And overwhelming the Japanese quickly was absolutely necessary. The initial attack would consume a great percentage of available ammunition, including their entire stock of fourteen fragmentation hand grenades. Fertig's only possible source of resupply was from the bodies of vanquished Japanese.
There would be no question of breaking off the attack and making for the mountains. And the longer it took to overwhelm the Japanese, the more time they would have to defend themselves, which meant the more ammunition they would expend, and the less there would be for the guerrillas to capture.
There were other problems, of course. For one thing, statistically--and this was not a reflection on the Filipinos' loyalty generally--he had to assume that several of his troops were in Japanese service. A father, or a wife, or a child was in Japanese "protection," with the understanding that as soon as proof came of the "loyalty" of the guerrilla the father or wife or child would be released. Loyalty could be proved by getting word to the Japanese of where and when there would be an ambush of Japanese forces, or where and when Fertig or one of his senior officers could be found.
It was not black and white. The same guerrilla who would decide that his greater loyalty lay to his family, and that therefore he should let the Japanese know where they could find Fertig, could more often than not be counted upon to be willing to lay his life on the line sniping at a Japanese patrol.
What this situation required was keeping secret the actual place and time of the planned attack until virtually the last minute, so that the guerrilla with a member of his family in Japanese "protection" would not have the opportunity to communicate with the Japanese.
To assemble the 120-150-man force he considered the optimum for the ambush of the propaganda detachment, therefore, Fertig had to pick several sites within two hours' march of the ambush site. In the event, he picked five different sites, then sent word by runner to various guerrilla cells--numbering in the aggregate just over two hundred men--to assemble into five larger groups at the designated sites.
His experience had taught him that about sixty percent of the guerrillas summoned would appear at the designated site at the proper time.
Five hours before the propaganda detachment and its company of guards was scheduled to reach the ambush site, a second group of runners was sent to the five assembly areas, bearing orders for the men to come to the final assembly point. From the moment the runners reached the five sites, it was presumed that anyone leaving intended to betray the troops to the Japanese. If someone ran and it was impossible to capture him, the operation would be called off, and the guerrillas would disperse. If someone ran and was caught, he would be beheaded. Beheading with a heavy, razor-sharp machete was supposed to be more or less painless, and it did not expend ammunition.
One hour before the Japanese were to pass the ambush site, the last group of guerrillas arrived. No one had disappeared, or tried to. The force now totaled 136 men; and two of the guerrillas, formerly Philippine Scouts, had brought with them BARs--Browning Automatic Rifles--and seven loaded magazines.
Fertig was of two minds about using the BARs. They were splendid weapons, and God knew his troops needed something to counter the Japanese Namimba machine guns the guards would certainly have. But he had only seventy rounds per gun--three and a half magazines. And every round that ripped through the BARs with such speed could be fired one at a time from an Enfield in sniping fire, where the kill-per-cartridge rate was so much more effective.
In the end, he decided that the more fire expended at the beginning of the assault, the sooner the Japanese would be overwhelmed, and thus the more ammunition could be taken from their bodies.
Fertig then explained the tactics of the attack, which were very simple.
The force would be divided into two elements, with two-thirds of the force close to one side of the road. Prom there a devastating fire could be delivered at close range. The second element, commanded by Fertig and consisting of the remaining third of the force, with both BARs and ten of the fourteen fragmentation grenades, would be on the opposite side of the road.
On signal, which would be when Fertig and a former Philippine Scout opened fire with their Enfield rifles on the driver of the first vehicle in the convoy, the smaller force would bring BAR fire to bear on the trucks carrying the troops. Other riflemen would disable the last truck in the convoy, preferably by killing its driver.
At this point, Fertig authorized the throwing of one--only--fragmentation grenade at each troop-carrying truck.
The Japanese convoy would thus be immobilized, and it was to be hoped that many, if not most, of the truck-borne troops would be killed before they exited the trucks.
Some, of course, would survive. Most, Fertig believed, would exit toward the ditch and forest opposite the direction from which they had been attacked.
They would then present themselves as targets to the bulk of the ambush force. Meanwhile, the third of the force that had opened the attack would rapidly divide itself in half, half going to the head of the convoy, and half to the tail. This would get them out of the line of fire of the larger ambush force and leave them in a position to fire upon any Japanese from the sides.
Fertig did his best to impress upon his men the absolute necessity of aimed fire. They were dangerously short of ammunition, and there was absolutely no excuse for a guerrilla to fall from a bullet fired by another guerrilla.
Everyone seemed to accept his reasoning. But Fertig knew that even the most phlegmatic of people got excited once the crack of small-arms fire filled the air. And by no stretch of the imagination could his force be called at all phlegmatic.
In the engagement that followed, the ambush force of United States forces in the Philippines, Brigadier General W W. Fertig commanding, triumphed over the 1104the Army Information Detachment and Company 3, 505the Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army. There were no Japanese survivors.
USFIP suffered eleven dead (including the Philippine Scout who had opened the engagement at General Fertig's side, and of whom he had been extraordinarily fond) and thirty-six wounded. Of the thirty-six wounded, twenty would subsequently die. USFIP had virtually no medical supplies.
The Japanese, once they overcame their initial surprise, had fought gallantly and well. It was more than half an hour before the last of them had died for his Emperor. By the time the engagement was over, the Japanese had expended a large part of their ammunition.
On balance, USFIP had more weapons after the ambush than before, including two 60mm mortars and sixty rounds for them, several Nambu pistols, nearly two hundred Arisaka rifles, and one Namimba machine gun. Countering this increase was the expenditure of.30-06 ammunition and hand grenades.
An Enfield or a BAR without.30-06 ammunition is simply a finely machined piece of steel, not a weapon. And the Japanese had expended all of their hand grenades before they were overwhelmed, the last dozen of them as instruments of suicide.
Just before he disappeared back into the jungle, General Fertig took a last look at the carnage on the highway.
The Japanese, if for no other reason than to save face, would rush reinforcements up here. Patrols would be sent into the jungle.
There would be an opportunity for other ambushes, perhaps not as overwhelmingly successful as this one, but successful enough to kill many Japanese, to force the Japanese to expend fuel and manpower on one patrol after another--and to lose face.
There was a caveat. To conduct other ambushes, he would need ammunition.
He had come out of the ambush with only marginally greater stocks of ammunition than he had going in, and that was for the Japanese Arisaka rifles, not the Enfields and the BARs.
He turned and entered the jungle. He would now go back into hiding.
How the hell can I wage a war if they won't supply me with what I need?
Supply me with what I need? The sonsofbitches won't even talk to me!
[TWO]
The House on Q Street, Northwest
&
nbsp; Chief Ellis found Captain James M. B. Whittaker in the billiards room in the basement. There were two tables in the darkly paneled room: a standard English billiards table, and a somewhat smaller pocket billiards table. Whittaker was alone at the smaller table.
"Anchors aweigh, Chief," Whittaker said, looking up from the table when he saw Ellis. He had carefully arranged balls at the lip of each of the pockets on the table. What he was trying to do was sink as many of them as he could with one shot.
Ellis waited until he had made the shot--sinking four of the six balls--before replying.
"I hear you've been a bad boy again, Captain Whittaker," Ellis said.
"Was Baker waiting for you when you got back?" Whittaker asked, and then, before Ellis could reply, he asked, "Who's your friend?"
Ellis had with him a Navy white hat, a small man made to look even smaller by his waist-length Navy blue peacoat. He wore round-framed GI glasses. He looked, Whittaker thought, like a Sea Scout.
"Radioman Second Joe Garvey, say hello to Captain Jim Whittaker," Ellis said.
The sailor snatched off his white hat and came to attention.
"How do you do. Sir?" he asked.
"Poorly, now that you ask," Whittaker said, smiling at him.
"Didn't your mother warn you to avoid evil companions when you joined the Navy?"
Then he saw that his joke had fallen flat and that the young sailor was uncomfortable, not amused. Whittaker came quickly around the pool table and, smiling, offered his hand.
"Hello, Garvey," he said.
"If you're with Chief Ellis, you must be somebody special. I'm happy to meet you."
Garvey shook his hand and smiled uneasily.
"You ever know somebody named Fertig?" Ellis asked.
Whittaker thought it over.
"There is a faint tinkle of the bell of memory," he said.
"In the Philippines?"
"I put that together," Whittaker said, "but that's as far as it goes. Is there some reason I should know him?"
"He's still in the Philippines," Ellis said.
"Poor sonofabitch," Whittaker said.
"Garvey's been talking to him on the radio," Ellis said.
Whittaker's face fit up with curiosity.
"He's in the mountains of Mindanao," Ellis said.
"He says there's an army sergeant named Withers with him."
"I knew a guy named Withers over there," Whittaker said.
"You want to find out if it's the same one?" Ellis said.
"I don't think this is just idle curiosity on your part," Whittaker said.
Ellis shrugged.
"How could we do that?" Whittaker asked.
"You got time to take a ride over to the Navy commo facility in Virginia?"
Ellis asked.
"You're starting to act like Captain Douglass," Whittaker said.
"You answer questions with another question."
"Well, I don't 'manifest a belligerent and uncooperative attitude,"" Ellis said.
"Is that what that sonofabitch said?" Whittaker asked.
"There was more," Ellis said.
"There was something about 'subjecting a trainee to a humiliating public display of affection." Two pages, single spaced."
"Has the Colonel seen it?" Whittaker asked.
"Not yet," Ellis said.
"I intercepted it. I can lose it, but Baker's going to expect some kind of a reply, so you better start thinking about that. And about the fact that the Colonel thinks you're in Virginia running around in the woods."
"Hmmm," Whittaker said, considering that.
"You want to take a run over to Virginia?" Ellis asked.
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," Whittaker said. He turned to put the pool cue in its rack.
"We'll have lunch on the way," he said.
"I want to go to that three-for-a-quarter hamburger place."
"White Castle?" Ellis asked incredulously.
"White Castle," Whittaker confirmed happily.
"And eat a dollar's worth, with a large fries and a Dr. Pepper."
"Maybe Baker's right," Ellis said.
"He says he thinks you may be crazy."
"In that case, you can buy your own hamburgers," Whittaker said as he took his tunic from a bentwood coatrack.
An hour and a half later, a lieutenant commander signed them into his log, then took them past a Marine MP guarding access to a gray painted steel door
With RADIO ROOM--POSITIVELY NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS painted On it.
The officer on watch, a young lieutenant j.g. with a blond crew cut, got up from his desk and walked to meet them.
"These people wish to use one of your transmitters," the lieutenant commander said.
"They have their own operator."
"Sir?" the j.g. asked, not sure he had heard correctly.
"We'd like to use that Collins, Lieutenant," Chief Ellis said, nodding his head toward one of a row of transmitters lining the wall.
The j.g. looked at the lieutenant commander for instructions. Strange people coming into the transmitter room was unusual; it was absolutely out of the lieutenant's experience that they should be given access to the equipment.
"Do it, Mr. Fenway," the lieutenant commander said.
"Aye, aye, Sir," the j.g. said, and motioned Garvey to follow him. He led him to a small cubicle holding a telegrapher's key, a typewriter, and a control panel. Garvey, still wearing his peacoat, pulled up a chair and reached for a set of earphones.
He tapped the key tentatively, then adjusted set screws on its base and tried it again. He rolled paper into the typewriter, then tuned both the receiver and the transmitter.
Then he started to tap the key.
Ellis and Whittaker walked and stood behind him, and looked over his shoulder.
"All they've got is an old M94," Ellis said.
"There's no sense even trying to encrypt. We're talking in the clear."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Whittaker said.
"It's a coding device," Ellis explained.
"But we have to presume the Japs got at least one of them."
"Oh," Whittaker said.
"When we raise them, you're going to have to think of some way to find out if this Withers guy is the one you were with, and do it so the Japs will be as confused as possible."
"Ask him if he still has the watch," Whittaker said.
"Call him Sergeant Boomboom. Sign it, Polo."
Garvey's fingers flew over the typewriter keys. It was an automatic reaction to what he had heard in his earphones. Ellis and Whittaker looked at what he had typed:
MFS FOR KGS BY
"Send "For Sergeant Boomboom,"" Ellis ordered, ""Have you got the watch.
Signed Polo."" Garvey tapped the message out with his key.
"What's with the watch?" Ellis asked.
"I gave him my watch, just before I left," Whittaker said.
There was a long wait before Garvey started typing again.
MFS FOR KGS AFFIRMATIVE WHERE POLO MFS BY
"Send "Polo Washington,"" Whittaker ordered. '"Where Scarface.""
MFS FOR KGS SCAR PACE EVERYBODY HERE MFS BY
Send' Send Third Letter Scarface Last Name,"" Whittaker ordered.
MFS FOR KGS VVWWWVWWW MSP BY
"Send "Glad You All Made It,"" Whittaker said.
MFS FOR KGS FOR POLO FROM SCAR FACE VAYA CON DIOS MFS BY
"Send," Whittaker began, and then his voice broke, and when Ellis turned to look at him, he saw tears running down his cheeks.
"Send," Whittaker went on, '"Hold On. The Twenty-sixth Will Ride Again.
God Bless You All. Polo.""
MFS FOR KGS MFS OUT
Captain James M. B. Whittaker, rather loudly, blew his nose. When he spoke, he had his voice under control.
""Scarface' is Master Sergeant Victor Alvarez, late of the Twenty-sixth Cavalry, Philippine Scouts. He was in the habit of calling Sergeant Withers "Sergeant BoomBoom' beca
use Withers blew things up."
"Clandestine station in the Philippines? "the lieutenant commander asked.
Whittaker nodded.
"Poor bastards!"
"Thank you for your assistance, Commander," Whittaker said formally.
"Let's get out of here, Ellis."
When they got in the Buick Roadmaster, Ellis reached into the glove compartment and came out with a pint bottle of Old Overholt. He handed it to Whittaker.
W E B Griffin - Men at War 4 - The Fighting Agents Page 11
