The Jersey Brothers

by Sally Mott Freeman

  Such good-natured and high-spirited gestures earned Bill respect and fellowship among Washington’s political and navy elite. Further, his 1938 marriage to witty and astute Rosemary “Romie” Baker, a Madeira School and Sarah Lawrence College graduate, was considered a union of one rising star to another. The couple became regulars at the right parties and weekly tennis matches at the exclusive Chevy Chase Club.

  One cool afternoon in September 1939, Admiral Walter Anderson, chief of Naval Intelligence, introduced himself to Bill Mott in the Chevy Chase Club men’s locker room. The admiral had noticed the young man’s Naval Academy ring. Both half clad, they struck up a conversation. The only other person in the locker room was the club’s bootblack, busy spit polishing Admiral Anderson’s shoes. After chatting at length about tennis, the court conditions, and a brief game of navy who’s who, Admiral Anderson’s demeanor grew serious. At once the world’s democracies seemed under siege and daily war headlines were on everyone’s mind.

  Nazi Germany had just invaded Poland, prompting declarations of war against the Germans by Polish allies Britain and France. And Japan’s slaughter of Chinese civilians and unceasing incursions across Southeast Asia had prompted US cancellation of its commercial treaty with that country, removing all obstacles to an outright trade embargo against the import-dependent Japanese.

  “So when did you graduate the Academy, son?” Anderson asked, pulling on a white athletic shirt marked with the club’s red-and-black crest.

  “Class of thirty-three, sir, but I wasn’t commissioned because I’m nearsighted. Now I’m a patent lawyer. Not my first choice, of course, but it’s a good job.”

  Admiral Anderson listened quietly, then continued. “Are you in the Reserves? There’s going to be a war, you know, and I could use you down on Constitution Avenue. If I get the paperwork drawn up, would you accept a commission in Naval Intelligence? I happen to run the place.”

  Surprised but not displeased, Bill hesitated.

  “Well, thank you, sir, but no, I’m actually not in the Reserves right now. With all due respect, I hear they treat reserve officers like shit down at the department.”

  The bootblack raised one eyebrow without looking up.

  Amused by Mott’s candor, Admiral Anderson replied with a chuckle, “You let me worry about that, Mott. You may be sure that if you fit the bill for what I have in mind, nobody’s going to treat you like shit, as you would say. Can you be at my office at 0800 Monday morning?”

  “Yes, sir, I can,” Bill replied, smiling.

  A flurry of letters followed, waiving Bill Mott’s vision disability, and in 1940 he was back in the navy, as a lieutenant. By restarting his military career as a Naval Intelligence officer, Bill became an expert at the incipient enemies’ military codes, as well as deciphering the department’s byzantine protocols of power, rank, and advancement. He was placed in charge of the office that received, circulated, and stored top secret correspondence at the Office of Naval Intelligence.

  The Secret Dispatches, Letters, and Documents Branch (“Office A-3-c”) had custody of the most highly classified telegrams and intercepts (diplomatic and military) coming into ONI. With the recent and top secret breaking of the complex Japanese cipher system (code-named Purple) used to transmit that country’s diplomatic cables (decryptions were code-named Magic), Bill came to understand the looming war threat better than most.

  He was frequently called on to summarize the essence and import of these communications for both the director of naval intelligence (DNI) and the chief of naval operations (CNO). The intercepts were selectively shared on an “eyes only” basis and were never to be copied. They were hand carried to a handful of designated recipients who read them on the spot and handed them back. After circulating in this manner, they were returned to A-3-c, where they were filed and placed under lock and key.

  Bill also became familiar with Ultra, the code name for British decryptions of German military signal intelligence but which eventually expanded to include those of the Japanese and Italian military as well. These decryptions were challenging to paraphrase, but he developed a reputation for synthesizing them without sacrificing accuracy.

  By early 1942, Bill’s unusual combination of talents were increasingly sought after. When ONI’s Admiral Frederick Horne declined Captain McCrea’s request for Mott to report to the White House, he offered alternative officers—all discreet and versed in the communications and cartography (the science of creating maps). But McCrea turned them down. The White House was superior to Horne and all the other navy admirals combined, and McCrea, not accustomed to negotiating for personnel, simply ordered Bill Mott to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With this, he became the full-time overseer of the new White House Map Room.

  DESPITE THE TORMENT BILL felt over Barton and his failure to locate him, his demeanor gave little away on his first day at the White House. Captain McCrea introduced his new recruit to the president, his family, and the close-knit White House staff.

  Bill was gregarious and smiling as he was ushered around the West Wing’s rarified environs, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries, and generally endearing himself. Roosevelt clearly enjoyed the banter with his new aide, particularly when conversation digressed to navy football. FDR also took a keen interest in Bill’s family, empathizing as a parent might over Barton’s disappearance in the Philippines and the constant perils Benny faced. It marked the beginning of a friendship that would last until the end of the president’s life.

  In March 1942 Bill wrote Benny from the White House:

  My new job is quite interesting, and even with my Republican background I can’t help but like and admire the man. He certainly is interested in the Navy, as well as being very human personally. I have talked with him many times about you and Barton and he asks me after every Pacific engagement if you are alright . . .

  I’m glad to see your luck is holding out and that the good work carries on. Believe me I follow your movements with an anxious eye. I am always immensely relieved each time you come through.

  The Map Room was twenty-seven and a half by twenty-two and a half feet, but it had a close feel to it, with its low-slung ceiling, blacked-out single window, and unusual furniture arrangement. Desks and file cabinets formed an island in the center of the room and the walls were overlaid with fiberboard on which large-scale charts, covering all theaters of the war, were hung. The room’s design and the height of the maps allowed Roosevelt to navigate around in his wheelchair to study them at close range—and occasionally confirm the remote location of a postage stamp from his collection—without having to stand.

  Battle areas were covered with clear plastic and continuously updated with grease pencils to reflect the ever-changing locations of Axis and Allied forces. The ocean areas were sprinkled with different-colored pushpins to identify ships by country—blue for American vessels, red for British, black for German, and so forth. An impressed War Secretary Henry Stimson confided to his diary, “Every task force, every convoy, virtually every ship is traced and followed in its course . . . as well as the position of the enemy ships and enemy submarines, so far as they can be located.” Pins of various shapes denoted types of military vessels: round heads for destroyers, square heads for heavy cruisers, etc. . . . Different pins indicated the location of the Allies’ Big Three: a cigar for Winston Churchill, a cigarette holder for FDR, and a pipe for the Soviet Union’s leader, Joseph Stalin.

  The president visited the room twice daily, usually on his way to his office in the morning and again in the afternoon after visiting the doctor’s office across the hall where he had his polio-withered legs massaged or his congested sinuses packed. Roosevelt’s closest aide, Harry Hopkins, and CNO Admiral Ernest King were also regular visitors, as was the army chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, and War Secretary Stimson.

  Under Bill’s tutelage, the Map Room—which was also the sole repository of Roosevelt’s diplomatic correspondence—quickly assumed an aura of permanence. He took
what had been started under Cox and Montgomery and refined systems for receiving, distilling, and securing top secret information. Within weeks of Bill’s takeover, a decimal filing system for classified documents was established and a codification manual was created to ensure that critical documents could be retrieved in short order.

  New practices simplifying the charting and recharting of Japanese, German, and Italian military forces and their estimated aircraft distribution were also put in place, as well as an improved system for monitoring merchant ship and submarine activity. He also improved upon the system for charting and recharting orders of battle and supply line threads that, literally, stretched around the globe.

  Locked leather pouches containing classified cables, military memoranda, and other Top Secret and Most Secret documents were delivered around the clock to the heavily guarded room. The deliveries were logged, studied, and summarized, and then relevant updates were applied to respective war theater wall charts. Subject files were created so that the president could draw on them easily to formulate policy and draft correspondence. Bill also set up a system for logging, distilling, and distributing situation reports from all theaters of war, as well as daily intelligence summaries gleaned from translated Ultra and Magic enemy intercepts.

  While the Map Room started as a center for naval war information, it expanded quickly to cover all theaters of war. Bill had a staff of six: three army and three navy watch officers, all members of the Reserves. He required that all watch officers memorize the secret center’s critical priorities and protocols. For example, whatever important news might be breaking, all communications between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, followed by his communications with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph Stalin, took absolute precedence. Either Bill or Captain McCrea walked intelligence summaries and these priority cables straight to the Oval Office or, depending on the hour and urgency, to Roosevelt’s private quarters.

  Reliable and discreet staff were critical, and Bill held his watch officers to the same standards he expected of himself. Ensign George Elsey, a Princeton-educated naval reserve officer whom Bill had hired back at Naval Intelligence, was his first recruit. When Elsey and Bill’s subsequent hires first entered the Map Room, Bill would close the door and point to a “three monkeys” cartoon taped to the back. Under the first monkey, whose eyes were wide open, was printed “sees everything.” Below, in pencil, was written “something.” Under the second monkey, holding a hand behind one ear, was printed “hears everything”—the penciled note below: “a little.” The third monkey, hand over his mouth, “tells nothing.” Below, in pencil: “less.”

  Bill would then disclose that the penciled annotations were the work of Secretary of War Stimson, as dictated to him one evening in the Map Room by FDR himself. This made the point that Bill’s imperative of extreme discretion was dictated straight from the top. He would then simplify his expectations: “I explain a task or clarify a complex matter to you once, and from that point forward, I expect you to act promptly and precisely with respect to it.” Their boss was a stern taskmaster, but both the army and navy watch officers felt a strong loyalty toward him. Confidentiality, accuracy, and speedy access were the three imperatives of Bill Mott’s operation, and they were all enhanced by that loyalty and seamless teamwork. By the spring of 1942, the White House Map Room had become the de facto epicenter of Allied war planning.

  Both the president and his closest advisor, Harry Hopkins, were impressed, as well as with Bill’s deft handling of non–Map Room matters, including quick and charming responsiveness to requests from Eleanor Roosevelt. His temporary detail from Naval Intelligence to the White House was soon made permanent, and a promotion to lieutenant commander came with it.

  Throughout the exacting early months in his new job, Bill found time each day to pen inquiries about Barton. His search had been a roller coaster from the start. Though “Casualty and Missing-in-Action” manifests were infrequent and error-ridden, he reviewed every single one; Barton was not listed on any of them. He wrote Captain Joel Newsom, commanding officer of Barton’s ship, now docked at Port Darwin, Australia. Replies to his urgent missives yielded a few answers, but each generated new questions in turn. He learned that Barton had been wounded during the bombing at Cavite. He had survived and was hospitalized at Sternberg. But then what?

  Bill had felt a surge of confidence when he learned that MacArthur had commissioned a hospital ship to ferry Sternberg’s wounded to Port Darwin. The ship had departed within hours of the fall of Manila. There was no manifest to examine, but Bill contacted Australian naval authorities and requested that Barton be tracked down and instructed to call him. White House operators were placed on full alert: “Put Barton’s call through no matter what time, day or night.” The head operator, Louise “Hacky” Hackmeister, had been on duty that day. She swiveled away from the switchboard’s gnarled panel of wires and insistent beeping to face him. She was calm and sympathetic despite her tether to the humming board. “Believe me, son,” Hacky said, “I’ll call you at once if anything comes through.”

  But weeks stretched into months with no call from Australia.

  Helen peppered Bill week after week with fresh rounds of questions to which there were no immediate answers. His mother had scant idea how much effort he was expending to learn Barton’s fate or how troubling what little information he had secured was. But the family continued to hold out hope for Barton’s survival, in no small part because Bill projected confidence—real or forced—that Barton had surely pulled through. He would make every effort to perform on that assurance. The unrelenting pressure he was putting on himself was not just because he loved his brother and was worried about his mother. It was because, despite the purest of intentions in helping Barton attain his commission, Bill felt fully responsible for thrusting him in harm’s way.

  5

  CABANATUAN, SPRING 1942

  AFTER MARCHING FOR HOURS in the midday sun, the navy patients and other Cabanatuan-bound prisoners arrived at the Manila train depot. A north-facing freight engine hitched to a dozen boxcars awaited them. The men were ordered to disperse along the platform and climb aboard. After medics took over the deceased patient, Barton stepped onto the black, heat-buckled floor of the second boxcar. It quickly became impossible to see any activity on the platform as he was forced to the rear of the car by continuously boarding prisoners. Barton’s uneasiness grew in the new surroundings: a dark, ten-by-six-foot, furnace-hot steel crypt. Worse, Charles had boarded a different car, either by mistake or by force.

  What happened next was unimaginable. Yelling from the direction of the engine, a Japanese soldier signaled to the guards standing at each boxcar door. Impervious to protests from the prisoners, the guard at the second boxcar shouldered the creaking metal door closed. The men heard the exterior latch slammed down and hit twice, as though barely able to contain its cargo.

  Pinned between the car’s back wall and a wall of sweating flesh so close to his face that he struggled to breathe, Barton felt a wave of panic. Even before the train lurched forward, men began to gasp for air. Little could be heard above the moaning, the helpless splattering of defecation from the dysentery-ridden, and knees thudding to the floor by those losing consciousness. Those that remained conscious endured something potentially worse, an hours-long terror that they would die before the journey’s end. Barton struggled to contain his own rising claustrophobia, possibly remembering he had survived it once before.

  In 1930, when he was twelve years old, his parents took him on a very special outing into New York City to take in the view from the top of the brand-new Chrysler Building. At 1,050 feet, it was the tallest building in the world and its gleaming steel spire seemed to reach the heavens. The opening-day tickets were to its viewing gallery on the top floor. One by one, the guests filed into the building’s thirty-two gearless electric elevators, among its many modern inventions. Their elevator car was dimly lit, with polished wood panels, and there was an operator
wearing a uniform and cap with shiny gold buttons. But with so many people eager to get to the gallery, the car quickly overfilled.

  When the operator cranked the brass doors shut, Barton felt a fear he had never experienced before and began perspiring heavily. The second the doors opened, he burst past the exiting guests into the viewing gallery. When his bewildered mother finally found him, he dismissed her concerns and moved toward one of the enormous triangular windows to take in the view. It was never formally diagnosed, but Barton’s established fear of tight, enclosed spaces was for him at least as powerful as any triggered by armed Japanese.

  THE FREIGHT TRAIN’S RUSTED black cars came to a merciful halt in the late afternoon at Cabanatuan City, the north central terminus of the Manila railroad. While unconscious prisoners were dragged out of the boxcars, Barton and the others staggered onto the train platform, gulping fresh air. As more and more dazed men stumbled into the blinding sunlight, small groups of Filipinos and their children began materializing from side streets and alleyways near the tracks.

  Nervously shuffling bare or sandaled feet, they gawked silently at the pitiful scene of the prisoners exiting the boxcars and bodies being laid out on the platform. While Barton scanned this mixed sea of faces in search of Charles, Filipino boys began darting toward the men and thrusting pieces of sugarcane into their hands. Encouraged by the boys’ success, others approached the prisoners with bananas, panocha (a Filipino sweet made with peanuts), and cane candy. Some offered cassava cakes or balls of rice wrapped in banana leaves, while still others set down cups of water as close to the prisoners as they dared.

  Suddenly aware, the head Japanese guard shouted an angry command. His comrades immediately turned on the crowd, pushing and striking at will. They withdrew, but defiantly hurled their remaining goods over the picket of guards to the prisoners. Men all around Barton reached up desperately, like spinsters for a bride’s bouquet. In this sudden display of hands and arms, there was a familiar one, long and freckled.