Under Fire
Page 70
“Okay, Sergeant?”
“Captain, right after we landed at Pusan, they put out a call for all former Marine Raiders . . .”
“And?”
“Well, sir, grabbing these islands sounds like something the Raiders would do, sir. Just a thought, Captain.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Dunwood said. “But you’re right, Schmidt. Grabbing these islands does sound like something the Marine Raiders would do.”
[FOUR]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 0515 15 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Captain, there’s an American flag flying on the back of that junk,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt called to Captain Howard Dunwood as the two Higgins boats closed on Tokchok-kundo.
“Yeah, I see it. Careful. I don’t like the smell of this place.”
“I think that’s the drying fish, sir,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt said.
“Very goddamn funny,” Dunwood said. “I’ll tell your widow you died with a smile on your face. Now be careful, goddamn it!”
The Higgins boat touched shore. The ramp fell onto the rocky shore with a loud clang.
The Marines ran down the ramp and turned right and left, spreading out, weapons at the ready. Captain Dunwood was in the center of what ultimately was a formation in the shape of a V, holding his carbine in one hand.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” a voice shouted, an obviously American voice.
A figure appeared. He was in black pajamas, and had a band of the same material around his forehead. He held his hands over his head in a gesture of surrender.
“That’s Jennings, Captain,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt said.
“You know him?”
“Sir, when they put out the call for Marine Raiders . . .”
“He was one of them, huh?”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said. “Jennings?”
“How they hanging, Smitty?” Technical Sergeant Jennings inquired.
“You’re a Marine Raider, Sergeant?” Captain Dunwood asked. He’d never actually seen a Marine Raider before.
“No, sir, they put the Raiders out of business a long time ago. But it’s like being a Marine, Captain. Once a Raider, always a Raider. There’s a bunch of us here.”
“You’re in charge, Sergeant?”
“No, sir,” Jennings said.
“I am,” a voice said, and Dunwood saw another character in black pajamas with a black headband, his hands over his head in gesture of surrender. A Garand was hanging from his shoulder, and he had some kind of knife strapped to his wrist.
“You’re a Marine officer?”
“Captain K. R. McCoy, USMCR, at your service, sir.”
Captain Dunwood looked at Captain McCoy.
He didn’t look much like what Dunwood thought a Marine Raider should look like, but there was something familiar about him.
“Don’t I know you?”
“We’ve met,” McCoy said, smiling, and then asked: “How’s your finger?”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch. You’re the candy-ass on the airplane! ”
“Is it safe to put my hands down now?” McCoy asked.
[FIVE]
USS MOUNT MCKINLEY THE FLYING FISH CHANNEL 0610 15 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Permission to come aboard, sir?” Captain K. R. McCoy inquired of the officer of the deck.
“Granted.”
McCoy stepped onto the deck, saluted the OD and the national colors, and then Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.
“How are you, Ken?”
“In great need of a bath,” McCoy said.
“I don’t care how you smell,” Miss Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune, said. “I’ll kiss you anyway.”
She kissed his cheek and hugged him enthusiastically.
Pickering greeted every man as he stepped from the ladder on the deck. The next to the last to come aboard was Technical Sergeant Jennings.
“Jennings,” McCoy ordered, and Jennings walked to them.
“Show her,” McCoy ordered.
Jennings dug in the pocket of his black pajamas and came out with three aluminum cans of 35-mm film.
“Jennings, in addition to his many other talents,” McCoy said, “is an amateur photographer. I told him you’d probably give him a good price for those.”
“If they’re what I think they are, I damned sure will.”
“I couldn’t take money,” Jennings said.
“The hell you can’t,” McCoy said.
“I don’t know if they came out, Miss Priestly,” Jennings said. “But I was in the lighthouse with Mr. Taylor when the barrage started.”
“Like I said, Jeanette, a picture like that would be worth a lot of money,” McCoy said.
Taylor came aboard last.
“General, I don’t know what’s going on . . .”
“The 5th Marines are about to land on Wolmi-do,” Pickering said.
“I’ve got some last-minute intel—fresh as of about 0500.”
“Then we’ll get it and you to General Willoughby,” Pickering said.
“Dressed like this, sir?” Taylor said.
“Yes, Mr. Taylor, dressed just like that,” Pickering said. “And you come along, too, McCoy.”
In the passageway en route to the command center, Pickering put his hand on McCoy’s arm.
“A heads-up, Ken,” he said. “I told General MacArthur about your report.”
McCoy seemed surprised.
“And?”
“I don’t know, Ken,” Pickering admitted. “I can’t imagine him dumping Willoughby, but he knows. And I think he now believes.”
“So you’re telling me watch my back again?”
“Let me put it this way, Ken. Look surprised when MacArthur tells you he and the Commandant have decided you’re entitled to put on the gold leaf again and I’m sure he’ll tell you.”
“What’s MacArthur got to do with that?”
“He personally messaged the Commandant. Had a number of nice things to say about you.”
“And you had nothing to do with that?”
“I’m a little ashamed—I should have done something about it a long time ago—to admit he beat me to it,” Pickering said. “Anyway, it’s effective today, Major McCoy.”
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was leaning on the map table in the command room, supporting himself on his hands, with his staff around him jockeying for position.
Pickering had the thought that it looked not unlike photographs he had seen of Hitler and his generals at Rastenburg.
“Ah,” he said as Pickering, Taylor, and McCoy entered the room. “Gentlemen, for those of you who—for reasons I am sure you understand—I was not able to bring into the picture previously, these are the two officers, Lieutenant David Taylor, USN, and Major K. R. McCoy, USMC, who supervised, with great skill and courage, the covert operation I put into play to seize the Flying Fish Channel Islands. ”
[SIX]
STATEROOM B-65 USS MOUNT MCKINLEY THE FLYING FISH CHANNEL 0915 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Very nice,” McCoy said, as he, Taylor, Hart, and Zimmerman followed Pickering into the stateroom. “I’ve never been in this kind of officer’s country before.”
“There’re two like this,” Pickering said. “You fellows can decide who bunks with who. I put all the luggage in the one next door.”
“These are flag officer’s quarters,” McCoy protested.
“They were assigned to me, and now I’m letting you use them,” Pickering said. “The original idea was to put you all in sick bay.”
“I thought you got one for you and one for Jeanette,” Hart said, sitting down on the bed. “Jesus, that feels good.”
“Jeanette batted her eyes at the captain,” Pickering said, “whereupon he offered her his cabin, and I moved into General Howe’s just before you came aboard.”
"Where’s he?”
“When last seen, headed for Inchon,” Pickering said. “With the announced intention of hitching up with Chesty Puller and his First Mar
ines.”
“He must have a death wish,” McCoy said.
Pickering picked up on the bitter tone. He started to say something, then changed his mind, and instead went to a metal chest of drawers, the top drawer of which had a combination lock. He worked the combination, opened it, and came out with a bottle of Famous Grouse wrapped in a towel.
“I suspect you can use one of these, Ken,” Pickering said. “Or two.”
“The last I heard booze aboard ships was an absolute no-no, ” McCoy said. “And thank you, General, but no.”
“Speak for yourself, John Alden,” Hart said. “You can hand me that, boss.”
Pickering did so, then asked, “What’s bothering you, Ken?”
McCoy shrugged.
“El Supremo taking credit for the operation?”
“That didn’t surprise me at all,” McCoy said. “ ‘Fertig the Crazy Man’ became ‘my brilliant guerrilla leader in the Philippines,’ remember?”
“Very well,” Hart said.
“I don’t know that story,” Taylor said.
“I guess what pisses me off is that Willoughby is going to walk,” McCoy said. “Isn’t he?”
“What did you think was going to happen to him? They’d march him to the door of the Dai-Ichi Building, cut the stars and buttons off his uniform, and toss him into the gutter?”
“That would be one solution,” McCoy said, and then said, “Oh, hell, George, hand me that.”
“For one thing, Ken, he rendered long and faithful service to El Supremo. . . .”
“Covering his own ass, I suspect, every step of the way,” McCoy said, and took a pull from the neck of the bottle. He handed it to Taylor, who looked for a moment as if he didn’t know what to do with it, but then took a pull. And then handed it to Zimmerman.
"Ken,” Pickering said, “look at it this way. MacArthur will never completely trust him again. That hurts both of them. MacArthur has learned that somebody he trusted completely was not trustworthy. And Willoughby will know for the rest of his life that the only reason MacArthur doesn’t sack him, doesn’t publicly humiliate him, is for the good of the service. And I know Douglas MacArthur well enough to know that’s why he’s acting as he has. I think he thinks Willoughby will now ask to retire, and he’ll let him, and that will be the end of it, without getting into accusations and excuses or denials.”
McCoy met Pickering’s eyes for a long moment.
“If you say so, sir,” he said after a moment.
“That was a speech, Ken, not an order,” Pickering said.
McCoy opened his mouth to reply, and there came a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Pickering asked, and gestured to Zimmerman to get the scotch bottle out of sight.
“Ship’s doctor. Let me in, please,” a male voice called.
“This is General Pickering, what is it?”
“Captain Arnold, General. Please let me in.”
“Hold your hands in front of your mouths,” Pickering ordered softly. “Just a moment, Doctor!”
“What are they going to do if they catch us, boss?” Hart asked. “Send us to bed without our supper?”
It wasn’t that funny, but it produced chuckles, and very soon the chuckles were uncontrollable giggles.
Pickering, making a valiant effort not to smile, opened the door to the doctor, who was carrying a small cardboard carton. What the doctor, a silver-haired man Pickering’s age, saw were four apparently hysterical men in black pajamas sitting on the two beds.
“General,” the ship’s doctor said, “General MacArthur asked me if I didn’t think this was medically indicated for these gentlemen.”
He held the box up. It contained twenty-four 1.5-ounce bottles of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey FOR MEDICAL PURPOSES ONLY.
That pushed Pickering over the edge.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “General MacArthur thinks you should have a drink.” And then he was laughing so hard he had to hold on to the door.
The ship’s doctor had practiced medicine long enough, and had been in the Navy long enough, to know when pursuing suspicions was neither sound medical nor naval practice.
“I’ll leave these with you, General,” the doctor said. “I’m sure you will dispense them with discretion.”
“Doctor, what about my Marines?”
“You are?” the doctor asked.
“Major McCoy, sir.”
Jesus, I said that without thinking. I really must have wanted that gold leaf back. And goddamn it, “Major” sounds good.
“I’ll take care of your Marines, Major,” the ship’s doctor said. “Rest assured of that.”
The hysteria—which Pickering had decided was just that, a condition induced by their sudden change from a life-threatening situation to one where they were relatively safe—had almost passed when, five minutes later, Jeanette Priestly knocked on the door of Stateroom B-65.
“I’d hate to tell you what it smells like in here,” she said.
“What can we do for you, Jeanette?” Pickering asked.
“I need your influence,” she said. “I want to go on the press Higgins boat when it goes to Inchon in two hours.”
“And they won’t let you go? They say why?”
“Because they don’t have the personnel to properly protect me,” she said. “I think maybe you owe me, General. I lived up to my end of the bargain.”
“Go tell them you’ve got two Marines,” McCoy said. “One of them a field-grade officer.”
“Hey!” Pickering said. “How many of those little bottles have you had? You just came back from the war.”
“General,” McCoy said. “You know she’s going whether or not they say she can. And we’ve done this before. And there’re some people I really want to see in Seoul.”
“See about what?” Pickering challenged.
McCoy hesitated.
“See about what, Ken?”
“Pick,” McCoy said. “They might know where he is.”
“That was below the belt, Ken,” Pickering said. “How can I say no after that?”
“With respect, sir, I don’t think you can.”
Pickering exhaled audibly.
“George, grab a quick shower and shave and get into a decent uniform,” he ordered, “and then go find whoever’s in charge of this Higgins boat for the press, and tell them the CIA will require three spaces on it, and I don’t care who gets bumped to provide them.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Hart said, and pushed himself off the bed.
[SEVEN]
PRESS URGENT
FOR CHICAGO TRIBUNE
SLUG MACARTHUR RETURNS SEOUL TO SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT SYNGMAN RHEE
BY JEANETTE PRIESTLY
CHICAGO TRIBUNE WAR CORRESPONDENT
SEOUL KOREA SEPTEMBER 29—
AT NOON TODAY, WITH A MESSAGE THAT MESMERIZED HIS AUDIENCE OF SENIOR AMERICAN AND SOUTH KOREAN OFFICIALS, GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, IN THE NAME OF THE UNITED NATIONS, RETURNED THE BATTERED CAPITAL OF THIS WAR-RAVAGED NATION “IN GOD’S NAME” TO ITS PRESIDENT, SYNGMAN RHEE. AS HE SPOKE, THE REVERBERATION OF HEAVY CANNON FIRING ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY CAUSED PLASTER AND GLASS TO FALL FROM THE WALLS, CEILING, AND WINDOWS OF THE BULLET-POCKED CAPITOL BUILDING.
MACARTHUR AND RHEE FLEW INTO SEOUL’S KIMPO AIRPORT ABOARD “THE BATAAN” SHORTLY AFTER 10 THIS MORNING, TRAVELED ACROSS THE HAN RIVER ON A PONTOON BRIDGE, AND THEN THROUGH THE DEVASTATED CITY TO ITS BATTERED CAPITOL BUILDING. THERE THEY WERE MET BY U.S. AMBASSADOR JOHN J. MUCIO, MAJOR GENERAL EDWARD M. ALMOND, COMMANDER OF THE INVASION, GENERAL “JOHNNIE” WALKER, DEFENDER OF THE PUSAN PERIMETER AND OTHER SENIOR OFFICERS.
MACARTHUR CONCLUDED HIS BRIEF REMARKS BY INVITING THOSE PRESENT TO JOIN HIM IN OFFERING THE LORD’S PRAYER, AND IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CEREMONY, DECORATED BOTH ALMOND AND WALKER WITH THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, THE NATION’ S SECOND-HIGHEST AWARD “FOR PERSONAL VALOR IN THE FACE OF THE ENEMY.”
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THAT, HE RETURNED TO KIMPO FIELD, B
OARDED THE BATAAN, AND FLEW TO TOKYO. EN ROUTE HE SPOKE TO THIS REPORTER MODESTLY OF HIS OWN ROLE IN THE WAR, SAYING THE CREDIT BELONGED ENTIRELY TO THE YOUNG MEN WITH RIFLES IN THEIR HANDS AND THE OFFICERS WHO ACTUALLY LED THEM ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
END NOTHING FOLLOWS
[EIGHT]
THE RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME COMMANDER UN COMMAND/ALLIED FORCES IN JAPAN THE EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES TOKYO, JAPAN 2030 29 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Thank you for coming with me today, Fleming,” General of the Army Douglas MacArthur said to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.
“My God, I was honored to be there,” Pickering said. “Thank you for taking me.”
“You made your contribution to this campaign,” MacArthur said. “You had every right to be there.”
“That’s unjustified, but thank you,” Pickering said.
“I didn’t see General Howe there,” MacArthur said.
“He was there, sir.”
And he said, “Liberated city, my ass. They’re still shooting in the city limits,” but somehow mentioning that doesn’t seem appropriate.
The steward handed Pickering a glass of whiskey.
And it’s now incumbent upon me to offer some kind of a toast. But I really can’t think of one. This war’s not over, and if the Chinese come in, which seems more likely every day, we’ll be up to our ears in a worse mess than we were before Inchon.
He raised his glass nevertheless, and said,
“I propose—”
The door opened and Colonel Huff came in.
“Sir, there’s a Lieutenant Colonel Porter to see you.”
“Ask him to be good enough to call upon me in the morning, ” MacArthur said. “Sid, I told you I didn’t wish—”
“He’s carrying a personal from General Ridgway, General. ”
“And I’ll look at it in the morning. Thank you, Sid.”
“Sir, the colonel is under orders to put General Ridgway’s personal into your hands as soon as possible,” Huff persisted.