The Captains Page 23

  The LC-126 MacMillan had brought back from Alaska and which no one seemed to know about (officially or unofficially) was an ideal means to make his “visits,” and traveling in it could be performed without putting himself on orders.

  So General Black came to spend a good deal of time in MacMillan’s company, visiting the widespread activities of the basic training operation in the H23/CE and traveling to other posts and the supply depots in the LC-126. He learned a good deal about MacMillan that he hadn’t known before. General Black, as a colonel and then as a brigadier general, had commanded Combat Command B of the late Major General Peterson K. Waterford’s “Hell’s Circus” in Europe. He knew about Waterford’s son-in-law, Bob Bellmon, being a prisoner. MacMillan had been in the stalag with Bellmon; and at the time Porky Waterford had bought the farm (he had dropped dead playing polo, which everybody who knew him thought was the way Porky would have wanted to go out), MacMillan had been his aide-de-camp.

  In General Black’s opinion, MacMillan was not overendowed with brains, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut, and there was no question about his scrounging ability. They became, if not quite friends, then a good deal more like pals than a general and his dog robber normally are.

  MacArthur sent Ned Almond in with X Corps at Inchon, as brilliant a maneuver as General Black had ever seen. Walker had finally broken out from the Pusan perimeter, and in the first maneuver of General Walker’s that met General Black’s approval, had sent a flying column, a battalion-sized M46 force, racing around behind the enemy lines. It was a classic cavalry sweep, destroying the enemy’s lines of communication, keeping him off balance, and then finally linking up with X Corps.

  Almond and X Corps had been on the Yalu when the chinks came in. Black and MacMillan had been at the Lexington Signal Depot.

  Almond had pulled X Corps, with all its equipment, all of its wounded, and even its dead, off the beach at Hamhung on Christmas Eve, 1950, after the chinks had chewed up Eighth Army again. Black and MacMillan had spent Christmas Eve in the Prattville, Alabama, Holiday Inn, forced to land there by weather on the way home from a “visit” to the Anniston Ordnance Depot.

  Truman relieved MacArthur. General Black was really of two minds about that. MacArthur was right, of course. There is no substitute for victory. But Truman was right, too. Soldiers take orders, and they stay out of politics.

  In March 1951, General Black learned that MacMillan had not been using the third H23/CE as a source of “unobtainable” parts to keep the other two flying. When he thought about it, he realized that he should have known that if MacMillan could scrounge entire helicopters, he would have no trouble scrounging parts to keep them flying.

  On a Saturday afternoon, drinking a beer on the back porch of the general’s quarters after a basic training graduation parade (the general always felt bad watching the trainees march proudly past; in a month, a lot of those handsome, tanned, toughened young men would be dead), MacMillan said if the general didn’t have anything important to do on Sunday morning, say about 0900, he had something he wanted to show him.

  The general had absolutely nothing to do on Sunday morning.

  At exactly 0900, MacMillan fluttered down in the third H23/CE into the general’s backyard. There was something hooked up to the skids, and when the chopper was on the ground, the general saw that there was an air-cooled .30 caliber machine gun on the right skid, and four tied-together 3.5 inch rocket launchers on the left.

  “What the hell is all this, Mac?” General Black asked, but he got in the helicopter.

  “The cavalry rides again, General,” MacMillan said. “C Troop of the 7th Cavalry, Second Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer—that’s you—has just been ordered to check out a story that Sitting Bull is moving an armored column around the Little Big Horn River. You and your first sergeant, that’s me, 1st Sgt. John Wayne, ride out together.”

  “You’re starkers, MacMillan,” General Black said, but he was smiling.

  MacMillan picked up the H23/CE, not far, not more than fifty feet off the ground, and flying no more than ten feet over the top of the pine trees that covered the Polk reservation, flew out to the Distance Estimation Course.

  While located in the range area, the DEC was not a firing range. What it was was a field 1,000 yards long and 400 yards wide on which worn-out trucks and jeeps and even two ancient M3 tanks from War II had been scattered among pill boxes, foxholes, and trenches. Basic trainees were required to estimate how far away the various battlefield targets were from their positions.

  “Geronimo, Geronimo,” MacMillan’s voice came over the intercom. “This is Geronimo Forward. Enemy force consisting of three jeeps, three trucks, and two M3 tanks spotted 1,000 yards from Little Big Horn. Engaging.”

  “You’re in your in your second childhood, MacMillan. You know that?” General Black said.

  “Watch this,” MacMillan said. He zoomed low over the DEC, and came to a hover 200 yards from the M3 tank hulks. There was a sudden, frightening whoosh two feet below General Black’s feet, followed by an orange flash. A 3.5 inch rocket flashed away, and passed fifty feet over the M3.

  “Maggie’s Drawers, MacMillan,” the general said, making reference to the red flag waved on firing ranges to indicate a complete miss.

  “I haven’t had very much practice,” MacMillan said. “I had one hell of a time stealing these rockets from ordnance.”

  There was a second roar and a second burst of smoke.

  The 3.5 inch rocket hit the M3 hulk’s chassis. The hulk seemed to lift, just barely, off the ground, and then settle again. In the split second he had to look before MacMillan moved the helicopter, almost violently, to engage the second M3, General Black saw a cratered hole in the M3, right in front of the driver’s hatch. MacMillan hit the second M3 with both of his two remaining 3.5 inch rockets. Then he moved the helicopter 150 yards from the remains of an ancient GMC six-by-six truck.

  The .30 caliber machine gun on the other skid began to chatter. There was surprisingly little noise, but General Black felt the entire helicopter vibrate, alarmingly, from the recoil. He was frightened for a moment, but then fascinated as he watched MacMillan move the tracer stream (every fifth round in a normal belt of machine gun ammo was a tracer; from the steady stream of tracers here, Black realized that MacMillan was firing all tracers) across the ground and into the old truck.

  Finally, the ammunition all gone, MacMillan zoomed off from the truck, and flew back to the nearest M3 hulk, where he put the H23/CE gently on the ground, and turned to look at General Black.

  “I’m not the brightest guy in the world, General,” MacMillan said. “How come I had to figure this out?”

  General Black didn’t reply. He got out of the H23/CE and examined the crater hole in the M3’s hull. And then, impulsively, he hoisted himself onto the tank, and then onto the turret, and lowered himself inside. He’d fought, briefly, in M3s in North Africa as a technical liaison officer with the British, teaching them the M3. The older models, this one, had had riveted hulls. When they were hit, the hulls came apart, and the rivets rattled around the interior of the hull, killing the crews. Later models were welded. The British had called it the “Priest,” because the side-mounted cannon made it look something like a pulpit in a church.

  The M3s had been replaced by the M4s, and that’s what he’d commanded in Europe. And now they were gone. The task force that Walker had sent north from Pusan had had M46s. And now Bulldog Walker was gone. Bulldog bought the farm, in a jeep accident, on Christmas Eve in Korea. And here he sat at Fort Goddamned Polk, Louisiana, giving basic training and dreaming of an armored division he knew goddamned well wasn’t coming.

  The interior of the M3 didn’t stink as bad as he thought it would. There was evidence of animal life, squirrels probably; he didn’t think there would be rats.

  He squeezed himself into where the driver’s seat had been. That 3.5 rocket had blown a neat hole right through the hull. If this had been an operational tank, i
t would be a dead tank now.

  He heaved upward, and with effort got the driver’s hatch to open on its rusty hinges. He saw a jeep coming hell bent for election across the field. He ducked back into the hull. Let them think it was MacMillan, alone. Let Mac get rid of them, and they could fly home, and he could consider the ramifications of rocket-armed choppers.

  MacMillan certainly was not the first one to think of arming choppers, he thought. But, under that goddamned Key West Agreement of 1948, the army was forbidden armed aircraft. In 1948, when the Defense Department had been formed, and the Air Corps, previously a part of the army, had become a separate service, they’d held a meeting at Key West and defined the roles of the army, the navy (which included the Marine Corps), and the new air force. The air force, logically enough, had been given responsibility for things that flew. They had promised to support the army with air power as needed. It was, on the surface, a logical arrangement, except that it was the air force that decided what the army needed in aerial support, not the army. And the air force was far more interested in spending its budget on intercontinental bombers and rockets than on supporting the dogfaced soldier. Arming aircraft was the air force’s—and only the air force’s—privilege. The air force was not about to waste money developing armed helicopters when they had the capability of atomizing the enemy. It was General Black’s solemn opinion that the Key West Agreement was goddamned stupid.

  He thought that it was likely that MacMillan was the first one to actually try rockets and machine guns on choppers. The other people who had thought about it were also smart enough to know about the Key West Agreement and afraid to violate it.

  There was the sound of angry voices outside. What the hell was that all about?

  General Black stuck his head out of the commander’s hatch. A tall, thin light bird, whose name he could not recall, but whom he remembered was the range officer, was giving MacMillan hell. Unauthorized use of the ranges, firing on a range that wasn’t supposed to be fired on at all, was absolutely, unquestionably, against regulations.

  “Colonel,” General Black called out. The skinny light bird, his face still contorted with rage, snapped his head in the direction of the general’s voice. For a moment, until he recognized the general (who had left his fatigue cap in the H23/CE), he glowered at the partner in crime of the idiot who had befouled his range.

  Then he saluted, literally struck dumb. The last person in the world he expected to see crawling out of a derelict M3 was the post commander.

  “I thought you might be interested to see what Captain MacMillan’s rocket did to the interior of this,” General Black said, conversationally. He hoisted himself out of the hatch, and made room for the skinny light bird to climb in. Then he jumped to the ground.

  “I’ve seen enough, Mac,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  (Three)

  Fort Polk, Louisiana

  1 May 1951

  HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY WASH DC

  CG FT POLK LA (ATTN: MAJ GEN E.Z. BLACK)

  INFO: CG USARMYFOUR FT SAM HOUSTON TEX

  CCG USARMYEIGHT KOREA

  1. TELECON BETWEEN VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, USA: DC/S-PERSONNEL HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY AND MAJ GEN E. Z. BLACK, CG US ARMY REPLACEMENT TRAINING CENTER AND FORT POLK LA 2030HOURS WASH TIME 30 APR 1951 CONFIRMED AND MADE A MATTER OF RECORD.

  2. MAJ GEN E. Z. BLACK (LT GEN DESIGNATE) IS RELIEVED OF COMMAND US ARMY REPLACEMENT TRAINING CENTER AND FT POLK LA EFFECTIVE 0001 HOURS 2 MAY 1951, AND WILL PROCEED BY FIRST AVAILABLE AIR TRANSPORTATION TO HQ FAR EAST COMMAND TOKYO JAPAN FOR FURTHER ASSIGNMENT WITH USARMYEIGHT AS COMMANDING GENERAL XIX US CORPS (GROUP). GEN BLACK IS AUTH A PERSONAL STAFF OF FOUR.

  FOR THE CHIEF OF STAFF

  RALPH G. LEMES

  BRIG GEN, USA

  DEPUTY THE ADJ GEN

  (Four)

  Kwandae-Ri, North Korea

  8 May 1951

  Master Sergeant Tourtillott, a heavyset man in his forties, with a full head of curly silver hair, a Thompson submachine gun resting against his hip, and presenting a picture of a doglike devotion to General Black’s protection that he didn’t intend (although his devotion to General Black was in fact, doglike; he had been with him since Africa), stood by the rear door of the XIX Corps Conference Room and waited for the general to appear.

  He did. He wore fatigues, tanker’s boots, and a .45 automatic in a shoulder holster.

  “Gentlemen,” Master Sergeant Tourtillott called out, “the Commanding General. Atten-hut!”

  Fifty officers rose to their feet.

  General Black, wearing three stars on each of his collar points, walked into the room, trailed by Technical Sergeant Carmine Scott, his clerk.

  “Be at ease, gentlemen,” he said.

  There were three armchairs in the center of the front row of chairs. One was occupied by the deputy corps commander, a major general, and the other by the corps artillery officer, a brigadier general. The center chair was obviously intended for General Black. Black walked to the chair, and smiled at Sergeant Scott.

  “General,” he said to the brigadier general, “would you mind giving Scotty your chair? He takes notes for me, and he has to be next to me.”

  “Somebody get the sergeant a chair,” the corps artillery officer called out, moving his own chair to make room.

  “General, you’re going to have to listen carefully to what I say,” General Black said. “I didn’t say, ‘Get Sergeant Scott a chair.’ I asked you to give him yours.”

  Flushing with mingled anger and humiliation, the corps artillery officer signaled for a colonel to give up his chair. Sergeant Scott sat down next to the general and took out a stenographer’s notebook and three pencils. He held the two spares in the same hand as the notebook, and poised the third over a blank page.

  “Get on with it,” General Black said.

  The deputy corps commander went to the stagelike platform.

  “On behalf of the officers and men of XIX Corps, General, welcome.”

  “Thank you,” Black said.

  The briefing, designed to inform the new corps commander of every possible fact concerning his new command, went on for an hour and a half.

  General Black leaned his head toward Sergeant Scott every few moments and spoke softly to him. Sergeant Scott, his head moving almost constantly to signal his understanding of what was being said, scribbled steadily in his stenographer’s notebook.

  Presentations were made by the General Staff, G-1 (Personnel), G-2 (Intelligence), G-3 (Operations), and G-4 (Supply). They were followed by the Special Staff (the medical officer; the provost marshal; the ordnance officer; the signal officer; the transportation officer; the aviation officer; the civil affairs and military government officer; the finance officer; the chemical officer; and the special services officer).

  When it was all over, General Black got to his feet and turned and faced the roomful of officers.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am a simple soldier. When I was a cadet at Norwich, I was told, and I believed, and my subsequent career has proven true, that the essence of command is to make sure the troops have confidence in what they are doing. Troops must have faith in their officers Officers build and maintain that faith in a very simple manner: They never lie to their troops; they never ask them to do something they cannot do themselves, or are unwilling to do themselves; and they never partake of creature comforts until the last private in the rear rank has that creature comfort. If you’ll keep that in mind, I’m sure that we’ll get along.”

  And then he walked out of the room, with Master Sergeant Tourtillott and Technical Sergeant Scott trailing along after him.

  One by one, the General Staff officers presented themselves in his office. Prompted by Technical Sergeant Scott, working from his notes, General Black asked each of them specific questions and issued specific orders. He asked each of them if they had questions. None of them did, until he got to the adjutant general.

  “We seem to have a problem, sir, with Captai
n MacMillan,” the adjutant general said.

  “Already? For Christ’s sake, he hasn’t been here seventy-two hours.”

  The adjutant general handed General Black a TWX.

  HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY

  CG XIX US CORPS KOREA

  REF: PARAGRAPH 6, SPECIAL ORDER 87, HQ USA REPL TNG CNTR & FT POLK LA DTD 1 MAY 51.

  (1) CAPT RUDOLPH G. MACMILLAN, 0-367734, INF, HAVING BEEN RETURNED TO THE ZI AFTER COMBAT SERVICE IN THE KOREAN CONFLICT, IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR FURTHER SERVICE WITHIN EUSAK UP OF POLICY LETTER 285–50, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, PERSONNEL.

  (2) IN VIEW OF CAPT MACMILLAN’S PREVIOUS DISTINGUISHED RECORD, AND THE UNDESIRABILITY TO EXPOSE HIM TO THE HAZARDS OF COMBAT AGAIN, NO REQUEST FOR WAIVER IS DESIRED.

  (3) THIS MSG WILL SERVE AS AUTHORITY TO ISSUE ORDERS REASSIGNING CAPT MACMILLAN TO HQ MIL DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON FOR DY WITH PRESIDENTIAL FLIGHT DETACHMENT.

  FOR THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, PERSONNEL

  RICHMOND HULL

  LIEUT COL AGC

  ASSISTANT ADJUTANT GENERAL

  “Tourtillott,” General Black called out, “get MacMillan in here.”

  “He’s down at the airstrip, General,” M/Sgt. Tourtillott replied.

  “Get in a jeep and go get him,” Black ordered.

  When he handed MacMillan the TWX, and took a look at his face, General Black’s carefully rehearsed speech vanished from his mind.

  “Tourtillott, get back in your jeep and go get the aviation officer,” General Black said.

  “You’re not going to pay any attention to this thing, are you, General?” MacMillan asked.