Nightmare Alley

by Len Levinson

  Lieutenant Breckenridge didn’t want to return to Utsler and continue that conversation. The person he wanted to talk with was Nurse Latham. He thought he should apologize to her, and maybe while he had her on the phone, he could find out what had happened between her and Utsler.

  Utsler was still having a conversation with another officer. Lieutenant Breckenridge paid the bartender for his drink and pushed to the side so he wouldn’t encounter Utsler. He made his way through the throng of officers, who were trying to get drunk with the greatest possible speed, and finally broke loose, heading for the telephones in the basement lounge.

  He descended the spiral staircase three steps at a time and saw the rows of telephone booths, about half of which were occupied by officers making calls. He jumped into an empty booth and dialed the residence where Diane Latham lived, hoping she was home.

  “Lieutenant Diane Latham,” he said to the person who picked up the phone.

  “One moment, please.”

  He waited, taking out a cigarette and lighting it up. Then he heard her voice, and the cigarette nearly dropped out of his mouth.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi,” he replied.

  “Who’s this?” she asked.

  “Lieutenant Dale Breckenridge, and please don’t hang up!”

  Click!

  The line went dead. Lieutenant Breckenridge shrugged and hung up the phone. I guess she’s still mad at me, he said to himself. I'll try again in a few days. Maybe she won’t be so mad then.

  SIX . . .

  On Monday of the next week the Eighty-first Division began serious training for the move to New Guinea. By then everybody knew they were returning to war, but not everybody knew where they were going. By Friday the word had got around that New Guinea would be the destination.

  The infantry soldiers trained hard. They went on speed marches with full field packs up and down the mountains of Oahu. Men passed out in the heat and were revived with kicks in the ass or water poured on their faces out of canteens. Some didn’t recover that easily and had to be taken to the post hospital, victims of heat exhaustion.

  They went out into the boondocks and attacked hills, pillboxes, trench networks, and bunkers, practicing the principles of fire and maneuver, perfecting their tactical skills. It was grueling, tedious work, but they faced no real enemy. No one shot back at them. The combat veterans knew that textbook training exercises were one thing and real war was something else entirely. Yet, they had to get the basics down pat. Everybody had to learn to work together, the old combat veterans and the new replacements from the States.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge trained his recon platoon hardest, because they always got the shittiest jobs. If other platoons speed-marched ten miles, the recon platoon speed-marched fifteen. If the other platoons did a half-hour of physical-training, the recon platoon did a whole hour. If the other platoons captured one hill a day, the recon platoon captured two.

  Sometimes, when the recon platoon was in the boondocks, Lieutenant Breckenridge arranged it so that the chow truck wouldn’t arrive for lunch and the men wouldn’t get anything to eat. They’d train the entire afternoon and often a good portion of the evening on empty stomachs, so they’d get used to actual combat conditions, because chow trucks often couldn’t make it to the front lines, and sometimes the men ran out of C rations.

  If the chow truck did arrive, Lieutenant Breckenridge made each of his men do thirty push-ups before he could get into the chow line. If they happened to be back at the post during chow time, each man had to do twenty pull-ups, touching the back of his neck to the steel bar, before he could get into the mess hall.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge took his men into the jungles of Oahu at night, when other soldiers were sleeping in their clean cots, with the roofs of barracks over their heads. Lieutenant Breckenridge led his men on complex reconnaissance patrols similar to the ones they’d gone on in actual combat on Bougainville and New Georgia. Sometimes they stayed out all night. Occasionally they stayed out three nights in a row, sleeping in the daytime in camouflaged holes with insects stinging them and furry little creatures crawling over them.

  They laid mine fields in the middle of the night and picked them up before the sun came up in the morning. Each man became proficient in map reading and compass usage. One night Lieutenant Breckenridge blindfolded his men and they were driven to a remote region of Oahu on the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck. They debarked from the truck, which then drove away. The blindfolds were removed and they had to get back to the post on their own. They had no C rations with them, only one canteen each of water, plus water purification pills. It took them two days to return to the post, and they were more dead than alive, but the jungle they’d passed through had no Japs in it, and they knew it would be very different when they arrived on New Guinea, where Japs would be waiting to ambush them.

  On Saturdays, after inspections, Lieutenant Breckenridge delivered his weekly troop-information-and-education lecture to his men, and he always spoke of the cruelty of the Japanese army, how they’d bayoneted babies and old ladies during the infamous Rape of Nanking, how they chopped off the heads of American pilots caught behind Japanese lines, how they tortured and maimed their prisoners and pulled out their fingernails for fun.

  Under normal conditions the men would receive overnight passes after their Saturday inspections and troop-information-and-education lectures—and indeed, this is what occurred in most units of the Eighty-first Division, but not in the recon platoon. Lieutenant Breckenridge canceled all weekend passes and furloughs, and the men were confined to the post. They could go to movie theaters and beer halls on the post, but that was all. Lieutenant Breckenridge didn’t want to take any more chances with AWOLs. He never got around to calling Nurse Latham again, because he was too busy.

  It was worse than boot camp for the recon platoon. The days melted together into an agony of endless training, inspections, and chickenshit. Lieutenant Breckenridge was harsh with them, but they knew Sergeant Butsko would be even harsher if he were around. The men became angry, and Lieutenant Breckenridge skillfully directed their anger at the Japs. Day in and day out they trained, except for Saturday afternoons and Sundays; but on one weekend they continued to train, and that made them even angrier.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge hammered them into tiptop physical condition, reacquainting them with basic military skills and forging their emotions into a white-hot molten edge of rage. After three weeks of training, the men were like time bombs waiting to go off. They knew they’d ship out soon, and everybody tried, through every nefarious method available, to determine the actual date of their departure; but that date was kept a secret from them, as was the exact location where they’d hit the beach on New Guinea.

  . . .

  Even General Clyde Hawkins didn’t know when and where the Eighty-first Division was going, and he fretted like the rest of his men, trying to figure it out.

  He spent hours poring over maps of New Guinea, trying to pick out likely places for the landing. He’d already been told it would be somewhere west of Hollandia, and he knew General MacArthur wanted airfields from which he could bomb the Philippines, in preparation for the big assault on that vast island complex. General MacArthur had vowed to return to the Philippines, and everybody, even the Japs, knew he was headed in that direction.

  General Clyde Hawkins could pinpoint several likely objectives for his division, but he knew he might be completely wrong, because his mind didn’t function the way General MacArthur’s did. General MacArthur had originated a new form of warfare when he captured Hollandia and Aitape. He’d attacked unlikely objectives, lightly held, and taken them easily, at minimal cost in American lives. How could anyone guess where he’d go next? General Hawkins had a conventional military mind, and his tendency would be to attack the Japs where they were instead of where they weren’t.

  On his map of New Guinea he could see that the towns of Armopa and Sarmi would be important military objectives
, but would they be important to General MacArthur? The Japs had major bases on Monokwari and Sorong on the Vogelkop Peninsula, and they’d have to be dealt with in some way. But perhaps General MacArthur would want to starve them out the way he was starving out the biggest Japanese base in the south-west Pacific: Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. Also, the islands of Wakde, Numfoor, and Biak would have strategic significance in the fight to take New Guinea.

  On some days General Hawkins went out into the field with his men, but when he was in his office he studied his maps and tried to figure out where he and his men would be sent. Every passing day brought him closer to embarkation, and his nerves began to frazzle.

  He read about the massive assault on Normandy, in France, by the armies of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada, and knew that a titanic struggle was being waged there for Europe, under the leadership of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, formerly one of General MacArthur’s staff officers in Manila during the thirties. The eyes of the world were on Europe, and General Hawkins knew that the war in the Pacific was on the back burner, because the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington had decided that Europe was the most important objective of the war.

  Then, on the tenth of June, a top-secret message arrived at General Hawkins’s headquarters, for his eyes only. It was hand-delivered by a colonel named Drayton from the headquarters of Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, commander of the US Sixth Army, code-named the Alamo Force. Although he was tempted to tear the envelope apart to get at the news, General Hawkins opened it slowly and deliberately, because he didn’t want to look like a fool to the colonel.

  The message was simple and to the point: General Hawkins and his chief of staff were to report to General Krueger’s headquarters on Hollandia on June 14 at 1400 hours. Reading between the lines, General Hawkins knew that he’d receive the orders for himself and his division from the horse’s mouth at mat time.

  General Hawkins was poker-faced as he looked up from the document at Colonel Drayton. “I’ll have one of my aides make a room available for you at the BOQ,” he said.

  “Thank you,” replied Colonel Drayton.

  General Hawkins picked up his phone and told Sergeant Somerall to send Lieutenant Utsler to his office immediately. Lieutenant Utsler knocked on the door approximately forty-five seconds after General Hawkins hung up the phone. General Hawkins told Lieutenant Utsler to take care of Colonel Drayton, and Colonel Drayton left with Lieutenant Utsler for the BOQ. General Hawkins then ordered General MacWhitter, his chief of staff, to come to his office. When General MacWhitter arrived, General Hawkins told him they were to report to General Krueger at Alamo Force headquarters on Hollandia on June 14.

  General MacWhitter was tall and skinny, and his tan uniform fit him like pajamas. “I guess all our questions will be answered then, eh?” he said.

  “I believe so,” General Hawkins replied.

  General MacWhitter returned to his office and told his aide, Lieutenant Racke, to make the necessary flight arrangements for him and General Hawkins. Lieutenant Racke in turn delegated the task to Technical Sergeant First Class Dumbrowski, and when Sergeant Dumbrowski called the Air Corps liaison to requisition the plane, his clerk, Pfc. Snelling, overheard every word of the conversation.

  Within two hours everybody in the Eighty-first Division, from the generals and colonels in their headquarters to the buck privates on KP in the mess halls, knew that the move to New Guinea was imminent, and that General Hawkins and General MacWhitter were going to Hollandia on the fourteenth to get the final word.

  General Hawkins and General MacWhitter departed from Clark Airfield on the morning of the thirteenth on an Army Air Corps transport plane, and stopped on Howland Island for refueling early in the afternoon. They resumed their flight and arrived at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal that evening, where they dined at the officers’ mess and spent the night in a wooden shack.

  The next morning at six o’clock their plane took off for Hollandia and arrived at noon. They went first to the officers’ mess for lunch, then made their way to the building where General Krueger’s office was located.

  All the buildings in the area had been recently constructed by Army Engineers from shingle and prefabricated beaverboard components. General MacArthur had designated Hollandia as the site of his new forward headquarters, and the largest structure, made of three prefabricated buildings joined together, would be his residence.

  It was in a spectacular spot, on the slope of mountain that overlooked the sparkling blue waters of Lake Sentani. Tiny islands with houses on stilts were sprinkled across the lake, and the entire area was surrounded by mountains and jungles. General MacArthur’s bungalow was being painted white, and the soldiers were already referring to it as “Dugout Doug’s White House.”

  Major General Hawkins and General MacWhitter presented themselves at Lieutenant General Krueger’s office at a few minutes before 1400 hours, and were ushered inside. As they marched to the desk in order to salute and report formally, they saw Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger seated on a chair to the side of the desk. Although General Eichelberger held the same rank as General Krueger, the former was subordinate to the latter. General Eichelberger was in command of the US I Corps, code-named the Reckless Task Force.

  General Hawkins and General MacWhitter saluted and reported, and although they were generals themselves, they were small potatoes compared to General Krueger and General Eichelberger, who were the ranking officers in the US Army in the South Pacific, under General MacArthur.

  General Krueger was fifty-three years old, slender, with gray hair. He had been born in Flatow, West Prussia, and had a distinct Germanic appearance, although his manner was one hundred percent American. He and his family had emigrated when he was eight years old. He was reputed to be an expert on discipline and training.

  General Eichelberger was also of a Germanic background, but he’d been born in Ohio and had attended Ohio State University before transferring to West Point. Like General Krueger, he was lean and gray, but he was shorter than General Krueger and five years younger. He had large ears and a big hooked nose that made him look like a buzzard.

  General MacArthur planned overall strategy in the South Pacific, while General Krueger and General Eichelberger worked out the specifics. Their responsibilities and achievements were equal to those of General Omar Bradley, General Courtney Hodges, and General George S. Patton in the European Theater, but the American people barely knew of General Krueger and General Eichelberger.

  The reason was that all news information about the US Army in the South Pacific emanated from the headquarters of General MacArthur, and the names of General Krueger and General Eichelberger were seldom mentioned prominently in communiqué’s, in contrast to the headquarters of General Eisenhower, who gave credit where credit was due.

  “Have a seat,” said General Krueger.

  General Hawkins and General MacWhitter sat. Through the window behind General Krueger’s head they could see a waterfall near the crest of a mountain in the distance.

  “How was your trip?” asked General Krueger in a genial tone of voice.

  “Uneventful,” replied General Hawkins.

  “Those are the best kind.”

  “Indeed they are.”

  “I imagine you’re a little tired.”

  “A little.”

  “Care for some iced tea?”

  “If you please.”

  General Krueger picked up his telephone and mumbled into it, then hung up. “How’s the fighting Eighty-first Division these days?” he asked with a smile.

  “Ready to go,” replied General Hawkins.

  “Where do you think you’re going to go?”

  “I’d guess someplace on the Vogelkop Peninsula.”

  “That would’ve been a good guess six weeks or even a month ago,” General Krueger said, “but the situation has changed somewhat since then. The Eighty-first won’t be landing west of here at all. You’ll be landing ea
st of here.”

  This news took General Hawkins completely by surprise, and he glanced at General MacWhitter, because all their conjecture had been about possible beachheads west of Hollandia, which would be possible jump-off spots for landings in the Philippines.

  General Eichelberger chuckled. “You look surprised.”

  “I am surprised,” General Hawkins replied. “I thought all the ground east of here was pretty well secured.”

  “Well,” said General Eichelberger, “in a way it is, and in another way it isn’t. When we leapfrogged ahead to Aitape and Hollandia, we left a lot of Japs behind us, as you’re probably aware.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied General Hawkins. “I believe the entire Japanese Eighteenth Army is somewhere between Aitape and the Huon Peninsula.”

  “That’s right,” said General Eichelberger. ‘To be more specific, the Jap Twentieth Division and Fortieth Division is at Madang, and their Fifty-first Division is believed to be in the vicinity of Wewak.”

  “Uh-oh,” said General Hawkins.

  “I think you’re starting to get the picture,” General Eichelberger replied with a smile.

  “They’re moving west toward Aitape?” asked General Hawkins.

  “You got it,” replied General Eichelberger. “We might have bypassed the Jap Eighteenth Army, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there anymore and that they’re not still looking for trouble.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” said General Krueger.

  A soldier entered the office, carrying a tray with four tall, frosty glasses of iced tea. He served them and departed, closing the door softly behind him. The generals paused in their discussion and sipped the tea, which had a bright leafy taste, was sweetened with sugar, and was stacked with ice cubes. The office was hot, and the glasses became covered with tiny drops of condensation that grew and merged, dripping onto the hands of the generals. General Hawkins’s mind was processing the information General Krueger and General Eichelberger had just given him. He deduced that the Eighty-first Division would land somewhere east of Aitape, to stop the attack that was coming from the direction of Wewak.