact on Inchon. If any of them did, I’m sure he would tell you.”
“Well, perhaps after you tell him—you will tell him?— that the Inchon invasion is on, he’ll come to me. If he has something to come to me with.”
“I will tell him, General,” Howe said.
MacArthur put his coffee cup down.
“Thank you for coming to see me, and with such alacrity,” MacArthur said.
Well, I have just been dismissed.
How much did I give him that I should not have?
“I hope it was worth your time, General,” Howe said.
MacArthur put his hand on Howe’s shoulder and guided him to the door.
“Thank you again,” he said, and offered him his hand.
Major General Charles A. Willoughby was in the outer office waiting to see MacArthur.
And probably to find out what MacArthur got from me.
“Come on, Charley,” Howe said, looking at Willoughby, and waiting until Master Sergeant Charley Rogers had gotten quickly from his seat and handed him his grease gun before adding, “Good morning, General Willoughby.”
[TWO]
COMMAND POST COMPANY C, 1ST BATTALION, 5TH MARINES FIRST MARINE BRIGADE (PROVISIONAL) OBONG-NI, THE NAKTONG BULGE, SOUTH KOREA 1155 20 AUGUST 1950
The battalion exec found Charley Company’s commander lying in the shade of a piece of tenting half supported by poles and half by the wall of a badly shot-up stone Korean farmhouse.
The company commander’s uniform was streaked with dried mud, and he was unshaven and looked like hell, which was, of course, to be expected under the circumstances. But nevertheless, when the company commander saw the battalion exec, he started to get up.
The exec gestured for him to stay where he was, dropped to his knees, and crawled under the canvas with him.
The company commander saluted, lying down, and the exec returned it.
“You look beat, Captain,” the exec said.
“I guess I’m not used to this heat, sir.”
“I don’t think anybody is,” the exec said. “It was a little cooler during the storm—”
He broke off when the captain’s eyes told him he was monumentally uninterested in small talk.
“How badly were you hurt?” the exec asked, meaning the company, not the company commander personally.
“I lost a little more than half of my men, and two of my officers. Fourteen enlisted and one officer KIA. Some of those who went down went down with heat exhaustion.”
The exec nodded.
At 0800, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked North Korean positions on Obong-ni Ridge. There had been a preliminary 105-mm howitzer barrage, and a mortar barrage, on the enemy positions, after which the 5th had attacked across a rice paddy and then up the steep slopes of the ridge. In that attack, Company A had been in the van, with B Company following and C Company in reserve.
The colonel had thought that order of battle best, primarily because the Charley Company commander had been on the job only a couple of days.
The colonel had found it necessary to employ his reserve, for by the time Able Company reached the crest of the ridge, more than half its men were down, either from enemy fire or heat exhaustion, and by the time Baker Company got there, they had lost a fifth of their men, mostly to exhaustion, and what was left was put to work carrying the dead and wounded off the slopes of the ridge, with Charley Company now needed to protect them.
And then the colonel had ordered everybody off Obong-ni Ridge when it was apparent to him that the men holding the crest were not going to be able to repel a North Korean counterattack.
Once everyone was back, reasonably safe, in the positions they had left to begin the attack, the artillery was called in again, and the mortars, and the North Korean positions on Obong-ni Ridge again came under fire.
Following which, the 1st Battalion attacked again, this time with what was left of Able and Baker Companies in the van, and with Charley Company following, and with Headquarters & Service Company in reserve.
By the time the 1st Marines again gained the crest of the hill, their strength had been reduced by 40 percent, and Charley Company had lost almost that many, but there was enough of them left, in the colonel’s judgment, so they stood a reasonable chance of turning the North Korean counterattack when it inevitably came, and he had ordered the Charley Company commander to take command of the Marines on the crest and defend it to the best of his ability.
Thirty minutes after the North Korean counterattack began, the colonel began receiving reports of the casualties suffered and of the ammunition running low. The colonel knew he didn’t have the manpower to get ammunition in the quantities requested up the crest of Obong-ni Ridge.
He called Brigade and explained the situation. Brigade said the 2nd Battalion would be immediately sent to the area, and as soon as they arrived, he had permission to order his Marines back off the hill. And ordered him to make every effort to see they brought their dead and wounded back with them.
Once back, they would re-form. There were some replacements, not as many as he would like, but that was all there was, and they would be sent as soon as possible.
“Trucks are coming,” the exec said. “They’re having a hell of a time getting through the mud, but they’ll be here shortly.”
The company commander did not reply.
“They’re bringing the noon meal, and some replacements, ” the exec said. “And following an artillery softening-up, 2nd Battalion will attack through the 1st at 1600. Charley Company will lead.”
“Major, I have, counting me, two officers and a platoon and a half of men.�
��
“You’ll have some of the people who went down with the heat back by then, and as I say, some replacements.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the company commander said.
“And the softening barrage may be more effective this time. We’ve been promised a bunch—including some 155-mm—from the Army, and half the ammunition will be fused for airburst, which should do a better job on the far slopes. And it will be TOT8.”
“I wondered if anyone here had ever heard of airbursts, or thought about TOT,” the company commander said.
“We’re hurting them, too, Captain,” the exec said.
“Yes, sir, but there seems to be a lot more of them than us,” the company commander said.
“I’ll be back before you move out. The 1st is up there. I don’t think the NKs will try to come this way. Get the men as much rest as you can.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“You hurt your hand, Captain? You seem to be favoring it.”
“My finger was hurt on the airplane on the way over here, sir. Little sore, nothing serious.”
But if I ever see that candy-ass captain who did this to me again, I’m going to pull his arm off and shove it up his ass.
I wonder what that cocksucker’s doing right now. Probably playing tennis with his wife, the general’s daughter.
Goddamn the U.S. Marine Corps!
[THREE]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 1215 20 AUGUST 1950
“A little problem, Mr. Zimmerman?” Captain McCoy asked, surveying what was left of the small stone, thatch-roofed building that had housed the small German diesel generator and, the last time McCoy had been there, the SCR-300 radio. “I would say we have a world-class, A-NUMBER -One fucking problem.”
There was nothing left of the building but three walls, one of them on the edge of falling over, and the generator, which now lay on its side. The floor of the building—and the generator—was covered with a six-inch-thick layer of foul-smelling mud.
“When the storm really started getting bad, we moved the SCR-300 up the hill,” Zimmerman said. “We didn’t have the muscle to move the generator. By then, anyway, there was three feet of water in here. I mean all the time. When the waves hit, it was deeper; you had a hard time standing up.”
Ernie means, “I had a hard time standing up,” McCoy decided. I left him in charge, and he met that responsibility as best he could.
He had a mental picture of the barrel-chested Marine gunner standing in water up to his waist trying to salvage something, anything, in the generator building from the fury of the storm.
“I guess the diesel fuel’s gone, too? Even if we can get that generator running again.”
Zimmerman nodded.
“Everything that wasn’t up the hill got washed away,” he said. “Including most of the ammo for the Jap weapons.”
“What about food?”
“We moved the rations up the hill, including the rice the Koreans had. And a couple of their boats are left. They were starting to try to get them back in the water when we saw you. Major Kim says he thinks they can catch enough fish to feed them and us.”
“Anybody get hurt?”
Zimmerman shook his head, “no.”
“I was thinking that maybe if we hit one of their islands—Taemuui -do is closest—maybe they’d have some diesel fuel,” Zimmerman said.
If they had diesel fuel in the first place, what makes you think they’d still have it? Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do got hit by the storm as hard as Tokchok-kundo did. And if we hit Taemuui-do now, and didn’t hit Yonghung-do immediately afterward, when we finally did hit it, they’d be expecting an attack, and certainly would have reported that right after the storm somebody took Taemuui-do. They’d be curious as hell about that.
Dumb idea, Ernie.
“Do you think that diesel’s going to run after being under water for hours?”
“We’ll have to take it apart and make sure there’s no water in the cylinders. And then who knows?”
“Let’s hold off on getting diesel for a diesel engine we’re not sure can be fixed,” McCoy said.
Zimmerman nodded.
“There are engines in the lifeboats,” McCoy said. “Can we use those to power the SCR-300?”
“Wrong voltage, I’ll bet,” Zimmerman said. “But maybe we can rig something.”
“Okay. First things first,” McCoy ordered. “Put people to work helping Taylor unload the lifeboats, and then drag them on shore and get them covered. Then get the Korean fisherman’s boats in the water. Send Major Kim with one of them. Maybe he will see what the storm did to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do.”
“And then what?”
“Ernie, I don’t have the faintest fucking idea,” McCoy said. “Right now, it looks like we’re stranded on this beautiful tropical island.”
[FOUR]
THE DEWEY SUITE THE IMPERIAL HOTEL TOKYO, JAPAN 1315 20 AUGUST 1950
Major General Ralph Howe, NGUS, was sitting in one of the green leather armchairs in the sitting room when the door opened and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering walked in, trailed by Captain George F. Hart.
“I let myself in, Flem,” Howe said. “I hope that’s all right?”
“Don’t be silly,” Pickering said. “When did you get back?” He waved at Master Sergeant Rogers. “Hello, Charley.”
“After hanging around K-1 most of last night waiting for a break in the storm, we finally got off, and landed at Haneda a little after eight,” Howe said, and added, “where Colonel Sidney Huff was waiting for me, to tell me El Supremo would be pleased if I would join him at my earliest opportunity.”
Pickering’s lower lip came out momentarily.
“What was that all about?”
“I’m not sure I know,” Howe said, “and I have been thinking about it ever since I was dismissed from the throne room. About the only thing I am sure about is that Willoughby is onto your Flying Fish Channel operation.”
“I suppose that was inevitable. Is that what he called you in for, to ask you what you knew about that?”
“I don’t know, Flem. Let me tell you what happened, and you tell me.”
“Will it wait until I have my twelve-hundred snort?” Pickering asked. He walked to the sideboard and picked up a bottle of Famous Grouse. “Would you like one?”
“Why not?” Howe said. “God knows I deserve one.” Then he asked, “ ‘Twelve-hundred snort’?”
“I found that unless I went on a schedule, I was prone to keep nipping all day,” Pickering said. “I think with a little effort, I could easily become an alcoholic.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Howe said. “You’ve had a lot on your mind, Flem.”
“I have one at twelve,” Pickering said, ignoring him, “another at five, a brandy after dinner, and sometimes a nightcap. That way, I can go to sleep reasonably sure of what my name is and where I am. Tell me about your session with El Supremo.”
“Well,” Howe said, and chuckled. “It began, if you can believe this, with a fried-egg sandwich, just like Mommy used to make for him when he was at West Point, and Hannibal’s elephants . . .”
“I don’t know either,” Pickering said when Howe had finished. “It’s entirely possible he wanted to hear what you might have to say about Korea. But more likely—now that I’ve had a minute to think about it—it was his back-channel response to the JCS message he showed you. I think it’s significant that he showed it to you. He knows you report to the President, which means you’d report what he said, and what he said was that unless he is expressly forbidden to do so, he’s going to ignore what Collins and the JCS think, and send two divisions ashore at Inchon on 15 September. He got his message to the President without sending the President a message through channels.”
Howe grunted.
“That’s what Charley thinks, too,” he said, and added: “You’ve heard me observe that the true test of another man’s intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you? I seem to be s
urrounded by geniuses.”
Pickering and Rogers chuckled.
“You don’t think—maybe in addition to the above—that he wanted to send you an ever-so-subtle warning that he was on to your Flying Fish Channel operation? He said he was concerned about its possible ‘impact’ on Inchon. Maybe it’s time for you to tell him about it?”
“I don’t think the Flying Fish operation is going to have any impact on the Inchon invasion at all,” Pickering said.
“I don’t like what I think I’m hearing,” Howe said.
“We have not heard from Zimmerman for four days,”
Pickering said. “Since his 0730 call on the sixteenth. You know how that works?”
Howe shook his head, “no.”
“We transmit a code phrase at a predetermined time. Zimmerman’s radioman, who is monitoring the frequency, responds with a two-word code phrase, repeated twice. The idea is to reduce the chance of the North Koreans hearing a radio transmission at all, and if they should get lucky and hear it, not to give them time to locate the transmitter by triangulation.”
Howe nodded his understanding.
“There has been no response from Tokchok-kundo since 0730 on the sixteenth,” Pickering went on. “This morning, we got the code word message ‘Egg Laid 0430’ from HMS Charity. At the time we coined the code word, we thought it was rather clever for the meaning: ‘McCoy, Taylor and all hands have been successfully put over the side at half past four.’ It should have taken them no more than an hour to make Tokchok-kundo. On their arrival, Zimmerman was to transmit a code phrase meaning they had arrived. There has been no such transmission.”
“The storm could have knocked out their radio,” Howe suggested.
“That’s a possibility. The other possibility that has to be considered is that the North Koreans discovered our people on Tokchok-kundo, took the island, and McCoy and Taylor sailed into the North Koreans’ lap.”
“You don’t know that, Fleming,” Howe said.
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