Behind the Lines
Page 33
“Where is he?”
“Not here, Sir. He took a patrol out toward Bunawan.”
“And won’t be back,” Fertig said, chagrined that he had forgotten he had ordered the patrol himself, “until when? Day after tomorrow?”
“No, Sir,” Buchanan said. “Not until Friday. Twenty-seven November. If everything goes well.”
“Can we send a runner after him?” Fertig wondered aloud.
“Yes, Sir, we could,” Buchanan said, his tone making it perfectly clear he thought this would be ill-advised.
“OK, where are we?” Fertig asked. “It is your opinion, gentlemen, that we need a code based on a name which might be that of a first sergeant in the Fourth Marines, and that name might, just might, be known to Lieutenant Everly? Because he served with the Fourth Marines?”
“What about the other Marines?” Lieutenant Ball asked.
“They’re with Everly,” Buchanan said.
“Damn!” Fertig said.
He exhaled audibly, then bent over the rattan table and wrote out the reply of Headquarters, USFIP, to the message from Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA. He wrote using very small letters. When the four reams of typewriter paper from the Manuel Quezon elementary school were exhausted, he had no idea where they were going to get more.
MFS TO GYB
REGRET TACTICAL OPERATIONS PRECLUDE RESPONSE
TO YOUR 24 NOVEMBER MESSAGE PRIOR TO 27
NOVEMBER
COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN OUR HEADQUARTERS WOULD BE GREATLY FACILITATED IF SUPPLY OF TYPEWRITER RIBBONS COULD BE INCLUDED IN NEXT WHICH OF COURSE WOULD BE FIRST SUPPLY SHIPMENT
END
FERTIG BRIG GEN COMMANDING
[FOUR]
Signal Section
Office of the Military Governor for Mindanao
Cagayan de Oro, Misamis-Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
1305 Hours 25 November 1942
Lieutenant Hideyori rose from behind his desk and bowed as Captain Matsuo Saikaku walked in.
“I would have been happy, Sir, to have brought this to your office.”
“Not a problem, Hideyori. This was quicker. I have my Lincoln V-12, you know.”
“I called as soon as the decryption came in from Signals Intelligence, Sir,” Hideyori said, handing Saikaku a single sheet of paper. “GYB, Sir, is the call sign, one of the call signs of American Headquarters in Australia.”
“Yes, so you have told me,” Saikaku said, somewhat impatiently.
GYB TO MFS
USING FULL REPEAT FULL NAME OF FIRST DOG BAKER FOURTH REPEAT BAKER FOURTH SEND LAST REPEAT LAST NAME MOTOR SERGEANT MISSIONARY RESCUE CONVOY
GYB STANDING BY
MFS TO GYB
REGRET TACTICAL OPERATIONS PRECLUDE RESPONSE TO YOUR 24 NOVEMBER MESSAGE PRIOR TO 27 NOVEMBER
COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN OUR HEADQUARTERS WOULD BE GREATLY FACILITATED IF SUPPLY OF TYPEWRITER RIBBONS COULD BE INCLUDED IN NEXT WHICH OF COURSE WOULD BE FIRST SUPPLY SHIPMENT
END
FERTIG BRIG GEN COMMANDING
After reading both messages, he asked, “Presumably, this copy is for me?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Did Signals Intelligence offer anything that would make sense of this?”
“No, Sir,” Hideyori replied. “All they offered in amplification was that this was encrypted on the same U.S. Army device.”
“Has there been anything else?”
“No, Sir.”
“Make sure your operators are especially alert on 27 November, Hideyori, for Fertig’s reply.”
“Yes, Sir. I will.”
“And call me, no matter the hour, if there are any developments at all.”
“Yes, Sir, I will.”
Captain Saikaku got back in his Lincoln and drove to the house behind the wall.
The sergeant and his young Filipino friend were sitting side by side eating a pineapple on their bed—a mattress laid against the wall. They both looked at him with fear in their eyes as they jumped to their feet. As they had been taught to do, they bowed to him from the waist.
“I am having some slight difficulty with American vernacular,” Captain Saikaku announced. “Perhaps you will be good enough to assist me.”
“Yes, Sir. Of course.”
“What does the phrase ‘baker fourth’ mean?”
In the fear in the sergeant’s eyes, Saikaku read his answer before he gave it.
“I don’t think I know, Sir.”
“What about ‘First Dog’?”
The sergeant’s eyes again showed fear and incomprehension.
“I don’t know, Sir.”
“That is unfortunate,” Saikaku said. “I thought you were beginning to understand the benefits of cooperation with me.”
“Captain, maybe if you showed me that,” the sergeant said.
Saikaku carefully creased off the upper portion of the page and then carefully tore it off.
Now there was a sign of relief in the sergeant’s eyes.
“I think I know what this means,” he said. “They sometimes call the first sergeant of a company First Dog.”
“The first sergeant? The senior noncommissioned officer?”
“Yes, Sir. Sometimes that’s what they are called.”
“Is it disrespectful?”
“Yes, Sir, it is. And baker fourth probably means Baker Company, B Company of the Fourth Something.”
“Fourth something?”
“Some kind of a battalion, Sir. Like the 4th Signal Battalion, or the 4th Quartermaster Battalion.”
“Were there such units here?”
The fear returned to the sergeant’s eyes.
“I don’t remember, Sir.”
“You don’t remember, or you don’t want to tell me?”
“If I knew I would tell you, Sir.”
“Can you help me with the second part of the message? Were you familiar with any missionary rescue mission?”
“No, Sir. I saw that, Sir, and thought about it. I was in Personnel, Sir. I wouldn’t know about things like that. That would be considered an operation, Sir, and Personnel never gets involved.”
“I know people, Sergeant, who enjoy playing with your friend. Sometimes, when you have been cooperative, I am motivated to discourage them.”
“I’m being as cooperative as I can, Sir, I really am.” He looks, Captain Saikaku thought, as if he is about to weep. He is an utterly despicable parody of a man.
“I don’t know how I feel about you right now,” Saikaku said. “Whether you are being cooperative or not. I will have to think about it.”
He turned and walked out of the bedroom. He thought he would order the Filipino deviate to be beaten, but decided against it. The fear of a beating, he decided, would probably be more useful than another beating.
He returned to his office and told his sergeant to search through the index of captured American documents and prepare a list of every American or Filipino Army unit designated by the Arabic numeral 4.
[FIVE]
TOP SECRET
HQ USMC WASHINGTON
SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA
EYES ONLY BRIG GEN F.W. PICKERING, USMCR
0705 25 NOVEMBER 1942
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL
(1) PERCY LEWIS EVERLY FOURTH MARINES WORKED FOR ME SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE FROM CHINA OF SESSIONS MCCOY AND ZIMMERMAN.
(2) EVERLY’S HOMETOWN ZANESVILLE WEST VIRGINIA. SERGEANT JOHN V. CASEY DISPATCHED ZANESVILLE IMMEDIATELY ON RECEIPT YOUR MESSAGE TO DEVELOP FURTHER BIOGRAPHIC DETAILS.
(3) BELIEVE EVERLY WILL REMEMBER MAIDEN NAME OF MY WIFE, LUDMILLA ZHIVKOV.
(4) TRYING TO RECALL FROM MEMORY NAME EVERLY‘S CHINESE WIFE.
(5) REGRET SPARSENESS OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE. MORE WILL FOLLOW AS DEVELOPED.
BANNING, MAJ USMC
TOP SECRET
[SIX]
Brisbane, Australia
0715 Hours 26 November 1942
Captain Robert B. Macklin, USMC, was rather pleased that things had turned out as they did, even if it meant his arrival in Brisbane was delayed an additional twenty-four hours.
At Hickam Field, Major Brownlee succeeded in finding space for himself aboard a B-17, one of a flight of seven bound for Australia via Midway Island. But that was only possible because one of the plane’s crewmen was taken unexpectedly ill, and the decision was made to continue without him.
There was no space for Macklin, which meant that after he saw Major Brownlee off, he returned to Pearl Harbor and a very nice steak dinner at the Pearl Harbor Officers’ Club and a comfortable bed in the BOQ.
When he reported the next morning to the Pearl Harbor Naval Air Transport Passenger Terminal, Lieutenant (j.g.) L. B. Cavanaugh, the Officer in Charge Passenger Seat Assignment, told him there would be an additional delay. The plane on which he was scheduled to fly to Brisbane, Cavanaugh explained, had encountered some really bad weather on the way into Pearl Harbor from Midway. It had been temporarily removed from service so that the amount of damage, if any, it had suffered could be ascertained and if necessary repaired.
The entire passenger roster was therefore set back twenty-four hours, Cavanaugh said. That meant a day on the beach, and another dinner at the Officers’ Club—a luau, complete to whole roasted pig—and another night in a comfortable BOQ bed. The only thing wrong with the evening was that the Navy nurse he met at the bar almost laughed at him when he suggested they go to his BOQ—after letting him charm her and feed her drinks for hours, teasing him, rubbing her body against him while they danced.
The next morning, the damage, if any, was apparently repaired, and the Coronado took off on schedule. The seat wasn’t all that comfortable, but it was certainly more comfortable than anything the B-17 Flying Fortress had offered Major Brownlee, and the flight was as pleasant as could be. After hearing what had happened two days before to the in-bound Coronado, he had worried about the weather; but there was none. The Pacific was really pacific, with hardly a cloud in the sky on both legs-Hawaii-Midway, and Midway—Brisbane.
After the whaleboats transported them from the seaplane to the quai, and he climbed the stone stairs set in the face of the quai, he was met by a Marine staff sergeant.
He looked like a child, and Macklin wondered what fool of a commanding officer had agreed to his promotion.
“Captain Macklin?” the boy-faced sergeant asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Staff Sergeant Koffler, Sir. If you’ll point out your gear to me, I’ll get it.”
“The two bags with my name on them on the steps. Make sure they don’t get away from you.”
“No sweat, Sir. The Major’s over there, Sir,” Koffler said, and pointed.
“What did you say, Sergeant?”
“I said the Major’s over there, Sir. In the Studebaker.”
“I meant before that. Did you really say ‘no sweat’ to me?”
“Yes, Sir, I guess I did.”
“The correct response to an order, Sergeant, is ‘Aye, aye, Sir.’ ”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Koffler said.
He looked amused.
“Did I say something amusing, Sergeant?”
“No, Sir.”
“Then wipe that smile off your face.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
As he approached the Studebaker, a very large Oriental—the largest Macklin could ever remember seeing—in the uniform of an Army Signal Corps major, stepped out of the front passenger seat.
Macklin saluted. The Major made a vague gesture toward his head that only generously could be interpreted as a salute.
“You must be Macklin,” the Major said, in a heavy Bostonian accent.
“I am Captain Macklin. May ...”
“Where’s the Major?”
“Excuse me?”
"Where is Major Brownlee?”
“You mean he’s not here?”
“If he was here, Captain, I wouldn’t have asked where he is,” Pluto replied.
“Sir, may I ask who you are?”
“My name is Hon,” Pluto said. “Have you any idea, Captain, where Major Brownlee is?”
“With all respect, Sir, I am on a classified mission, and until—”
“I know all about your mission, Captain,” Pluto cut him off. “And I asked you where Major Brownlee is.”
“Sir, Major Brownlee, to the best of my knowledge, should be in Australia. He was under orders to report to General Pickering.”
“Well, I don’t think he did, or General Pickering wouldn’t have sent me down here in his car to meet him. When was the last time you saw him?”
“In Hawaii, Sir. At Hickam Field. He obtained passage for himself on a Flying Fortress.”
“When was that?”
“Three days ago, Sir.”
“Before or after Sessions left?”
“Several hours afterward, Sir.”
Staff Sergeant Koffler, carrying Macklin’s luggage, walked up.
“Steve, how fast is a B-17 compared to a Coronado?” Pluto asked.
“About eighty miles an hour faster. Why do you want to know?”
“Major Brownlee left Hawaii on a B-17 a couple of hours after Sessions, and he’s not here yet.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Koffler said.
"I didn’t think so, either.”
My God, this Oriental major calls this sergeant by his first name, carries on a personal conversation with him, and seems blissfully oblivious to the fact that he hasn’t said "Sir” once to him.
“You are some sort of expert, are you, Sergeant, on aircraft?”
Koffler shrugged modestly.
“Oh, yeah,” Pluto said. “Steve is our resident expert. If it flies, he knows how fast and how far. And he’s also a pretty good radio operator.”
"Tell that to the General, please,” Koffler said.
“You’re not going, Steve,” Pluto said. “Give it up.” He turned to Macklin. “You might as well get in, Captain, since Brownlee’s not here.”
“My orders are to report to General Pickering,” Macklin said. “Would you take me to him, please?”
“My orders from General Pickering are to set you up in the SWPOA BOQ. When he wants to see you, he’ll send for you.”
TOP SECRET
FROM: SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SWPOA
0925 26NOV42
BY SPECIAL CHANNEL
TO: CINCPAC HAWAII
EYES ONLY—CINCPAC
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM BRIG GEN PICKERING TO ADM NIMITZ
DEAR ADMIRAL NIMITZ:
MAJOR JAMES C. BROWNLEE III USMC EN ROUTE USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 16 TO PARTICIPATE IN FERTIG OPERATION BELIEVED TO HAVE DEPARTED HICKAM FIELD AS SUPERCARGO ABOARD USARMY AIRCORPS B17 APPROXIMATELY 1830 21 NOVEMBER 1942 HAS NOT ARRIVED HERE.
REQUEST ANY AND ALL INFORMATION REGARDING THIS OFFICER’S LOCATION BE FURNISHED VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
RESPECTFULLY PICKERING
END PERSONAL FROM BRIG GEN PICKERING TO ADM NIMITZ
BY DIRECTION:
HON SON DO MAJ SIGC USA
TOP SECRET
[SEVEN]
Headquarters, U.S. Forces in the Philippines
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
0705 Hours 28 November 1942
Second Lieutenant Percy Lewis Everly, USFIP, walked down the dirt trail through the bush very slowly, followed by the other nine members of the patrol.
His loose-fitting dirty white cotton blouse and trousers—cut off at the knees—were sweat-soaked and filthy. His calves were bloody where they had been scratched by thorns; flies and other insects were feeding on the suppurating wounds.
He carried a Thomp
son .45 ACP submachine gun in his hand. The leather straps of three Japanese Arisaka rifles and their leather accoutrements crossed his chest.
Behind him came two Filipino soldiers, carrying between them what at first looked like a body suspended from a pole on their shoulders. It was not a body, but the tunic and trousers of a Japanese soldier, stripped from his body and pressed into use as makeshift bags. The tunic held two five-gallon tin cans of gasoline (a total weight of seventy pounds). In the trousers was an estimated fifty pounds of rice, twenty pounds of Japanese canned goods, perhaps ten or fifteen more pounds of ammunition for the Arisakas, and an even dozen grenades. The load bearers also carried U.S. Army Caliber .30-06 Enfield rifles.
Behind them came three more pairs of what Everly somewhat unkindly thought of as coolies—two more Filipinos and four Marines, also carrying captured food and equipment suspended in Japanese uniforms converted into bags.
How the slight Filipinos managed their loads, Everly had no idea. It seemed to be a matter of pride with them to carry at least as much as the Marines. Bringing up the rear was a Filipino making his painful way using a forked stick as a crutch. He had sprained—Everly suspected broken—his ankle in a fall just before they ambushed the Japanese vehicles. Somehow, he had managed to keep up with the others. They had been walking all night, in the light of a half-moon.