The Jersey Brothers

by Sally Mott Freeman

  Churchill made himself very much at home, often appearing at the Map Room door in the wee hours. He was always in his Royal Air Force jumpsuit, usually barefoot, and never without a lighted cigar. One such evening during Trident, the Map Room sentry admitted the prime minister, this time carrying both a cigar and a snifter of brandy. “Good evening, my boy,” the PM said to a startled Bill Mott as the door closed behind him, and he began to pace its perimeter thoughtfully. “How’s Hitler?” he growled, pausing at the European map, then, drawing himself up, “the bah-stard.”

  On occasion, Bill delivered dispatches and briefing materials to the Rose Bedroom. On such visits he was often asked to pull up a footstool and read the material aloud or provide an impromptu summary of the world naval situation while the ample, pink-fleshed Churchill listened pensively from the bathtub. The naked prime minister, ringed in cigar smoke, always responded with insightful and impeccably phrased questions.

  On Wednesday morning, May 19, 1943, Bill escorted Churchill to another recently converted White House coat room, this one into a movie theater. They took their seats to watch the latest war newsreels and the film to be premiered at the upcoming White House dinner honoring the prime minister. The documentary The Battle of Britain was the latest in Frank Capra’s popular series Why We Fight. Halfway through the feature, however, the president’s butler, Alonzo Fields, stepped into the darkened, smoky theater and tapped Bill on the shoulder. Given his charge, Bill might have been annoyed by the interruption had Fields not said immediately, “Congratulations, sir. It’s a girl.”

  The prime minister’s eyes grew wide, and an impish smile spread across his face. The onscreen fighting for country momentarily lost its audience. “Goodness, William,” said the PM, “you are too modest! Congratulations indeed!”

  That afternoon, a generous bouquet of pink roses and a charming note of congratulations arrived for Romie Mott and hours-old Janie (Jeannette Baker) Mott, causing quite a stir in the Garfield Hospital maternity ward. The card was signed in elegant script, “Winston S. Churchill.”

  BILL HAD SEEN LITTLE of his wife during the final days of her pregnancy, thanks to late hours in the Map Room and Trident’s long, contentious Combined Chiefs of Staff meetings. Unlike the easy Anglo-American Map Room camaraderie, these sessions laid bare the mutual suspicions between the respective Allied countries’ senior representatives and their aides.

  Admiral King’s reflexive exhortations about the dearth of resources going to the Pacific always flustered the London brass, sparking fresh concern of a possible US defection from the Europe First policy. Nor did the American delegation hide its uneasiness that Britain might drop out of the Pacific War once Britain was made secure by Germany’s defeat. Battle lines on maps were drawn and redrawn as the meetings themselves seemed to teeter on the brink of hostilities.

  But just as Romie endured a long and difficult labor to productive end, the quarrelsome Trident Conference ultimately bore a fruitful resolution: Allied forces would launch a cross-Channel invasion of Europe in May 1944. A stepped-up campaign against the Japanese was also approved, as was accelerating the development of a devastating new weapon that harnessed atomic energy, possibly for use against Japan to speed her surrender. Though details were few, Bill found the last two decisions personally encouraging.

  NOT LONG AFTER THE conclusion of Trident, a thick envelope addressed to Lieutenant Commander William C. Mott was delivered to the Map Room along with the morning’s locked pouches full of classified documents from the War Department. When Bill first spied the manila envelope, stamped “BUPERS” (Bureau of Personnel), his heart jumped. He was sure the envelope contained orders that would either change his life completely by allowing him to go to sea or indefinitely tether him to his present course. He slipped the sealed envelope into his briefcase. He would open it at home, where he could react in relative privacy.

  Meanwhile, Romie and a seven-pound, twelve-ounce, pink-blanketed Jeannette, forever after called Janie, had finally been released from Garfield Hospital and returned to 7 Newlands Street. Friends and neighbors streamed through, bearing good wishes and all manner of pink gifts and posies. Romie had been unwell for the last month of her pregnancy, and the fact that both mother and child were in good health and home was cause for neighborhood celebration.

  Bill was not so unwise as to open the BUPERS envelope on arrival home that evening, though he ached to know its contents. The first order of business was to greet his weary wife and new baby girl, who was already demonstrating strong vocal cords, and reassure a slightly bewildered three-year-old Adam.

  When the family finally retired for the evening, Bill engaged in a quiet ritual, rarely enjoyed of late. He walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap, letting the water run while he opened the glass-paned cabinet and retrieved his favorite cut-crystal tumbler and bottle of Old Grand-Dad. He poured until the glass was a third full and then held his finger under the tap stream, staring out the kitchen window as he waited for it to cool.

  Stirring the drink with his finger, Bill walked back into the living room toward the stuffed briefcase slumping against his easy chair. He paused to savor the charm and tranquility of his surroundings with a new perspective—of one who might be taking leave of its comforts—and confines—for an indeterminate period. How many men, he wondered, would lunge for his position, the excitement, the prestige, the proximity to power and safety from harm—and count themselves lucky? Here was a beautiful wife and family, a lovely home, a terrific job. Was it right to want to go?

  But reading daily about Benny and Enterprise’s brilliant and daring exploits and worrying hourly over Barton had worn him down, leaving him feeling more and more a useless bystander in the world’s titanic struggle against determined enemies. He had to do this.

  Bill sank deep into the armchair and placed his bourbon and water on the polished mahogany side table. The first letter was from his mother, which had also arrived that day.

  Billy dear,

  A censored letter I wrote as secretary of my Club came back to me after months yesterday. Perhaps this is why mail is so slow now; I do hope you get this note in better time! We are all thrilled about baby Jeannette and that Romie is improving . . .

  You now have one more good reason to stop this talk of going to sea—it seems to me that you are doing very useful work where you are—God knows we need badly some men with brains in Intelligence work! When I think of Benny and Barton and such stupidity at the top—whee! But these Pacific island attacks have been glorious haven’t they? I suspect Benny was right there . . .

  It would be such a comfort to hear directly from Barton; I know something unusual prevents it . . . I am proud of them both out in the thick of it, and of you too, trying to carry on at home. I hope you won’t go to sea unless really needed. I do need one son left and you have more to lose than either Benny or Barton, the truth be told. One has hardly lived at all and the other has had enough mental suffering so that action might well help him right now.

  Maybe you can slip up here for a rest very soon—we will make it a real rest for your nerves, away from Washington entirely. We think often and fondly of you, Bill. You are dear to me, my son.

  Mother

  Bill’s first reaction to her letter was a wince at the praise for Benny—“out in the thick of it”—and her pride in “those glorious island attacks.” These things stood out as though she had written nothing else, uppermost were they already in his mind.

  He folded her letter and put it back in the powder-blue envelope with “Lilac Hedges” embossed on the back and collected himself. The BUPERS envelope rested on his lap. With his recent bid for orders that would take him to sea, he had played his last best card. If a recommendation from Admiral Brown—who had cleared it with the president—had not done the trick, there was no higher appeal short of Almighty God. Should the contents of this envelope prevent it, he could be sure that was the final answer.

  Certainly the sleeping inhabitants of this
house would prefer that outcome. But again, he told himself, in that endless quarrel between head and heart, what good was he to his family if he didn’t join the fight and do what he was trained to do? Or stand aside with a lifetime of halfhearted explanations ahead—that it was his eyes that prevented him from fighting, not a shortage of courage or ability?

  Bill finally tore open the envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers, flipping through the pages, scanning the contents from the first to last. He then reread the cover memorandum:

  From: The Chief of Naval Personnel

  To: Lieutenant Commander William C. Mott

  Office of the Naval Aide to the President,

  The White House

  Subject: Change of duty.

  When directed by Admiral Brown, you will regard yourself detached from duty at the White House, Washington, DC, and from such other duty as may have been assigned you; you will proceed to Newport, Rhode Island and report to the President, Naval War College, for duty under instruction.

  You will be assigned government quarters in one of the officers’ dormitories of the Naval Training Station. These quarters are not adequate for your dependents.

  He might well have imagined a divine light shining down on him in the dimly lit living room. After tucking his new orders back in the envelope, Bill allowed a measure of relief. This would be difficult news to break to his family, but his prayer had surely been answered. With luck, he would finish his training at the Naval War College in Newport and be in the Pacific by year’s end.

  A MONTH OF HASTY preparations followed, interrupted in late May by a whirlwind trip to Pearl Harbor with a planeload of navy luminaries for a very special ceremony. If Bill needed any additional visuals to seal his resolve, his happy reunion with Benny on the occasion of Enterprise’s receipt of the Presidential Unit Citation—the first ever awarded an aircraft carrier—certainly did.

  Bill had stood in the oval office as FDR signed the executive order. He’d barely been able to contain himself when the president—knowing, of course, that Benny was Enterprise’s gunnery officer—then suggested Bill attend the ceremony.

  A battle-scarred USS Enterprise had returned to Pearl Harbor to receive the award and also, after nine hard months at sea, to undergo a major structural overhaul. Benny was grateful for the chance to catch his breath and savor Bill’s surprise visit. Here was a long-deferred reunion in which a pent-up checklist of items that could only be shared in person—the war, Lilac Hedges, Barton, their complicated parentage, their own marriages and children, Bill’s decision to go to sea, and Benny’s weariness of it—would be covered in an adrenaline-charged conversation in Sky Control preceding the citation ceremony.

  Bill was particularly excited to relate the recent intelligence that a group of men had escaped from Davao Penal Colony on the island of Mindanao. He was sure, he said, that this was where Barton was being held. Benny was incredulous. “Are you saying Barton was one of them? Oh my God!”

  “Sadly, no,” Bill replied. Barton wasn’t among the escapees, but this was still an encouraging development, he insisted, even as his brother’s disappointment registered. It was the first and only contact with any captured American since the fall of Bataan and Corregidor. The navy was going to send a submarine to rescue the escapees, who were under the protection of Mindanao guerrillas. He would know more after they were safe in Brisbane and could be debriefed.

  He repeated that the escape was good news. “One,” he said, holding up his index finger: “The men got out alive. Two”—he raised a second finger—“word is, there’s a navy commander in the group; an Academy graduate. If they were at the same camp, and I’m fairly certain they were, he had to know Barton and will have news of him. Three, these men will have other dope on the prisoners in the Philippines—plenty of it.”

  Knowing this last could be a mix of bad and good news, Bill elected not to speculate. “Meanwhile,” he said, shoring himself up with some emotion, “you’re safe! Amazing what you’ve been through, what you’ve accomplished. Honest to God. You have been getting closer to Barton in your own right.”

  He was referring to Enterprise’s relentless westward foray against one after another enemy-held islands in the Pacific. Every battle, it seemed, had brought Enterprise a thousand miles closer to Manila. “Between the two of us,” Bill said, “we’ll get through to him.”

  Benny sighed. “Well, I sure as hell hope you’re right, Bill. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind some new orders myself, but then it’s hard to think about much else. Even though we’re lickin’ ’em, they’re still holding Bart in a pen somewhere. That keeps me going on the worst days.”

  With that, band music sounded, and their precious time together was up. Top brass had begun to assemble on Enterprise’s flight deck, and Bill would have to return to Washington shortly after the award ceremony. Taking his place behind a phalanx of captains and admirals, he watched with patriotic and familial pride as Benny and the crew, in dress whites, stood at attention.

  The flags on Enterprise’s yardarm snapped in the stiff Pearl Harbor breeze as Admiral Nimitz, CINCPAC, stepped forward to read the Presidential Unit Citation. Poignantly, he stopped just aft of the patched-over impact point of the bomb that had wiped out Repair Crew II at Santa Cruz, and a few feet forward of the new starboard quarterdecking where Benny’s thirty-eight gunners were incinerated by the bomb blast in the Eastern Solomons.

  Admiral Nimitz cleared his throat, leaned into the microphone, and began his address to the white-clad assembly. The text before him was a large ceremonial document signed by President Roosevelt:

  For consistently outstanding performance and distinguished achievement during repeated action against enemy Japanese forces in the Pacific War area, December 7, 1941, to November 15, 1942. Participating in nearly every major carrier engagement in the first year of the war, the Enterprise and her air group, exclusive of far-flung destruction of hostile shore installations throughout the battle area, did sink or damage on her own a total of thirty-five Japanese vessels and shoot down a total of a hundred eighty-five Japanese aircraft. Her aggressive spirit and superb combat efficiency are fitting tribute to the officers and men who so gallantly established her as an ahead bulwark in the defense of the American nation.

  The admiral then listed action after heroic action, all which the ship’s crew recalled well, if painfully.

  Enterprise’s current captain, Samuel Ginder, followed Admiral Nimitz. His every booming syllable echoed off the ships moored along a restored Battleship Row and drew cheers from hundreds of sailors manning those rails. Captain Ginder smiled and turned to acknowledge the rising crescendo of admiration and gratitude before continuing. “Your record has never been even remotely approached by any ship of this or any other navy.”

  Captain Ginder then proceeded to read a telegram from Admiral Halsey, now commander of all South Pacific naval forces, but once and forever Enterprise’s symbolic leader and champion:

  “It is with deep pride and gratification that I learn of the Presidential Unit Citation for Enterprise. This eminently deserved award expresses the appreciation of a grateful people for your outstanding accomplishments in this war.

  “Keep fighting, ever mindful of the glorious traditions you have established. My heart is always with you.”

  At this the crew could not help, to the last man, grinning so hard it hurt.

  Bill was left nearly wordless by the serial superlatives his brother’s ship had earned. For eighteen months, USS Enterprise had been to him a thimble-sized marker that he had moved, always carefully, thoughtfully, around a map inside a window-blackened room six thousand miles away. The force of finally being aboard her with Benny, at such a charged and historic moment, was overwhelming.

  After exchanging words of encouragement and a crisp salute—though they both would have preferred a hug—Bill said his last good-byes to Benny and boarded the waiting military aircraft.

  The Washington-bound plane lumbered off Ford Is
land’s runway into graying eastern skies. Pearl Harbor and a storied Oahu sunset retreated into the distance through a porthole-sized window. This day’s experience made all the clearer the chasm between the insulated world of the White House Map Room and life aboard a ship at war. He would come to appreciate all the differences soon enough. What was that niggling feeling this realization gave rise to—was it fear?

  ON HIS LAST DAY at the White House, Bill made the rounds, bidding farewell to the close-knit staff who had become a surrogate family to him. There was a perceptible sense among all of them that they might never see Bill again. The somber White House staff was still grieving over the recent loss of Daniel Callahan, another well-liked Roosevelt naval aide who had been drawn to the front. He was killed in the action off Guadalcanal.

  Eleanor Roosevelt’s farewell was especially unnerving, though Bill didn’t let on. She clasped his shoulders with her hands and looked directly into his eyes, as though trying to memorize his features in case he didn’t return. She had taken to him during his tenure there, always asking about his family and producing the occasional plaything for his young son. Her affection had been returned in kind by a young man who’d experienced too little maternal warmth and attention.

  Bill’s last stop was the Oval Office. Grace Tully pressed his hand in her own, said good-bye, and then opened the president’s door. Roosevelt was sitting in his wheelchair beside his desk instead of behind it, his Scottish terrier Fala lounging at his feet. “Good afternoon, Mr. President,” Bill said. “I’ve come to say good-bye and to thank you for your many kindnesses.”

  “Well, William,” the president said, and then paused and leaned forward. “You know you really should stay here.” The comment seemed more a gesture of affection rather than reproof, and Bill took it that way.