The Corps IV - Battleground Page 4

  Fifteen B-17s from Midway arrived at 0810, somewhat naively trying to hit now wildly maneuvering warships from 20,000 feet.

  We believe that on learning that he had lost about a third of his attacking force, Admiral Nagumo ordered a second attack. This required that he put his aircraft carriers into their most vulnerable condition, as they were refueled and rearmed. He apparently decided the prize, the neutralization and capture of Midway, was worth the risk.

  At 0940 the first torpedo bombers from American aircraft carriers arrived above the Japanese carriers, whose decks were crowded with aircraft being rearmed and refueled.

  Fifteen Devastator torpedo bombers from Hornet attacked first. They were all shot down. Fourteen Devastators from Enterprise attacked next. Ten of these were shot down. Next came a dozen Devastators from Yorktown. Eight of them were shot down.

  It was a slaughter, and little damage was done to the Japanese fleet.

  Thirty-seven Dauntless dive bombers from Enterprise under Lieutenant Commander Clarence McCluskey remained available. McCluskey led half in an attack on the carrier Kaga, and ordered Lieutenant Earl Gallagher to attack the carrier Akagi with the remainder. They sank both Japanese carriers.

  Next, seventeen Dauntlesses from Yorktown dive bombed the carrier Soryu, causing severe damage, and she was later sunk by the submarine Nautilus. Finally, the fourth, and last, Japanese aircraft carrier, Hiryu, was successfully attacked and sunk.

  I regret to inform you that Kate torpedo planes broke through the defenses of Yorktown and sank her, with great loss of life.

  The entire Japanese fleet has withdrawn beyond range of our land- and sea-based aircraft. We believe that Admiral Nagumo has transferred his flag to the cruiser Nagara.

  KLW

  Pickering strongly suspected that the two "we believe" statements, that Nagumo had ordered a second attack on Midway and that he had transferred his flag to the cruiser Nagara, meant that "we"-almost certainly a Naval Intelligence officer in Hawaii-had obtained the information from interception and decryption of Japanese radio messages.

  Navy cryptographers had broken several important Japanese codes. Keeping that knowledge from the Japanese was of great importance. Reference would not be made to it even in documents which would be hand carried by officer couriers.

  He considered briefly, and then forced from his mind, the painful images of the terrible loss of American life, and wondered what he should do with the information he had been given.

  It took him just a moment to decide to give it to General MacArthur. Commander Nameless certainly was carrying with him, among other things, the official Navy after-action report. But that was certain to be wordy, and written in the knowledge that in addition to being at war with the Japanese, the Navy felt itself to be at war with the Army.

  What he had in his hand was what General MacArthur wanted-and certainly was entitled to have-a concise, unvarnished description of the first major Japanese naval defeat of the war.

  He picked up the telephone.

  "Yes, Sir?" a male American voice answered. The hotel's Australian switchboard operators had recently been replaced by U.S. Army Signal Corps soldiers.

  "Six One Six," he said. That was MacArthur's private number. It wasn't much of a secret, but there were few who dared to call it directly and run the risk of annoying The General.

  "Six One Six, Sergeant Thorne speaking, Sir."

  "This is Captain Pickering, Sergeant. I'd hoped to speak to The General."

  "Sir, the General is in his quarters, and will go from there to the Briefing Room. Shall I switch you, Sir?"

  "No, thank you," Pickering said. "I'll try to see him at the briefing."

  He quickly pulled up his tie, shrugged into his uniform jacket, tucked the onion skin sheets of paper in the side pocket, and left his suite.

  (Two)

  The Briefing Room, once one of the Menzies Hotel's smaller "Function" Rooms, was on the mezzanine floor. Pickering momentarily debated going down the stairs, which would almost certainly be quicker, but decided against it. Around Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA, it would not be considered good form for a Navy Captain to race down five flights of stairs three steps at a time, when an oak paneled elevator was available.

  His hope was to meet MacArthur as The General strode off the elevator reserved for his use and marched toward the briefing room. With a little luck, he would be able to ask for a couple of minutes.

  Luck went against him; MacArthur was nowhere in sight. So he had no choice but to get in line with the others waiting to pass the muster of the MPs guarding the door to the Briefing Room. Once inside, he took a seat at the rear, beside the door. The man in the seat beside him was a Cavalry Colonel who nodded coldly at him.

  Pickering wondered what the Cavalry Colonel's function was. The only U.S. Cavalry in the Orient had been the 26th Cavalry in the Philippines. They had been dismounted and their horses butchered and issued as rations fairly early on in the war.

  The door beside him was flung quickly open, hitting Pickering on the shoulder. An officer stepped inside; he was wearing a tropical worsted uniform and the golden fourrag?re and four-starred lapel insignia of an aide-de-camp to a full general.

  "Gentlemen," Lieutenant Colonel Sidney L Huff announced with a shade more than necessary pomp, "The Supreme Commander."

  The thirty-odd men in the room quickly rose to their feet and came to attention.

  The Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, strode into the room and marched down the aisle between rows of folding metal chairs. He was wearing an Army Air Corps leather flight jacket with a zipper front, the four silver stars of his rank pinned to its epaulets; a somewhat battered brimmed cap with faded gold ornamentation around the headband that he had designed for himself when he had been Marshal of the Philippine Army; and wash-faded khakis. Another four stars were pinned to each collar of the shirt. He was tieless, and he had a long, thin, black cigar in his hand.

  The corncob pipe he was famous for was most often seen when the Supreme Commander was in public. This gathering was the antithesis of public. Every man in the room-from the three sergeants functioning as orderly, stenographer, and handler-of-the-maps, through the assorted majors, wing commanders, and colonels, to the dozen general and flag officers of five different nations-not only held a TOP SECRET security clearance, but appeared on a list, updated daily, of those authorized to be present at what the schedule called "THE SUPREME COMMANDER'S MORNING BRIEFING."

  An Australian Military Police Captain had checked each man against the list before permitting him to enter the room.

  The front row was furnished with two blue leather armchairs. There was a table at each end of the row and between the chairs. The center table held a silver thermos of water, two glasses, a telephone, and an ash tray. The table at the left held a coffee cup and saucer; a cigarette box; an ash tray; a lighter; and another telephone. The table at the right held a coffee cup and saucer; a larger (big enough for a corncob pipe) ash tray; a small cigar box; a sterling silver lighter; a glass holding four freshly sharpened pencils; and a small notepad in a leather folder on which was stamped "Douglas MacArthur" and four silver stars.

  When he reached his chair, General MacArthur looked around the room at his senior officers, all standing to attention. He found the face he was looking for, toward the rear.

  "Captain Pickering," he said. "May I see you, Sir?" He smiled at everyone else. "Good morning, gentlemen," he added. 'Take your seats, please."

  He sat down.

  Captain Pickering came down the aisle to MacArthur.

  "Have a seat, Fleming," MacArthur said cordially, gesturing at the other blue leather armchair. The second chair was ordinarily reserved for Mrs. MacArthur. Although she had no official function and no security clearance, she went anywhere in HQSWPOA The General felt like taking her. When she was not present, The General awarded the privilege of sitting beside him to whichever of his officers was at the moment highest in his favor.

&
nbsp; To the barely concealed disappointment and displeasure of his generals and admirals, that officer had very often been Captain Fleming Pickering. There were a number of reasons for their annoyance, starting with Pickering's relatively low rank. For another, the initials following his name were USNR; he wasn't even a professional Navy Man. And neither was he actually a member of the staff. Technically, he was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, half a world away in Washington, D.C.

  "Thank you, Sir," Pickering said and sat down.

  MacArthur gestured to the orderly, a swarthy-skinned, barrel-chested Filipino Master Sergeant, who immediately approached the table beside MacArthur and filled the cup with steaming coffee.

  MacArthur gestured with his finger that the service should be repeated for Captain Fleming. Then he turned to his side and picked up the small cigar box, opened it, and extended it to Pickering, who took one of the cigars, nodded his thanks, and bit off the end.

  So far as MacArthur was concerned, it was simple courtesy. He had mentioned idly, in conversation, that among many other obvious regrets he had about leaving the Philippines, he was going to miss his long-filler, hand-rolled El Matador cigars. The next day, a half dozen boxes of ?1 Matador had been delivered to his office, courtesy of Captain Pickering, who had found them through his contacts in Melbourne. When a friend (and he had come to think of Pickering as a friend) gives you boxes of cigars, and you are smoking one, how could a gentleman not offer him one?

  So far as ninety percent of the people in the Briefing Room were concerned, it was one more manifestation of the incredible way that man Pickering (often that Goddamned Sonofabitch Pickering) had wormed his way into The General's intimate favor.

  The General waited until his Filipino orderly held a flame to Captain Pickering's El Matador, then nodded at the portly U.S. Army officer in tropical worsted blouse and trousers standing almost at attention beside a lectern.

  "Willoughby," he said. "Please proceed."

  Colonel Charles A. Willoughby stepped behind his lectern. Willoughby had been MacArthur's Intelligence Officer (G-2) in the Philippines, had escaped with him from Corregidor, the island fortress at the mouth of Manila Bay, and was now the SWPOA G-2.

  "General MacArthur," he began, "gentlemen. This morning's briefing is intended to bring you up to date on the Battle of Midway."

  He nodded at the sergeant standing by the map board, who removed a sheet of oil cloth covering a map of the Pacific Ocean from the Aleutian Island chain off Alaska to Australia. When the sergeant was finished, Willoughby walked to the map.

  "The intelligence we have developed," Colonel Willoughby said, "indicates that Admiral Yamamoto, commanding the entire Japanese fleet, is aboard the battleship Yamoto somewhere in this general area."

  He pointed roughly between Midway and the Aleutian Islands.

  You phony sonofabitch, Captain Fleming Pickering thought, in disgust. "Intelligence we have developed" my ass. You didn't develop a goddamn bit of that. It came from the Navy. After the fact, of course, much later than they should have told us, but they came up with it.

  "The Japanese fleet was divided into two strike forces," Willoughby went on. "One intended to strike at the Aleutian Islands, and the other to attack and occupy Midway. As The General predicted when we first developed this information, the Aleutian operation was in the nature of a feint, a diversion, and their real ambition, as The General predicted, was to attack and occupy Midway, rather than, as some senior Navy officers believed, to launch another attack at the Hawaiian islands.

  "The Midway Strike Force, under Admiral Nagumo, was made up of two battleships, four aircraft carriers, with a screening force of three cruisers, a half dozen destroyers and other ships, and of course the troop transports and other ancillary vessels."

  The Supreme Commander leaned his head toward Captain Pickering and, covering his mouth with his hand, waited until Pickering had leaned toward him, and then said, "Mrs. MacArthur would be pleased if you would come for a little supper and bridge."

  "I would be honored, Sir."

  "And could you have that Korean Signal Officer come too? After supper, of course?"

  "I'm sure I can, Sir."

  The "Korean" Signal Officer was Lieutenant "Pluto" Hon, a New York-born, MIT-educated mathematician, assigned to the staff as a cryptographic officer and Japanese-language linguist. A mere lieutenant was far too low in the military social hierarchy to be asked to dine with The Supreme Commander and his lady, but his bridge playing skill got him into The Supreme Commander's suite for bridge after dinner.

  "Good," MacArthur said. "I'll give you to Jeanne this time, and he and I will whip you badly."

  "Sir, will you take a look at this please?" Pickering asked.

  "Something you want, Pickering?" MacArthur asked, suspiciously.

  "Something that just came to hand, Sir," Pickering said, and handed the onion skins to him.

  MacArthur took the sheets from him. Pickering saw the distress in Colonel Willoughby's eyes that showed he no longer had The Supreme Commander's attention.

  MacArthur read the summary carefully, grunting once or twice, and shaking his head.

  "You believe this is accurate?" he asked.

  "Yes, Sir. I think that's the best information presently available."

  "You're an amazing fellow, Fleming," MacArthur said. "I'd love to know where you got this."

  MacArthur handed the onion skins back to Pickering and stood up. Pickering saw in that-with relief-that MacArthur did not expect an answer.

  Colonel Willoughby interrupted himself in mid-sentence as everybody in the room stood up and came to attention.

  "Willoughby, something has come up. Captain Pickering and I have to leave. That was a first-class briefing. Make me a one-page summary, would you please, at your first opportunity?"

  "Yes, Sir," Colonel Willoughby said.

  "Keep your seats, gentlemen," MacArthur ordered, and then marched back up the aisle with Pickering and then Lieutenant Colonel Huff trailing after him.

  "What was that you gave The General?" Huff asked.

  "I'm sorry, Sid," Pickering said. "I can't tell you."

  "I'm The General's aide," Huff argued.

  "I'm sorry, Sid," Pickering repeated.

  He saw the anger in Huff's eyes.

  He really hates me, Pickering thought. Hell, if I was in his shoes, I'd hate me, too. But he really doesn't have the Need to Know what those onion skins say, and I don't want him asking questions, of me or anyone else, about how I got them.

  The elevator was waiting. They rode up in it to MacArthur's office.

  "Sid," MacArthur ordered, as he swept through the outer office, "will you get us some coffee, please? And have Sergeant Thorne bring his book? And then see that we are not disturbed?"

  "Yes, Sir," Huff said.

  Pickering saw that Sergeant Thorne already had his stenographer's notebook and a half dozen sharpened pencils in his hand. He still had time to make it to the inner door and open it for MacArthur.

  Once in his office, MacArthur waved Pickering into a leather sofa. He walked to his desk, laid his gold encrusted cap on it, and then sat on the forward edge of the desk, supporting himself with his hands, looking upward, obviously deep in thought.

  A staff sergeant appeared with a silver coffee set, put it on the coffee table in front of the sofa, and left.

  When the door closed, MacArthur looked at Pickering.

  "Pickering," he said solemnly, "my heart is so filled with thoughts of the nobility of the profession of arms that words may fail me."

  Pickering, not having any idea how he was expected to respond to an announcement like that, fell back on the safe and sure: "Yes, Sir," he said.

  "The first message," MacArthur went on, now looking at Sergeant Thorne, "is to Admiral Nimitz."

  "Yes, Sir," Thorne said.

  "My dear Admiral," MacArthur began. "Word has just come to me of your glorious victory and of the incredible courage and devoti
on of your men which made it possible."

  He stopped abruptly. He looked at Pickering. "Pour some of that coffee for us, will you please, Fleming? Thorne, will you have some coffee?"

  "Not just now, thank you, Sir," Sergeant Thorne said.

  Mac Arthur pushed himself off the desk and walked to the window.

  "Read that back, please," he said.

  Sergeant Thorne did so.

  "Strike 'admiral,' make it 'Chester,' " MacArthur ordered. "Strike 'made it possible.' "

  "Yes, Sir," Sergeant Thorne said.