W E B Griffin - Corp 03 - Counterattack

by Counterattack(Lit)

  The Officer of the Guard was a first lieutenant; Pickering thought he looked like a regular. The Officer of the Guard sa-luted.

  "Good afternoon, Sir. May I help you?"

  "My name is Pickering, Lieutenant. This lady is my wife. The other lady is Mrs. Feller, who is to board the... the President Fillmore. I don't want to leave my wife here at the gate while I take Mrs. Feller aboard."

  "No problem at all, Sir," the Lieutenant said. "If you'll just follow me in the pickup."

  Pickering looked at the sergeant who had denied him access.

  "Sergeant, when I was a Marine corporal, there was a saying that `a Marine on guard duty has no friends.' Do they still say that?"

  "Yes, Sir, they do."

  "Your sergeant, Lieutenant, was the soul of tact," Pickering said.

  "I'm glad to hear that, Sir. If you'll just follow me, Sir?"

  The little convoy moved out.

  In the Cadillac, Patricia Foster Pickering said, "What was that all about?"

  "That sergeant was just doing his duty. I didn't want to get him in trouble."

  "Why should he?"

  "The Lieutenant obviously knows who I am," Pickering said.

  "Who you are? What a monumental ego! Am I missing some-thing? Who are you?"

  "I mean that I work for Frank Knox. We're in, aren't we? And what does ego have to do with it?"

  In the cab of the pickup, the Marine Lieutenant said to the driver, "Take us down to the Millard Fillmore."

  "That's that great big civilian liner, Sir?"

  "Yeah. They used to call it the Pacific Princess. As soon as I take that Captain up the gangplank, you find a telephone, call the Officer of the Day, and tell him that Captain Pickering just came into the yard, and that I'm escorting him aboard the Millard Fillmore. You get that name?"

  "Yes, Sir. Pickering. Who is he?"

  "He works for the Secretary of the Navy. He's got the brass scared shitless. He showed up here yesterday for a private con-ference with the Admiral, after which the Admiral thought Pickering was going back to Washington. But he didn't. He wasn't on the courier plane. They passed the word that the Ad-miral was to be notified the moment anybody saw him any-where."

  The pickup truck driver drove as close as he could to the great ship, and then stopped. The Lieutenant got out and walked to the Cadillac.

  "This is as close as we can get, Sir. If you'll wait a moment, I'll get someone to carry the lady's luggage."

  "I'm not too old to carry a couple of suitcases," Pickering said.

  "Sir, they frown on officers, particular senior ones, carrying luggage."

  "Oh, hell. OK- Go get someone, then."

  "Aye, aye, Sir."

  Pickering got out from behind the wheel, walked to the edge of the wharf, and looked up at the stern of the ship. Her once-glistening white hull was now a flat Navy gray, president millard G. fillmore was painted in enormous letters across her stern. But if you looked closely, you could see where the raised lettering pacific princess san Francisco had been painted over.

  Her superstructure was still mostly white, although her fun-nels were also in Navy gray, probably so that the Pacific & Far Eastern logo on them could be obliterated. Pickering had learned from the Admiral the day before that they were carrying a work crew aboard in order to finish the painting and to make other modifications under way. Shipping space was so tight they could not afford to take her out of service for modifications any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  What I should be doing is standing on her bridge, preparing to take her to sea, not functioning as a make-believe Naval officer and high-class errand boy for Frank Knox.

  "It's sad, seeing her in gray," Patricia said softly, at his elbow.

  "It has to be done, I suppose," he said. "Anyway, she's now the Navy's. Not ours."

  (Six)

  One by one, the umbilicals that tied the President Millard G. Fillmore to the dock were cut. Finally, only one gangplank re-mained, and there seemed to be no activity on that.

  From the boat deck, Ensign Barbara Cotter, NC, USNR, looked down at the small crowd of people on the dock. Ernie Sage was there, and her Ken McCoy, and Joe. They had waved excitedly at each other when Barbara had found a place for her-self at the rail. But that was forty-five minutes ago; now they just forced smiles and made little waves at each other.

  Finally, three people appeared on the single remaining gang-way, a Marine officer, a Navy captain, and a civilian woman.

  "Oh, my God!" Ernie Sage said. "Ken, that's Pick's father and mother."

  "Where?" McCoy asked.

  "The Navy guy and the woman coming down the gangway."

  "You want me to get their attention, or what?"

  "No!"

  "I know them. I met them when we graduated from Quantico."

  "If they see me here, Aunt Pat would feel obliged to tell my mother," Ernie said.

  "Just where do you think your mother thinks you are? She doesn't know what you're doing?" McCoy said.

  "Will you just leave it, please?"

  Right in front of them, two sailors pulled an enormous hawser free of a hawser stand, and it began to rise up along the steep side of the ship.

  Joe Howard looked down the dock. Nothing now held the President Millard G. Fillmore to the shore.

  "It's moving," Ernie said.

  A rather small Navy band began to play "Anchors Aweigh."

  The President Millard G. Fillmore was an enormous ship and difficult to get into motion. When the band finished "Anchors Aweigh" and segued into "The Marine Hymn" there were only a few feet of water between the ship and the dock. Then, in defer-ence to a battalion of U.S. Army Engineers aboard, the band played "The Caissons Go Rolling Along." By the time that was finished, twenty feet of water separated the shore and the ship.

  Then the ship added the power of her engines to that of the tugs; there was a swirl of water at her stern, and her stern moved farther away from the dock.

  The band began to play "Auld Lang Syne."

  Barbara Cotter and Joe Howard waved bravely at each other.

  "You OK, Joe?" Ken McCoy asked.

  "This is not the way it's supposed to be," Joe Howard said. "I'm the goddamned Marine, and here I am on the goddamned shore, waving good-bye as my girlfriend goes overseas."

  The band stopped playing; and to the ticking of drumsticks on drum rims, they marched off toward a Navy-gray bus.

  First Lieutenant Joe Howard walked to the end of the dock and stood there watching until the President Millard G. Fillmore sailed out of sight.

  (Seven)

  Top secret

  Eyes Only-The Secretary of the Navy

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYP-TION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY

  Melbourne, Australia

  Saturday, 21 March 1942

  Dear Frank:

  Despite a nearly overwhelming feeling that this should be addressed "Dear Mr. Secretary, " I am complying with your or-ders to write this in the form of a per-sonal letter; to include my opinions as well as the facts as I understand them; and to presume that I am your sole source of information regarding what is going on in this area of the world.

  This is written in my apartment in the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, which I was able to get through the good offices of our (Pacific & Far East) agent here. It is my intention to deliver it, triply sealed, into the hands of the Captain of the USS John B. Lester, a destroyer which put in here for emergency repairs (now just about completed), and that is bound directly for Pearl Harbor. Using my let-ter of authority from you, I will direct Captain (Lt. Commander) K. L. White to deliver it into the hands of Mrs. Feller, or, if for some reason that is impossi-ble, to burn it.

  His willingness to comply with those orders, it seems to me, depends on whether he accepts your letter of author-ity at face value. The whipping we have taken so far seems to me to have produced a lack of confidence here-perhaps even an aura of defeatism. What I`m sugges
ting is that he may decide either to throw this whole thing away or to open it, or to do something other than what I am ordering him to do. Ellen Feller-if she gets this-will be able to determine whether or not it has been opened. I would very much appreciate your advising me of the receipt of this, including when, and to tell me if this is the sort of thing you would like to have me continue to do.

  Obviously, I did not get into the Phil-ippines. Haughton's message that MacArthur had been ordered to leave Corregi-dor was waiting for me when I arrived in San Francisco from San Diego on March 10. I left the next morning for Hawaii aboard a Navy Martin Mariner. At CINCPAC, I was told that the only way into the Philip-pines, either Corregidor or Mindanao, would be by submarine. I had just missed the Permit, which was scheduled to be at Corregidor on the 13th, and another "cou-rier" submarine was not scheduled.

  I could not have reached Corregidor, in other words, until after MacArthur was gone. And it was made clear to me that it would be very difficult to leave the Philippines once I got there. Under those circumstances, I decided not to go. I visited the Special Detachment and told the commanding officer of your special orders to Mrs. Feller. He was very coop-erative, and I feel there will be no prob-lems with him.

  The next morning, I left Hickam Field, TH, aboard an Army Air Corps B-17 , one of a flight of four en route from Seattle to Vice Admiral Herbert F. Leary's command in Australia. We arrived without inci-dent early on March 13.

  I presented myself to Admiral Leary and showed him my letter of authority from you. He was obviously torn between annoy-ance at having someone from Washington looking over his shoulder and a hope that perhaps I could convince "those people in Washington" of the terrible shape things are in here.

  The only bright light in the whole area, he said, was that elements of Task Force 6814, including some Engineer troops, had the day before landed on Efate Is-land. If Admiral King's order to recap-ture Rabaul as soon as possible can be carried out at all, it is essential for them to construct an air base on the is-land. I sensed that Leary is not overly confident that the Army can build such a field in a short time.

  Leary also told me that a radio message had come from Corregidor reporting that MacArthur, his wife, and small son, to-gether with President Quezon and some others, had left Corregidor at sunset, March 11, bound for Mindanao. They were aboard four PT boats; and there had been no report on them since then. Leary said he was not yet concerned; the boats were under the command of a Lieutenant Buck-ley, whom he knows, and considers an extraordinarily competent officer.

  He was far more concerned to learn that the Japanese have occupied the island of Buka, 170 miles southeast of Rabaul, and that aerial reconnaissance has shown them unloading the engineer equipment for building an airfield.

  While I was in his office, he and I learned that MacArthur and his people had turned up safe. A radio came from General Sharp's headquarters on Mindanao re-porting that "the shipment was received" but that it would "require some mainte-nance." Leary and I decided (correctly, it turned out) that this meant the trip had been rough on MacArthur and/or Quezon and/or the others. MacArthur is, after all, sixty-two, Quezon is even older, and they had just completed a long voyage in small boats across rough seas.

  At this point Major General George S. Brett, the senior Army Air Corps officer here, entered the picture. Brett wanted Leary to dispatch four B-17s to Mindanao to pick up the MacArthur party and bring them here. Leary refused, citing as his reasons that the four planes had just flown from the United States and required maintenance; and that in any event, he needed them for operational use. He had just learned that the 20,000-odd Dutch troops on Java had surrendered, and in his opinion that had removed the last ob-stacle the Japanese had to overcome be-fore invading Australia. He could not spare heavy bombers to carry passengers, no matter how important the passengers.

  I was privy to this conversation. I think Leary knew what Brett wanted of him, and wanted me to hear it so that it would be reported to you.

  Brett was highly upset. Part of it, I think, was that he placed more importance on getting the MacArthur party out of Mindanao than Leary does; and part of it was the humiliation an Air Corps officer felt about asking a Navy officer for Army Air Corps airplanes, and then getting re-fused. Anyway, Brett stormed out, prom-ising that the President would hear about this and make it right. Leary said he did not see the need for immediate action; Sharp has 30,000 effective troops, and Mindanao is not in immediate danger of being overrun. The MacArthur party, he feels, can be safely taken off by subma-rine. I was prone to agree with Leary.

  Brett came back shortly afterward, say-ing that he had learned of a B-17 that was available. Leary was already aware of it; it was an early model, old and worn, and he could not guarantee how safe it was. Brett insisted, and Leary gave in.

  The plan was for MacArthur and party to be flown in the B-17 from Mindanao to Dar-win, which is on the northern coast of Australia. There they would transfer to two civilian DC-3s Brett chartered from the Australian airlines and fly across the continent to Melbourne. General Brett graciously allowed me to fly to Darwin on one of the civilian airplanes.

  We expected to find the MacArthur party waiting for us at Darwin. But on landing we learned that MacArthur had inspected the B-17 sent to pick him up, and had re-fused to fly in it. The airplane then re-turned to Australia without passengers.

  Brett shortly afterward learned that Leary had changed his mind about the newer B-17s, and three of the four took off to get MacArthur. One of them had to turn back when it developed engine trou-ble over the Australian desert; the other two made it to Mindanao just before mid-night on Monday (March 16). (These de-tails from Lt. Frank Bostrom, Army Air Corps, who was the senior pilot, and who flew MacA's airplane.)

  An engine supercharger on one of Bos-trom1 s engines went out en route. He could have made it back without having it repaired, but it would have lowered his weight-carrying ability and caused other problems I don't really under-stand. He managed to get it repaired, however, which meant that he and the other B-17 could carry all of the Mac-Arthur party (but none of their luggage).

  But then another of Bostrom's engines acted up during takeoff, and he was re-ally afraid he couldn't get the airplane off the ground. In the end, though, he managed it. After that, it was a five-hour flight to Darwin-about the same distance as from New Orleans to Bos-ton-and there was violent turbulence en route. Nothing had been done to convert the airplanes from their bombing role. Mrs. MacArthur and the boy had the only "upholstery," a mattress laid on the cabin floor. MacArthur rode in the radio operator' s seat.

  Along with his immediate family, the general brought his staff out with him, none of whom, frankly, I care for- although MacArthur feels they are to a man superb officers. To me they're more like the dukes who used to surround a king.

  As soon as they were able to establish radio contact with Darwin, they were in-formed that Darwin was under Japanese air attack and that they should divert to Batchelor Field, which is about fifty miles away. I was already there with the two Air Australia DC-3s, when they landed about nine in the morning (Tues., Mar 17 ). A good deal of what follows may well be unimportant-certainly, some of it is petty-but you wanted my opinion of Mac-Arthur, his thinking, and the people around him.

  He seemed very disturbed to find on hand to greet him only Brigadier Royce (who had been on the Air Australia plane with me), representing General Brett. For good cause, certainly, he looked ex-hausted.

  I told his aide, a man named Huff, that I was your personal representative, and that I wished to pay my respects to MacArthur and ask him for his evaluation of the situation so that I could pass it on to you. Huff made it plain that MacArthur was entitled to a far more senior Navy of-ficer than a lowly captain. He also felt that I had seriously violated military protocol by not presenting myself to Ad-miral Rockwell before daring to approach the throne of King Douglas. Rockwell was the former senior Navy officer in the Philippines, and he came in on the second B-17.


  Admiral Rockwell was displeased with me, too, and you may hear about that. There was a scene that in other circum-stances would have been humorous, during which he kept demanding to know who was my immediate superior, to which I kept an-swering "Secretary Knox," to which he kept replying, ad infinitum, "You' re not listening to me. I mean your immediate superior. During all this, he simply re-fused to look at my letter of authority from you until I answered the simple question of who was my immediate supe-rior.

  This little farce came to an end when Mrs. MacArthur recognized me. Not as a Naval officer, but as my wife`s husband. Apparently, they had met in Manila, and Mrs. MacA. regards Patricia as a friend. Or at least a social peer. She told her husband of my connection with Pacific & Far East, and I was permitted to approach the throne.