A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  “Is there nothing good that can come of this situation?”

  Butler took the opportunity with both hands. “We understand that the Italians asked for German help in resisting the forces commanded by General Wavell. They were refused in a message of unprecedented discourtesy. This makes it clear that Germany regards us as its most important ally in Europe and our position with regard to them is greatly strengthened.”

  “We are not an ally of Nazi Germany, Richard, and our interests only temporarily converge with theirs. Great Britain has decided to remain neutral; that is all.”

  “My apologies, Prime Minister.” Am I alone in hearing a note of derision in those wordsl thought Bridges. “I mis-spoke. I did not mean to imply we should consider ourselves an ally of Germany; merely a country with whom Germany maintains friendly relations. However, we must take due note of the fact that the danger of Bolshevism means that our interests and those of Germany may be greater than you suppose.”

  Bridges was interested to note that Halifax did not look at all at ease with the line Butler was following. The Prime Minister quickly shifted back towards the subject of Wavell and the status of Middle East Command. “So what do we do about Wavell’s insubordination?”

  “Well, Prime Minister, the traditional options are that we recall him for court martial and cashier him, reassign him to another post of such little importance that he will resign in disgust, ignore him completely or claim all the credit for his achievements and imply his contributions were of little import. He will ignore the first and second, take advantage of the third to further consolidate his position and it is already too late for the fourth. The fact that we, and the rest of the Commonwealth, are on divergent courses puts us in terra incognita here, Prime Minister. Anything we do will establish a precedent. May I suggest that a suitable one would be masterly inactivity?”

  “Perhaps, Sir Edward. Please leave us now. The Foreign Secretary and I have party business to discuss.”

  That is a reasonable excuse to ask me to withdraw. But why do I not like the expression on Butler’s face? Sir Edward Bridges backed out of the Cabinet Office and made a thoughtful progress down the stairs to the front door of Number Ten. Two of Butler’s Auxiliaries were on guard, each armed with a Thompson submachine gun. I wonder how long we will be able to get ammunition for them? It’s been a long time since I had a drink with old Murray. I’ll invite him over one evening, soon.

  There was an addition to that thought that Sir Edward Bridges resolutely kept even from himself. Sir Murray Prestcote was a long-retired veteran of the British Army in India. But, he had been very active in keeping in contact with the service and had many friends there. If somebody knew how to warn General Wavell to watch his back, it would be him.

  Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito, Rome, Italy, January 14, 1941

  “What are the terms of our agreement with the Commonwealth of Nations?”

  Graziani, Badoglio, Ciano and the other occupants of the Army supreme command had expected Benito Mussolini to return either screaming with fury or venting bombastic nonsense. Instead, after almost two weeks sequestered in his private apartments, he sounded quiet and uncharacteristically unpretentious. The doctors said he had suffered from a severe stroke and complete nervous prostration.

  Had the combination of the two made such a difference to the man’s character? Ciano thought to himself. Brought on by catastrophic military defeat and abandonment by our closest ally? That would be enough to dull the spirit of any man. Or restore humility to him.

  “Duce, we have secured Libya at its pre-war boundaries and the return of our prisoners of war. The Commonwealth will withdraw from Cyrenaica, but they will retain all the equipment and supplies they have captured. We have agreed to a 20-kilometer wide demilitarized zone on each side of the border; into which no military forces may enter, except by our joint agreement. The Commonwealth has agreed to joint patrols to ensure that these terms are observed. We have had to sacrifice Ethiopia, which has returned to its previous administration. Eritrea and Somaliland will be administered by the Commonwealth of Nations as if they were League of Nations trusts. In summary, we have managed to retain Libya, but at the cost of all our other African possessions.” Now order me shot. I have done my best for Italy and I will be content with that.

  “We kept Libya, but have lost the rest of our North African possessions.” Mussolini paused and took a deep breath. The voice had changed as well; the ringing aggression and bouncing self-confidence were gone completely. Now there was an almost thoughtful overtone; the tone of a philosopher, rather than a dictator.

  “Well, I have decided I am not a collector of deserts. We can bid farewell to possessions that never benefitted us. Now is the time to look forward, not back. Our treatment at the hands of Herr Hitler has shown us that we can only become strong, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look to for moral guidance. To continue this war would be national suicide. We must never consider the possibility of suicide; national or personal. We must despise and reject it. Rather, we must see these events as a part of life. As Italians, we must accept what life brings us and learn to love it. Our life should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not that above all; for we must also consider others. Those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after us; their interests too we must consider.

  “We have learned that Italy is not for export by force of arms. Instead, we must build the best and most beautiful Italy we can, and export Italy by those who choose to follow our example.”

  There was a long silence as Mussolini’s words echoed around the room. He stood. The havoc the stroke had wrought becoming obvious as he wavered unsteadily on his feet. The left side of his body had been hit worst; his left hand was largely paralysed and he limped on his left leg. The left corner of his mouth was slack and every so often he dabbed at it with a handkerchief. “Galeazzo, you have done well. I commend you. Now, you must ensure that it is understood that Italy will maintain a policy of strict neutrality. We will expend our efforts on improving ourselves and our country. Our watchwords will be ‘All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’ Is this clearly understood? We will be neutral in any future conflict. There will be no more military commitments outside Italy.”

  Badoglio could hardly believe the change that was taking place in front of his eyes. If Mussolini was true to his words, this was the Italy he had always wanted. Perhaps the disaster in North and East Africa wasn’t such a disaster after all. Il Duce may be right, that we must accept what life brings us and learn to love it; for the benefits it bestows may not be immediately obvious and what seems unbearable today may well be the seed of a better tomorrow. That left just one question in his mind.

  “What will Herr Hitler have to say about this?”

  “That horrible sexual degenerate? Egli puo vaffanculo e morire come un uomo per una volta.”

  Room 208, Munitions Building, Washington, DC, USA

  “Italy out of the war. The Commonwealth of Nations is off to a good start.” Henry Stimson looked inordinately pleased with himself. The airfields in America were clearing rapidly as the aircraft originally ordered by the French and British were delivered instead to the Commonwealth countries.

  “Not economically. India is staggering along from day to day, but Australia and New Zealand are sliding into an economic depression very quickly.” Henry Morgenthau sounded deeply concerned. “They will need some additional help propping up their economies and need it quickly. I suspect New Zealand is beyond saving. I have already heard whispers that the Australians are considering absorbing them as an alternative to seeing them go bankrupt. There was provision for that in their constitution, you know.”

  “We must do what we must.” Cordell Hull sounded detached and almost disinterested. “And no more.”

  “How did your trip to the Far East go?” Phillip Stuyvesant sounded mildly interested, concealing his real feel
ings carefully. He wasn’t certain whether Hull’s trip taking so much longer than originally planned was a good or a bad thing.

  “I confirmed much that I already believed. The Siamese have a military government and is ruled by a regime supported by the force of arms. I deplore that regime and everything it represents. However, I do believe there is both room and desire for change and we should enable that change to whatever extent we are able. If we aid them, they may well evolve into a country we can support. But, if we do not, they will surely side with our enemies. At the moment, their enemies are our enemies. We must recognize that. I will withdraw my objections to the delivery of armaments to them, conditional upon them making the democratic development we expect.”

  Stimson interrupted him. “Cordell, we owe the Thais some aircraft. P-64 fighters and A-27 light bombers. How can we make good on the order?”

  “Have we no equivalent aircraft we can give them in lieu?”

  Stimson thought. “The A-27s are no problem. Northrop is building the A-24 for the Army. It’s a version of the Navy SBD. The Army doesn’t like it though; they think it’s too slow, underarmed and its range is too short. They won’t miss a couple of dozen for the Thais. For all its problems, it’s actually a better aircraft than the A-27.”

  “Fighters; they need fighters. If you’d seen that market place, you wouldn’t be worrying about the bombers.”

  Stuyvesant lifted a pencil. “The Indians have more Hawk 75s than they can absorb at this time and they have a more advanced version coming down the pike. Why don’t we suggest they transfer a couple of dozen of their existing aircraft to Thailand and we give them a credit for the value they can use to buy other equipment they need?”

  Stimson nodded. “That works for us. Means we keep the hard cash, the Thais get the aircraft and India gets more equipment it needs. You agree, Cordell?”

  Hull nodded. “It sounds fair. And it gives us a chance to see if current Siamese words will match their future intentions.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: SERIOUS NEGOTIATIONS

  11th Infantry (Queen’s Cobra) Division, Border with French Indochina, Thailand, January 5, 1941

  The border post was supposed to control the passage along the road from Kantharalak in Thailand to Angkrong in French Indochina. In fact, it blocked it completely. The French had brought in local labor to dig up the road surface. Their efforts left a deep ditch across the road lined with parapets made of the rubble from the road surface. There was barbed wire tangled along the mounds of earth and solid wooden stakes to hold it on place. There was even a guard box behind the earth banks that had a telephone. Corporal Mongkut Chandrapa na Ayuthya could see the telephone line heading southeast towards Angkrong. He carefully did not think that it connected the border post to Angkrong, since one of his men had cut the wire a couple of minutes before.

  There were just three men at the border post. One was in the guard box and looked as if he was asleep. The other two were sitting on the embankment, smoking and surveying the neighborhood with monumental disinterest. They would have been much more interested if they had realized all twelve infantry battalions of the Queen’s Cobra Division had moved up to the frontier and were currently in their jump-off positions for the invasion. An invasion that had already started with a cut telephone wire. Corporal Mongkut took a deep breath as the approaching dawn revealed more details of the target. In the back of his mind, he noted the birds were starting to sing. Then the hammering noise of a Lewis gun drowned them out.

  The burst fountained soil around the two men outside the post. One died instantly, riddled with bullets. The other jumped to his feet, dropped his cigarette and frantically looked around to see what was happening. A second burst cut him down as well, long before he had learned anything. Mongkut saw him down on the ground, his body shaking as he died.

  He focused on his primary target, the guard box. The man in it had grabbed the telephone. He was banging the handpiece on the desk, apparentlyin the belief that doing so would repair the cut wire. There was a short crackle of rifle fire from Mongkut’s group. The glass in the guard box shattered, and he, too, went down. With the border guards neutralized, Mongkut got to his feet and jog-trotted towards the ruins of the border post.

  His men worked fast. They took the bodies of the two men outside the post and their corporal from inside it and dragged them to the side of the road. Mongkut quickly checked the bodies, identifying them as members of the 4th Tirailleurs Tonkinois. The sun was already rising over the mountains on either side of their road. Behind him, other units of the 11th Division were crossing the border and beginning to push down the road towards Angkrong.

  Mongkut’s lieutenant waved. He and his men fell in with the rest of their unit and joined the march south. He had the map he had been shown clearly in his mind. Angkrong was a small rectangular village, but it controlled a vital crossroads; one that opened the way eastwards. Once Angkrong was in their hands, the real advance could start.

  Behind Mongkut’s unit, engineers brought up a quartet of elephants. They started the task of destroying the border post and repairing the road that led through it. Their orders were quite simple; they were to erase the border so thoroughly that nobody would ever know it had once existed here.

  Hawk 75N Over Thakhek Airfield, French Indochina

  Thakhek Airfield was the primary staging post for the attacks on Thai cities over the last six months. The Farman bombers that had carried out the most devastating of the raids were based far back in central Vietnam. That put them out of range of the Thai aircraft; for the moment, at least. But Thakhek was within range and it was a priority target for the Air Force. Other airfields were being attacked as well, but Thakhek was getting the main effort.

  The primary strike was the half-dozen Martin 139 bombers; they formed two neat V-formations at 3,000 meters. Their stately progress through the air was marred by a very light scattering of black spots. The antiaircraft defenses of the base were limited. There were few antiaircraft guns in French Indochina, and it seemed as if the French believed that they could continue attacking Thailand without any form of reprisal.

  Unaccountably, the antiaircraft fire stopped as the Martins swung into their final bomb run. The export equivalent of the USAAC B-10B, each Martin 139 carried ten 250-pound bombs. Their bombing showed the inexperience of the crews. Most of the sixty bombs the formation dropped were within the airfield boundary, but the explosions were scattered all over the base. From what Flying Officer Suchart Chalermkiat could see, the vital hangars and runways were undamaged. That left taking the airfield out to him and his fellow Hawk 75N pilots.

  As the Martins turned away for the flight home, Suchart pushed the nose of his fighter over and started to dive on the base below. Dive bombing was something every Thai pilot practiced. For the last six months, they had done little else but train for dive bombing missions. Even the Hawk III and 75N fighters had not been exempted. They had had to carry out their dive bombing training in addition to their other duties. Foong Kap Lai 60 was supposed to be the elite fighter squadron of the Thai Air Force, but their Hawk 75Ns had flown on this mission with a 250 pound bomb slung under their bellies. If French fighters showed up, they would jettison their bombs and fight. Otherwise, they were dive bombers. So was every other aircraft the Thais had. Even their Avro 504 trainers were carrying bombs today.

  Suchart released his bomb. He saw it curve down into the center of one of the hangars. A smooth pull on the control column brought his Hawk out of its dive. He skimmed over the parking area, a few tens of feet over the grass. To his disappointment, there was only one aircraft in easy sight, a Potez 25. Still, it is a ground attack aircraft and that’s worth taking. Suchart’s four .30-caliber machine guns raked the old biplane. It burst into flames in front of him.

  His flight formed up around him and he turned his nose west for home. Once the bombers that had struck the airfields were safely back at base, the fighters could do what they were supposed to do.

  Hun
t down and kill the enemy.

  Forward Headquarters, Burapha Payak Corps, Thailand

  The maps on the walls showed the developing situation quite clearly. The 11th Infantry Division was north of the Tonle Sap, crossing the border into Cambodia and advancing towards the banks of the Mekong River. So far, they hadn’t experienced any serious opposition; just a few scattered patrols and the unfortunate border guards. Further south, two regiments of the 9th Infantry Division pushed along the road to Battambang. They were having a tougher time. Battambang was the headquarters of the French Indochina Army this far south; it was well-placed to organize a proper defense.

  That was exactly what Suriyothai hoped they were doing.

  “Your Highness, two farang ladies to see you.” General Arthit Kongsampong seemed slightly surprised at the number of women who were descending on the command center of an army corps. Having the corps commanded by a woman was shocking enough, although the whispers about this woman officer were startling indeed. Two farang women turning up as guests was something quite else.

  “Send them in.” Suriyothai looked at the map again. The tiny piece of Laos that lay west of the Mekong was already well on its way to being secured by a battalion of infantry. A regiment of the 11th Infantry was moving west to cover its flank. It was a good start.

  “Igrat, Achillea; It has been a long time since we met under these circumstances.”

  Igrat smiled broadly and made a creditable attempt at a respectful wai. Suriyothai solemnly returned it. Achillea followed Igrat in. She had grease on her blouse and smudges of oil on her nose and cheeks.

  “What happened Achillea?”

  “A couple of your men were having trouble with a Hotchkiss thirteen-point-two. Headspace adjustment screw had jammed. I fixed it for them. Just poured boiling water over it and that expanded the metal enough to get the screw loose.”