by Jon Stafford
As he was being hauled up to the bridge, Rodgers introduced himself to the captain almost incoherently and gasped: “Did she get in? Did Mineola get in to the ‘Canal?”
“Yes, sir! She got in all right. They were attacked at dawn and the captain was killed, but they were unloaded by then. We weren’t sure what had happened to you. The current took you quite a ways. We looked for you all night.”
Rodgers lay back on the stretcher. Freddie, he thought, I’m sorry I got you killed. If I live through this, I’ll go see Angela and the boys. He breathed a sigh of relief that his mission had been accomplished.
“How many of my men did you get?” he rasped. His mouth still tasted like NSFO fumes.
“A hundred and ninety-four by our count, sir.”
Rodgers sagged back against the stretcher. Mackson had left port with a crew of 256.
Some bluejackets carried him into the captain’s cabin, and the ship’s doctor began attending to his leg, muttering about it looking bad. Rodgers was too exhausted and numb to care. He stared blankly up at the ceiling until the man finished his first aid.
Once the doctor had left and the cabin was empty, Rodgers lifted up his head and looked around the room. No men in agony here, he thought.
He had never felt so tired. He remembered Admiral Wells’ orders to either succeed or come back on his shield.
Come back on my shield? I wonder if it’s close enough to come back flat on my back? he thought. My first command, only seventy-two hours, and sixty-two of the lives entrusted to me, I got killed off. That’s almost one man per hour. May the Creator, in His infinite wisdom, have mercy on those men’s families. He looked up at the ceiling, wondering if the Navy would think he had done well by them.
Deep in thought, Rodgers did not hear the pharmacist’s mate enter the room. He was a little startled when he heard the man’s voice.
“Sir, I’m going to give you this sedative. It will knock you out for twenty-four hours. You need your rest.”
Rodgers silently offered his arm for the injection. Soon afterward, he lapsed into a deep and tranquil sleep, as though nothing at all had happened to him in the last three days.
The Broken Leg
Noumeo, New Caledonia, March 4, 1943
No one in Halsey’s office could recall a battle quite like this one. The two old warriors, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander South Pacific, and Rear Admiral Lakeland W. Wells, had been yelling at each other for ten minutes before things quieted down. Twice, Halsey’s chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, walked toward the door with important papers that needed an immediate signature. Both times Browning reached for the door handle, thought better of it upon hearing the tumult inside, went back to his office, and closed the door.
It had started well enough. Halsey ushered Wells into his office, and the two ancient friends shook hands heartily. Wells accepted a drink, and the two began talking.
“Lake,” Halsey explained, “I’ve made a deal to send you, along with the heavy cruiser Grand Rapids and two destroyers, to [Commander Southwest Pacific] MacArthur. He and [Vice Admiral] Kincaid have convinced Washington that they cannot do what they need to do without another squadron. All they have is the Brit—Admiral Crutchley—and his cruisers. I had to agree, since I can’t drive up the Central Pacific with that area lagging behind on my flank. You are to stay on for the entire run up the New Guinea coast.”
“Yes, sir, I know that, and that’s fine,” Wells replied.
“How did you hear that?” Halsey asked, surprised.
Wells laughed a little. “Even my driver coming over here knew that.” He took another sip of his whiskey.
“Okay,” Halsey agreed. “Is Grand Rapids ready to go?”
“Yes, sir!”
Halsey took a deep breath. “I’ll have to take Commander Rodgers from you too. Did you hear about that?”
Wells sat bolt upright, his drink sloshing. “No, I did not hear that! Whose stupid idea was that?”
Halsey leaned forward. “This is not my idea. It’s Navy regulations. I was told that Rodgers’ leg injury from the Mackson sinking still isn’t fully healed.”
“You heard wrong! Rodgers’ leg is fine,” Wells said, insulted.
“I am sending him stateside,” Halsey said. He fumbled for the lighter on his desk and lit a cigarette. “He’ll get promoted and get some nice job in procurement or some damn place. A good record.”
Wells raised his voice. “You are not. You are not going to do that to him with his record. You are not going to do that to me either. This guy is a backstop type!”
“It’s out of my hands, Lake,” Halsey said flatly. He spewed thin blue smoke into the air as he talked.
“I don’t care!” Wells shouted.
“I can’t buck the inspector general on this,” Halsey insisted, his voice louder. “You know what trouble he could give me.”
“I don’t care. You are going to fix this!”
“Now, how the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Of all the goddamn assholes and shit-headed desk jockeys we’ve battled over the years, you’re the last person I would expect to be part of such crap,” Wells snarled. “On a man who has won two Navy Crosses! You’re going to put him on the beach? So he’s not good enough to fight for you?”
“No one’s saying that, Lake! But the man’s not fit. Besides the leg, I hear he has shrapnel wounds all over.”
Wells was ready. “How is this different from when you were in the hospital after Pearl Harbor for all of those weeks?”
“I don’t have a health problem,” Halsey demurred.
“Oh sure! If his leg isn’t one hundred percent, it will be all right soon. But you will still be itching and scratching yourself from head to toe the next time I have the misfortune to come to this goddamn office!”
The determination went out of Halsey’s face. He lowered his voice. “I can’t do it.”
Sagging in his chair, he could not look at Wells.
Wells spoke calmly. “You cannot do this to this man. I am not going to let your name be associated with such trash. He is the very type of man we have all been crying for from the beginning of the war. Look at that job he did for us with Mackson. Some goddamn Jap might be sitting here in your seat were it not for him. He’s good under pressure,” he said, nodding his head. “We cannot do without him on the road to Tokyo!”
Halsey looked at Wells and thought for a moment. “Okay, Lake, I’ll talk it over with Washington and ask for him on a highest priority basis.”
“No! No!” Wells shouted. “That is not good enough! You and I both know exactly what they’re going to say. I hate to do this to you.”
Wells put down his drink, some of which had sloshed on the floor in his gesturing. He stared hard at his boss. “Bill, I am going to ask you as my friend of forty years.”
Halsey stared back, dismayed. “Don’t do that to me. Of all the men on this Earth, I never expected to hear that from you!”
“I am asking! I am asking you to promise me to do this for me. I want you to look me in the eye and promise me you will do it.”
&
nbsp; Wells leaned over the desk and spoke so that no one else could possibly hear.
“I’m through, Bill.” His face looked lost and soured. “I’m not standing up to this so well. That Aleutian campaign did me in. I passed out in my cabin. The doc told me this is it. I asked him to give me six months.”
“What doc?” Halsey asked, taken aback.
“Yours.”
“Your heart?”
Wells nodded. “Bill, I’m supposing you’re good for the whole run, till we defeat Japan. But this New Guinea thing will have to be my last go. I’ll head home to my Polly, watch from the beach.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Halsey asked, his words slowing with shock. “How could I have faced Polly if you had keeled over in my office?”
“I knew you wouldn’t give easy. That Aleutian thing is a blot on my record.”
“Everyone knows that wasn’t your fault!” Halsey said understandingly. “But I can see how you feel, know how it looks.” He paused, frowning. “I’m sorry, Lake. I was hoping you’d be with us.”
Wells brought his fist down slowly onto the desk.
“Let me go out on top,” he begged. “Not have my record splotched up at the end. I’ll take my chances with one more shot. But I must have someone I trust. I have to have Rodgers. It can’t be any other man. It’s too late for me to break in anyone else, trust anyone else. As it is, and I am only telling you this, I will have to give him the command. I have to lay off. I’ve promised Polly for thirty years that there’d be time for us. I don’t want to break that trust. I must have a man who can command a task force.”
In an instant, Halsey saw the big picture. An old friend for whom he would give his life stood before him, a hard campaigner who had never spared himself any hardship. It was legend throughout the service that Wells had never asked for a favor from anyone.
“Okay, Lake. You have him!” Halsey looked Wells in the eyes and shook his hand.
Wells added casually, “And I want you to get him back on the promotion list.”
“You know I can’t do that one.”
“I know you can,” Wells stated flatly. “I know you’re flying out of here to D.C. on Tuesday.”
“How did you hear that?”
“The same way you knew we were sending you to MacArthur. I want you to go to Admiral King on this one. As chief of staff, he can do practically anything he wants. Ask him. He’ll give it to you, because he needs you more than you need him.”
Halsey put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder as they headed for the door. “Okay, okay. He hates me, but I’ll push it over on the old creep.”
“Thanks, Bill.”
“The orders will be cut today. You take care of yourself, Lake.” He smiled, the two clasping their hands in a tight grip. “I wish I could have you for the six months.”
Halsey’s tone was strong now. Wells knew what he wished would be done. He regretted that he had had to put it that way to an old friend. But he was not sorry. He was prepared to do whatever it took. The two men walked out into the adjoining office, smiled to everyone, and Wells left.
Halsey went back into his office, closed the door, and sat down on the corner of his desk. He did not intend to reflect for a long time, but he did. The last of the sun filtered into the room through the dusty blinds. Shadows began to lengthen and the room began to darken. His usual cigarette was absent.
He sat motionless.
“Lake can’t make it,” he muttered. “There will be more like him who we use up in the long years and hard campaigns that are bound to come before we win this thing. Many a good man will be sacrificed to the needs of the nation before this is all over.”
A hard and vicious look came over Halsey’s face. As usual, this meant very bad things for the Empire of Japan. He had a terrible and seething hatred toward them, ever so much more terrible than that they were merely the enemy of his country.
“If it takes the last drop of my blood, I will grind them into dust along with their entire civilization. I will bring the vast power of our country into this. I promise to use whatever resources I can get. No mercy will be shown. Even their women and children I will savage, if that’s what it takes to win this hideous struggle.”
The sentimentality that was so much a part of him, and was an even match for his terrible hatred of the enemy, flooded into his mind. “I have committed an unforgivable sin to have made Lake beg like that. God forgive me.” He mopped his left hand over his face, tears stinging his eyes. “I should not have done that.”
A verse he’d memorized years ago, something by Rudyard Kipling, came into his head:
God of out fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine;
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
That one had been very popular among his class at the Academy. Back then, of course, he hadn’t felt the truth of it, not the way he did now.
“Damn it, who is the enemy here?” he lamented. “Lake! I’ll make it up to you if it takes everything I’ve got!”
He thought of Rodgers, the man who had caused all of this fuss. Halsey remembered him from the ceremony the last December when he’d pinned the Navy Cross on the man’s chest. He’d only ever seen Rodgers that one time, hobbled on crutches with the broken leg.
“So, that’s the guy Lake thinks so much of, eh.” Halsey nodded slowly, steely-eyed.
Staring ahead, he made a sacred promise to himself that he never shared. “If Lake likes him, then I like him. Rodgers will be my man. I’ll let him go to Kincaid. I’ll let him make his own way, and follow the pathways the war makes for him. But I’ll be there, watching to see that nothing bad happens to him, that he doesn’t go down between the cracks, torpedoed by someone.”
In the years that followed on the long road to Tokyo, Halsey never had a reason to regret his vow.
Preface to “Battle for Huon Gulf”
Ship Types
In World War II, there were three types of surface warships: battleships, cruisers (heavy and light), and destroyers. The general rule was that the bigger the ship, the bigger the guns and the slower the speed. If a ship had armor, as battleships and most cruisers did, it did not cover the entire ship. It was placed in “belts,” on turret faces, and to protect the bridge and deck. The rule of armored protection was that a ship should have enough armor to have some protection against a ship of equal power.
There were great differences between the ship types. Cruisers could speed away from most battleships, but could not catch a destroyer. A heavy cruiser’s guns had about one-eighth the power of a battleship’s, but six times that of a destroyer. Both Japanese and US cruisers fired a 256-pound shell that was eight inches wide. A light cruiser’s guns had a third of the power of a heavy cruiser’s. For light cruisers, one-hundred-pound shells were standard in both navies. Heavy cruisers had armor protection that was two to five inches thick.
Names in the Story
All geographical names used are real. Admi
ral Crutchley was a real admiral who commanded cruisers in the southwest Pacific. The names of the two Japanese cruisers were names that appeared in the 1940 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships (which is still in publication as the most authoritative such book in the world). These were ships the Japanese were actually planning to build, though in the end they did not. All other names, ships or otherwise, are made up.
A word about US prewar heavy cruisers, to which I dedicate this story: There were seventeen of them. They were all made to international treaty limitations of ten thousand tons, to which the United States subscribed until 1941. Meanwhile, the Japanese violated their treaty obligations and made the large Myoko class. These cruisers were faster and bigger in size, going about 13,500 tons. Even so, the prewar American heavies had the same gun power as their competitors. In a real sense, they were actually harder to hit, because the Japanese ships were so much longer (seventy feet).
Despite their lack of size, US prewar heavies generally gave a good account of themselves during the war. Some achieved lasting fame: Salt Lake City at the Kormandorski Island battle; San Francisco and “Sweet P,” the Portland, both at the Battle of Guadalcanal; and Houston. Others, such as Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, Louisville, and Augusta, had solid careers. Some were lost, but not due to not being pugnacious. Chicago was sunk by a very skillful Japanese night aircraft attack at the Battle of Rennell Island. Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes were the victims of poor leadership and unbelievably bad luck.
Only Indianapolis, which carried the A-bombs to Tinian (where they were loaded on to B-29s and flown to Japan to be dropped), had a bad career so far as I know. She was said to be a bad roller even in moderate seas, and of course was sunk under still-controversial circumstances. Eight hundred and eighty men, the majority of the crew, were eaten by great white sharks as they languished on rafts for days awaiting rescue.
