The Corps V - Line of Fire Page 7

  "You told him?"

  "He's being Machiavellian again. He has his own plans for Pickering."

  Fowler waited for Knox to elaborate. He did not.

  "He is also very anxious to see his son," Fowler said. "His idea is to see you, get out of the Navy, and then go to Florida."

  "I offered to have the boy flown to San Diego!"

  "I think he wants to see him alone. He's managed to convince himself that the boy will not come through the war."

  "He's not the only father who feels that way. You heard what our mutual friend's son has been up to?" That was an unmistakable reference to James Roosevelt, a Marine Corps Captain. Captain Roosevelt had recently participated in the raid on Makin Island.

  The Marine Corps had somewhat reluctantly formed the 1st and 2nd Raider Battalions. They were the President's answer to the British Commandos. The 1st was one of the units participating in the Guadalcanal operation. At about the same time, the son of the President of the United States was paddling ashore from a submarine with elements of the 2nd Raiders to attack Japanese forces on Makin Island.

  "I also heard the Germans have taken Stalin's son prisoner.

  Do you think our mutual friend-make that `acquaintance' has considered the ramifications of that?"

  "I have brought it to his attention," Knox said, then went on:

  "Technically, I suppose you know, Fleming Pickering is AWOL."

  "I don't think you could make the charge stick. And he has a lot of friends in high places."

  "And doesn't he know it?" Knox said, and then went on, again without waiting for a response: "I'm on my way to the White House. I'll get back to you, Richmond. Keep him there.

  I don't care how, keep him there."

  "I'll do what I can," Fowler said, and hung up.

  [One]

  HEADQUARTERS,

  2ND RAIDER BATTALION

  CAMP CATLIN, TERRITORY OF HAWAII

  31 AUGUST 1942

  When Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, Company A, 2nd Raider Battalion, was summoned to battalion headquarters, he suspected it had something to do with Sergeant Thomas Michael McCoy, USMCR.

  Zimmerman was stocky, round-faced and muscular. And he'd been in The Corps almost exactly seven years, having enlisted as soon as possible after his seventeenth birthday. He'd celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday a week before aboard the submarine USS Nautilus on the way home to Pearl Harbor from the raid on Makin Island. At the time he was nursing a minor, though painful, mortar shrapnel wound in his left buttock.

  Sergeant McCoy-four inches taller and forty-two pounds heavier than Gunny Zimmerman-had celebrated his twentyfirst birthday the previous January in San Diego, California.

  He was then in transit, en route to the Portsmouth U.S. Naval Prison in the status of a general prisoner. There was little question at his court-martial at Pearl Harbor that he had in fact committed the offense of "assault upon the person of a commissioned officer in the execution of his office by striking him with his fists upon the face and other parts of the body." He had also been fairly charged with doing more or less the same thing to a petty officer of the U.S. Navy in the execution of his office of Shore Patrolman, both offenses having taken place while PFC McCoy was absent without leave from his assignment to the 1st Defense Battalion, Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor.

  The Marine Corps frowns on such activity. Thus PFC McCoy was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged from the Naval Service and to be confined at hard labor for a period of five to ten years.

  However, very likely because it was conducted during the immediate post-Pearl Harbor-bombing period when things were quite hectic, the court-martial failed to offer the accused certain procedural aspects of the fair trial required by Rules for the Governance of the Naval Service.

  These errors of omission came to light while the Record of Trial was being reviewed by the legal advisers to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. It was therefore ordered that the findings and the sentences in the case be set aside.

  Another trial was impossible, not only because of the possibility of double jeopardy, but also because the witnesses were by then scattered all over the Pacific.

  PFC McCoy was released from the San Diego brig an assigned to the 2nd Raider Battalion, then forming at Camp Elliott just outside San Diego.

  There PFC McCoy met Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman. He almost immediately posed a number of disciplinary problems for Gunny Zimmerman. For instance, while he had apparently learned his lesson about striking those superior to him in the military hierarchy, on two occasions he severely beat up fellow PFCs with whom he had differences of opinion.

  But what really annoyed Gunny Zimmerman about PFC McCoy's behavior was that it was seriously embarrassing to a Marine officer. Normally, this would not have bothered Gunny Zimmerman-indeed, under other circumstances, he might have found it amusing-but this particular officer was Second Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, PFC McCoy's three-year-older brother. Lieutenant McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman had been friends before the war, when Zimmerman had been a buck sergeant and McCoy a corporal with the 4th Marines in Shanghai.

  There were very few people in The Corps who enjoyed Ernie Zimmerman's absolute trust and admiration, and Lieutenant "Killer" McCoy was at the head of that short list.

  Since all other means of instilling in PFC McCoy both proper discipline and the correct attitude had apparently failed, Zimmerman decided that it behooved him to rectify the situation himself.

  He accomplished this by going to the Camp Elliott slop chute, where he politely asked PFC McCoy if he could have a word with him. He led PFC McCoy to a remote area where they would not be seen. He then removed his jacket (and, symbolically, the chevrons of his rank) and suggested to PFC McCoy that if he thought he was so tough, why not have a go at him?

  When PFC McCoy was released from the dispensary four days later-having suffered numerous cuts, bruises, abrasions and the loss of three teeth: after a bad slip in the shower-he'd undergone a near miraculous change of attitude.

  The change was not temporary. Within three weeks, with a clear conscience, Gunny Zimmerman recommended PFC McCoy for squad leader. The job carried with it promotion to corporal.

  And Corporal McCoy performed admirably on the Makin raid. Because of his size and strength, Zimmerman had given McCoy one of the Boys antitank rifles. The Boys, which looked like an oversize bolt-action rifle, fired a larger (.55 caliber) and even more powerful round than the Browning Heavy.50 caliber machine gun.

  Although he could not prove it -there were other Boys rifles around-Zimmerman was convinced that McCoy was responsible for shooting up a Japanese four-engine Kawanishi seaplane so badly that it crashed while trying to take off from the Butaritari lagoon.

  Nothing heroic. Just good Marine marksmanship, accomplished when the target was shooting back.

  And when they were in the rubber boats trying to get off the beach back to the submarines disaster-McCoy really came through, really acted like a Marine. His had been one of the few boats to make it through the surf, almost certainly because of his enormous strength. Then, when they reached the sub, which was all that was expected of him, McCoy volunteered to go back to the beach for another load-despite his exhaustion.

  Again nothing heroic, but good enough to prove that McCoy had the stuff Marine sergeants should be made of. After they were back at Camp Catlin, Colonel Carlson asked him if anyone should get a promotion as a reward for behavior during the raid. The first name Zimmerman gave him was Corporal McCoy's.

  Word reached Gunny Zimmerman an hour before his summons to battalion headquarters that Sergeant McCoy had apparently strayed from the path of righteousness. He'd had a telephone call from another old China Marine, now working with the Shore Patrol Detachment in Honolulu. The Shore Patrol sergeant informed him that Sergeant McCoy apparently took offense at a remark made to him by a sergeant of the Army Air Corps. He expressed his displeasure by breaking the sergeant's nose. He then rejected the invitation of
the Shore Patrol to accompany them peaceably.

  Zimmerman's old China Marine pal told him, not without a certain admiration, that it took six Shore Patrolmen to subdue and transport Sergeant McCoy to the confinement facility. He was now sleeping it off there.

  There seemed little doubt that before the day was over Sergeant McCoy would once again be Private McCoy. Unless, of course, Colonel Carlson wanted to make an example of him and bring him before a court-martial.

  In Zimmerman's opinion, busting McCoy would be sufficient punishment. He would be humiliated and taught a lesson.

  And then in a couple of months they could start thinking about promoting him again.

  The facts were that he had been a good corporal and would almost certainly have been a good sergeant.

  Good sergeants are hard to find, Zimmerman thought. Sending him to the brig for thirty days will teach him nothing he doesn't already know, and it might make his attitude worse.

  With a little bit of luck, maybe the sergeant major, or maybe even one of the officers, will ask me what I think should be done to McCoy. Or maybe even I can take a chance and just tell the sergeant major what I think.

  Zimmerman went into battalion headquarters, walked up to sergeant major's desk, and stood waiting while the sergeant or went very carefully over a paper that had been typed up or the Colonel's signature. He finally finished and looked up at Zimmerman.

  He smiled.

  "How are you, Ernie?" he asked. "How's the ass these days?"

  "I sit on the edge of chairs."

  "Your Purple Heart came through," the sergeant major said.

  "You are now a certified wounded hero."

  Is that what this is about? Maybe he hasn't heard about McCoy yet.

  "Did you send for Zimmerman?" a voice called from the office. On its door a sign hung, EVANS CARLSON, LTCOL, USMC, COMMANDING.

  "He just this second came in, Sir," the sergeant major called back.

  Colonel Carlson appeared at his office door. He was lean and tanned, and he was wearing sun- and wash-faded utilities.

  "Morning, Gunny," he greeted him. "How's the... damaged area?"

  Zimmerman popped to attention.

  "Morning, Sir," he said. "No problem, Sir."

  "Get yourself a cup of coffee, if you'd like, and come on in. Something's come up."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," Zimmerman said.

  Though he didn't really want it, he took a cup of coffee. The reason was that he considered the offer-the suggestion-an order, coming as it did from the Colonel. At the same time, the friendliness of the Colonel's gesture made him a little uncomfortable.

  Colonel Carlson often made him uncomfortable. Zimmerman was on the edge of being an Old Breed Marine. He hadn't been to Nicaragua or any of the other banana republic wars, but he had been in The Corps seven years, most of that time in China, and in all that time he had never met another lieutenant colonel-for that matter, a major or a captain-who treated enlisted men the way Colonel Carlson did.

  It was sort of hard to describe why. It wasn't as if Carlson treated the enlisted men as equals, but neither did he treat them the way they were treated elsewhere in The Corps, the way Zimmerman had been treated for seven years.

  Colonel Carlson talked to enlisted Marines-not just the senior staff noncoms, but the privates and the corporals, too- like they were people, not enlisted men. Like he was really interested in what they had to say.

  The motto of the Raiders was "Gung Ho!" Most people in the Raiders, even the ones who had been in China and had picked up a little Chinese, thought that meant "Everybody Pull Together." Zimmerman knew better. He spoke pretty good Chinese, three kinds of it. What Gung Ho really meant was more like "Strive for Harmony." When they were training for the Makin Raid back at Camp Elliott, outside `Diego, Zimmerman talked about that with McCoy-Lieutenant McCoy, the Killer, not Sergeant Shit for Brains McCoy, now behind bars in Honolulu.

  The Killer spoke even better Chinese than Zimmerman did, plus Japanese and German and Polish and Russian. So he knew what Gung Ho really meant, but he told Zimmerman to keep it to himself.

  "What I think is really going on, Ernie," the Killer told him, "is that the Colonel is terrifically impressed with the way the Chinese do things. The Chinese communists, I mean."

  "You're not telling me he's a communist?" It would not have surprised Zimmerman at all if the brass had sent Killer McCoy to the 2nd Raider Battalion to see if he thought Colonel Carlson was a communist.

  "No. I don't think so. But there are people in The Corps who do."

  "Then how come they gave him the Raider Battalion if they think he's a communist?"

  "There are also a lot of people who don't think he's a communist, like Captain Roosevelt's father, for example." Captain Roosevelt was Executive Officer of the 2nd Raider Battalion. His father was Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America. As a Captain, Colonel Carlson had commanded the detachment of Marines assigned to protect the President at White Sulphur Springs, where the President often went to swim with other people crippled by infantile paralysis.

  "We're sort of special Marines, Ernie, Raiders, " the Killer said. "The Colonel thinks that the kind of discipline the Chinese communists have would work better for us than the regular kind."

  "We're Marines, not fucking Chinese communists," Zimmerman protested. "Does he really want to do away with ranks and have just leaders and fighters and technicians, and no saluting, and no officers' mess, and the other bullshit that I been hearing?"

  "I think he's been talked out of that," McCoy said. "But I know he wants to make sure the enlisted men use their initiative. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

  "What does that mean, `use their initiative'?" You tell some PFC to fill sandbags and make a wall of them, he does it because you're a sergeant and he's a PFC and PFCs do what sergeants tell them to do. The Colonel figures he'll get a better wall if the sergeant tells the PFC they need a sandbag wall because that will keep people from getting their balls blown off... and then the sergeant helps the PFC make it. Understand?"

  "Sounds like bullshit to me."

  "That's what I thought when I first heard about it," the Killer said. "But now I suppose I've been converted. Anyway, Ernie, it doesn't make any difference what you think."

  "It don't?"

  "You're a Marine, a gunny. Marine gunnies do what they're told, right?"

  "Fuck you, Ken," Zimmerman said, chuckling.

  "That's `fuck you, Lieutenant, Sir,' Sergeant," the Killer replied.

  The funny thing, Zimmerman realized, was that over the months he too had become converted to the Colonel's way of doing things. It seemed to work. Everybody in the Raiders did "pull together" or "strive for harmony," depending on how well you spoke Chinese and translated "Gung Ho!" That was very much on his mind on Makin, when things were going badly and he wouldn't have given a wooden nickel for their chances of getting off the fucking beach alive.

  He came across Captain Roosevelt then, and the first thing he thought was that only in the United States of America would the son of the head man have his ass in the line of fire. Then he changed that to "only in The Marine Corps" and finally to "only in the Raiders." Zimmerman realized that he was now a genuine fucking true believer Gung Ho Marine Raider... he was also a guy who had spent five and a half of his seven years in The Corps in the Fourth Marines in Shanghai, where officers were officers, and enlisted men were enlisted men.

  He was not at all comfortable when he stood in Colonel Carlson's office door and the Colonel waved him into a chair without even giving him a chance to report to the commanding officer in the prescribed manner.

  "I didn't know you'd done any time with Marine Aviation, Zimmerman," the Colonel said.

  "I never did," Zimmerman said, so surprised that he added "Sir" only after a perceptible pause.

  Curious," Colonel Carlson said and handed him a teletype message.

  PRIORITY

  CONFIDENTIAL

 
; HQ FLEET MARINE FORCE PACIFIC

  1405 30 AUG 1942

  To: COMMANDING OFFICER 2ND USMC RAIDER BATTALION

  Info: COMMANDING OFFICER 2 1ST MARINE AIR GROUP

  1. ON RECEIPT THIS MESSAGE FOLLOWING NAMED ENLISTED MEN ARE DETACHED COMPANY "A" 2ND

  RAIDER BN AND ASSIGNED HQ 21ST MARINE AIR GROUP.

  ZIMMERMAN, ERNEST W 286754 GYSGT

  MCCOY, THOMAS M 355331 SGT

  2. CO 2ND RAIDER BN WILL ARRANGE TRANSPORT BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS, INCLUDING AIR, FROM