"I didn't do anything, Billy," McCoy said. "I told you, Pick found a lost army convoy."
Thirty minutes later, the black H-19A lifted off the flight deck of the USS Badoeng Strait without incident and headed for the eastern shore of the Korean Peninsula.
[SIX]
USAF Airfield K-l
Pusan, South Korea
14O5 14 October 195O
After Ernie McCoy dropped her at Haneda Airfield, outside Tokyo, Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune had been told that there were no direct flights from Japan to the airstrip at Wonsan. Just returned to service, the airstrip would take nothing larger than twin-engined C-47 aircraft. But inasmuch as there were very limited refueling capabilities at Wonsan, and the C-47 could not make it to Wonsan from Tokyo with enough fuel remaining to make it back to K-l at Pusan, Tokyo—Wonsan service was out of the question.
What she would have to do is fly first to K-1, then see what she could do there about further transportation to Wonsan.
With some difficulty, she managed to get a seat on the next Pusan-bound C-54.
The dispatcher at Pusan base operations was polite but firm.
To board a Wonsan-bound aircraft, it would be necessary for her to have an authorization from the Eighth Army Rear Press Officer. There could be no exceptions. And no, he could not provide her with transportation to the Eighth Army Rear Press Office. Perhaps if she called them, they might be willing to send a jeep for her.
Jeanette went to the highway, took off her cap, unbraided her long blond hair, and let it fall around her shoulders.
The drivers of the first two jeeps to pass her stared openmouthed at the sight of a fatigues-clad lady with long blond hair hitchhiking. The driver of the third jeep slammed on his brakes, backed up, and told her he would carry her anywhere in the Orient she wanted to go.
He dropped her at the Eighth Army Rear Press Office, a collection of Quonset huts near the railroad station in downtown Pusan.
There, first a corporal, then a technical sergeant, then a captain, and finally a major with a very neatly trimmed pencil-line mustache told her essentially the same thing, that there was a lot of demand for air passage to Wonsan— "Every reporter in Korea wants to be able to say they were waiting on the beach when X Corps landed"-—and there was only a limited amount of space available for nonessential travelers, like reporters.
There was a list, to which her name would be appended. With a little luck, she might be able to get on a plane to Wonsan tomorrow, but it would most likely not be until the day after.
Jeanette hitchhiked back to K-1, and wandered around the field until she saw a C-47 standing in front of a hangar from the doors of which hung a huge red cross.
A little investigation revealed that this was the point at which medical supplies, which have the highest priority, were loaded aboard transport aircraft.
She dazzled the pilot with a smile, asked him where he was going, and was told that he was going round robin Pusan-Seoul-Wonsan-Pusan, which meant, he explained, that he would first fly to Seoul, where he would discharge cargo and take on enough fuel to fly across the peninsula to Wonsan, where he would discharge the rest of his cargo and take aboard wounded requiring evacuation via Pusan, and fly to Pusan.
Jeanette told him that was really fascinating, the sort of a human-interest story her editors were always interested in, the sort of a story that would be reprinted in a lot of newspapers.
"Where did you say you were from, Lieutenant?" Jeanette asked, taking the lens cap off her Leica.
"Louisville, Kentucky."
"'The Louisville Courier usually prints everything I write," Jeanette said. "Why don't you just stand there by the boxes with the big red crosses on them."
"That's human blood, ma'am," he said, "fresh human blood, straight from the States."
"Fascinating," Jeanette said. "Let me make sure 1 have your name spelled right."
Lieutenant Jefferson C. Whaleburton, of Louisville, Kentucky, did not question Miss Priestly's statement that he didn't have to get permission to take her on the round robin, that journalists such as herself could go anywhere the story took them. She showed him her "invitational orders" from Supreme Headquarters, which authorized her to travel anywhere with the Far East Command.
As they flew up the Korean Peninsula—Jeanette sat on a fold-down seat between the pilot's and copilot's seats—Lieutenant Whaleburton pointed out the windshield and told her the dark clouds on the horizon were a front moving down from Manchuria.
"Weather said it's not moving very fast and shouldn't give us any trouble, either to Seoul of across to Wonsan," he said.
[SEVEN]
No. 7 Saku-Tun Denenchofu,
Tokyo, Japan
15O5 14 October 195O
Jai-Hu-san, the housekeeper for Major and Mrs. Kenneth R. McCoy, did not speak English. Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, U.S. Army, did not speak Japanese. Jai-Hu-san, moreover, was very fond of Mrs. Ernestine McCoy, aware of the problems of her pregnancy, and absolutely unwilling to disturb her rest by waking her simply because some Yankee soldier said he had to speak to her.
It was only when the barbarian sergeant began to shout Ernie-san's name that Jai-Hu-san relented and went to the McCoy bedroom.
"The sergeant with the red face is here," Jai-Hu-san announced after gently waking her employer. "He is very rude, and he will not go away."
"I'll deal with it," Ernie said, "thank you."
She hurriedly put on and buttoned a kimono over her sleeping gown and swollen belly. Then she saw herself in the mirror. Not only was her hair mussed, but she had smeared her makeup tossing around on the bed, trying to get to sleep.
The baby was now kicking with some regularity, very often when she was trying to take her mind off Ken, Pick, and her condition and get some sleep.
"I can't go out there like this!" she said, aloud, and went into her bathroom.
She began to remove her lipstick with a tissue.
Who am I kidding? I don't give a damn what I look like. I'm afraid to go to the door. Paul wouldn't be here in the middle of the afternoon unless he had something to tell me that won't wait. And I'm afraid to hear what it is that won't wait.
She reapplied her lipstick and ran a brush through her hair, then looked at herself in the mirror again, exhaled audibly, and then walked through the house to the front door. Jai-Hu-san walked behind her.
"Hi, Paul," she called cheerfully. "What's up?"
"What did I do, get you out of bed? The Dragon Lady wouldn't let me in until I raised hell."
"I was taking a nap," Ernie said. "What's going on?"
"Major Pickering is aboard the Badoeng Strait" Keller said. " 'Dirty, unshaven, very hungry, but not wounded or injured, and in sound psychological condition.'"
"Major Pickering has never been in sound psychological condition," Ernie said. "Are you sure, Paul? How do you know?"
"There was an Operational Immediate from the Badoeng Strait" Keller said. "Signed by the major."
"What major?"
"Your husband, my boss," Keller said. "I guess the Killer carried him there after he found him. I just finished encrypting it and sending it to the States."
"Don't call him Killer," Ernie said.
And then she felt herself starting to fall, and the lights went out.
The next thing she knew, she was looking up at Keller, who was gently wiping her face with a cool wet cloth.
Ernie pushed his hand away and sat up.
She saw she was on cushions on the tatami.
"Jesus, you went down like a polled ox, whatever the hell that means," Paul said. "Are you all right, Ernie?"
"I'm fine."
"You're sure?"
Ernie saw the look on Jai-Hu-san's face. It was clear that she thought Keller had told her something so awful that it had caused her to pass out.
"The red-faced barbarian brought very good news, Jai-Hu-san," Ernie said. "He is a very good man."
"You we
nt unconscious," Jai-Hu-san said. "You could have hurt yourself and the baby."
"I think I better call for an ambulance," Paul Keller said, getting to his feet.
"No," Ernie said flatly. "I don't need an ambulance."
“I think I should call an ambulance," Paul said.
Ernie looked at him.
He's trembling; his face is as white as a sheet. Christ, is he going to faint?
"What you should do, Paul," Ernie said, "is first sit down. Before you fall down. Jai-Hu-san will get you a stiff drink. I will watch you drink it, because I don't get any in my condition. That out of the way, we will then try to put a call in to Pick's mother."
"At least let me call a doctor."
"If I thought I needed a doctor, I'd tell you," Ernie said. Then she had another thought. "Where's the general?" she said.
"He's with the President, on the way to Wake Island. MacArthur left here for Wake at seven this morning."
"How will he hear about this?"
"The President is never out of touch," Keller said. "They will forward my— Major McCoy's—message to him wherever he is, and there's always a cryptographer with the President. He'll get it, Ernie."
"And we're going to have to get word to Jeanette, too," Ernie said. "She's on her way to Wonsan."
"I wish you'd let me call a doctor."
"Do you think you can find her?"
"That shouldn't be hard," Keller said. "As soon as I leave here, I'll start calling around. She's probably at the Press Center in Pusan."
"First things first, Paul," Ernie said. "Go sit on the couch before you fall down, and Jai-Hu-san will bring you a drink."
"First things first I'm going to get you a doctor!"
Ernie, laboriously, assisted by Jai-Hu-san, got to her feet. She walked to Keller, who was just over six feet one and weighed just over two hundred pounds, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at him. "For Christ's sake, Paul, go sit on the goddamn couch!" Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, USA, walked over to the couch and sat down.
[EIGHT]
The weather was getting nasty by the time Lieutenant Whaleburton put the C-47 down at K-16, and by the time they took off the weather was, in Whaleburtons phraseology, "marginal."
"Not a problem, Miss Priestly," he said. "If it gets any worse, we'll just head for Pusan."
The weather got worse.
Thirty minutes out of Seoul, Lieutenant Whaleburton said, "If I get up in that soup, I'll never find Wonsan, so what I'm going to do is drop down below it. And if it gets any worse than this, I'm going to head for Pusan. But I really would like to get that blood to Wonsan."
It quickly got worse, much worse, with lots of turbulence.
When Lieutenant Whaleburton saw the ridge in the Taebaek mountain range ahead of him, he of course pulled back on the yoke to get over it.
He almost made it.
The right wingtip made contact with the granite of the peak, spinning the aircraft around and down. Before it stopped moving down the mountainside, it came apart and the aviation gasoline exploded.
Lieutenant Whaleburton didn't even have time to make a radio report.
Chapter Eleven
[ONE]
Wake Island
O625 15 October 19SO
As the Independence landed, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering saw, with a sense of relief, that the Bataan was already on the ground. He'd overheard some of President Truman's staff wondering if that was going to happen, whether, in other words, MacArthur would time his landing so that the President would arrive first and have to wait for the Supreme Commander to arrive from Tokyo. At first, Pickering had dismissed the conjecture as utter nonsense, but then he thought about it and had to admit that MacArthur was indeed capable of doing something like that. It was, he thought, like two children playing King of the Hill, except that Truman and MacArthur were not children, and Truman was, if not a king, than certainly the most powerful man on the planet. A king worried that one of his faithful subjects had his eyes on the throne.
Pickering had realized—maybe especially after he'd met with General Walter Bedell Smith—that Truman was anything but the flaming liberal incompetent the Republican party had painted him to be.
He had then realized—the late-dawning realization making him feel like a fool—that Senator Richardson K. Fowler, who was as much entitled to be called "Mr. Republican" as any politician, was fully aware of this.
That had led him to recall Truman's visit to tell him he was naming General Walter Bedell Smith to replace Admiral Hillencoetter. When he had told Truman he had always felt he was in water over his head, Truman had told him that not only had "Beetle" Smith said the same thing, but Wild Bill Donovan as well. Pickering had been so surprised—in the case of Donovan, astonished— to hear that that it was only later that he recalled what Truman had said when he'd assumed the presidency on Roosevelt's death, that "he was going to need all the help he could get."
That certainly suggested that Truman thought he had been given responsibility he wasn't at all sure he was qualified to handle.
And the truth was that Truman had proven himself wrong. Almost all the decisions he had made—right from the beginning, when he'd ordered the atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan—had been the right ones.
He of course had been mistaken to give in to the brass and disestablish the Office of Strategic Services. And Fleming Pickering found Truman's suggestion that it was about time to disband the U.S. Marine Corps to be stupid and outrageous. But Truman had realized he'd made a mistake about the OSS, and quickly formed the CIA, and after the performance of the Marines in the Pusan Perimeter and at Inchon, Truman had changed his mind about the Marines and said so.
Truman's selection of General Smith to head the CIA had been the right one, even though his old friend Ralph Howe, the one general officer he really trusted, had relentlessly pushed Pickering for the job, and appointing Pickering would have pleased Senator Fowler personally and silenced a lot of Republican criticism.
As the Independence stopped, Pickering saw from his window the Supreme Commander, United Nations Command, standing on the tarmac waiting for the Commander-in-Chief.
MacArthur was wearing his trademark washed-out khakis and battered, gold-encrusted cap.
Jesus, Truman is the Commander-in-Chief! At least El Supremo could have put on a tunic and neck scarf!
Then he saw the others in the MacArthur party. Brigadier General Courtney Whitney was among them; Major General Charles Willoughby was not. That was surprising.
He wondered if Willoughby, who was almost invariably at the Supreme Commander's side, might somehow have fallen into displeasure.
Is El Supremo punishing Willoughby for something by bringing Whitney here and leaving Willoughby in Japan? I know damned well Willoughby would want to be here.
The two were, in Pickering's judgment, the most shameless of the Bataan Gang in sucking up to MacArthur, in constant competition for his approval, or even for an invitation to cocktails and dinner.
Both disliked Pickering. He had long before decided this was because of his personal relationship with MacArthur, which was far closer than their own. Pickering declined more invitations to cocktails, or bridge, or dinner with the MacArthurs than both of them received. And MacArthur often addressed Pickering by his first name, an "honor" he rarely accorded Willoughby or Whitney or, for that matter, anyone else.
There was more than that, of course. Pickering had never been subordinate to MacArthur. Worse than that, they knew—and there was no denying this— that he was, in effect, a spy in their midst, making frequent reports on MacArthurs activities that they never got to see.
In the case of Whitney, Pickering had made a social gaucherie the day he had met MacArthur when he arrived in Australia from the Philippines with members of his staff—soon to be dubbed the "Bataan Gang." He had not recognized Major Whitney as a Manila lawyer he had known before the war.
The truth was that he simply had
n't remembered the man. Whitney had decided he had been intentionally snubbed, and had never gotten over it.
Pickering had written his wife from Australia, in early 1942, that his relations with MacArthurs staff ranged from frigid to frozen, and that had been when he had been a temporarily commissioned Navy captain sent to the Pacific by Navy Secretary Frank Knox. The temperature had dropped even lower when he had been sent to the Pacific as a Marine brigadier general and with the title of Deputy Director of the OSS for Asia.
MacArthur—with the encouragement of Willoughby and Whitney, Pickering had come to understand—had not wanted the OSS in his theater of operations. Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence officer, and Whitney, who had been commissioned a major in the Philippines just before the war, and was serving as sort of an adviser, were agreed that intelligence activities should be under MacArthur's intelligence officer. Whitney, moreover, had decided he had the background to become spymaster under Willoughby.
MacArthur had not refused to accept the OSS in his theater, he had simply been not able to find time in his busy schedule to receive the OSS officer sent to his headquarters by Wild Bill Donovan, the head of the OSS.
Donovan, who was a close personal friend of Roosevelt, had complained to him about MacArthur's behavior, and Roosevelt had solved the problem by commissioning Pickering into the Marine Corps, assigning him to the OSS, and sending him to deal with MacArthur.
Pickering had a dozen clashes with the Bataan Gang during World War II, the most galling to Willoughby and Whitney his making contact with an officer fighting as a guerrilla on Mindanao after MacArthur—acting on Willoughby's advice—had informed the President there "was absolutely no possibility of U.S. guerrilla activity in the Philippines at this time."
Pickering had sent a team commanded by a young Marine intelligence officer—Lieutenant K. R. McCoy—to Japanese-occupied Mindanao on a Navy submarine. McCoy had established contact with a reserve lieutenant colonel named Wendell Fertig, who had refused to surrender, promoted himself to brigadier general, announced he was "Commanding General of United States Forces in the Philippines," and begun guerrilla warfare against the Japanese occupiers.
Retreat, Hell! tc-10 Page 32