[FOUR]
TOP SECRET
URGENT HQ X CORPS 1015 30 OCTOBER 1950
EYES ONLY SUPREME COMMANDER UNC
PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MAJGEN ALMOND TO GENARMY MACARTHUR BEGINS
SIR
REFERENCE: OPERATIONAL MAP 403
AT APPROXIMATELY 2100 29OCT50 THE 26TH INFANTRY 3D ROK DIV THEN ADVANCING TOWARD THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR ALONG THE LINE COORDINATES 323.121 DASH 324.303 CAME UNDER MASSIVE ATTACK BY A LARGE, TANK REINFORCED ENEMY FORCE OF DIVISIONAL STRENGTH.
THE LINES OF THE 26TH WERE BREACHED, AND THE REGIMENT IN SOME DISARRAY WAS FORCED TO WITHDRAW SOUTHEASTWARDLY AND HAS ESTABLISHED DEFENSIVE POSITIONS ALONG THE LINE COORDINATES 313.405 DASH 312.555.
AT FIRST LIGHT THIS MORNING I WENT TO HQ 3D ROK DIV TO CONFER WITH MAJGEN LEE DO. IT IS HIS OPINION THAT THE ATTACKING FORCE WAS NOT NORTH KOREAN BUT CHINESE. AFTER INTERROGATION OF SIXTEEN (16) ENEMY PRISONERS IN MY PRESENCE BY ROK MAJ SUN OF MY HEADQUARTERS WHO IS FLUENT IN CHINESE I AM FORCED TO CONCLUDE THAT THE PRISONERS TAKEN ARE IN FACT CHINESE, SPECIFICALLY MEMBERS OF THE 124TH RED CHINESE INFANTRY DIVISION.
4. ALL OF THE PRISONERS WERE CAPTURED WHILE ON A RECONNAISSANCE MISSION. TWO ARE OFFICERS, A MAJOR AND A SENIOR LIEUTENANT. BOTH, DURING THE INTERROGATION I WITNESSED, ADMITTED THEY WERE CHINESE, AND ASSIGNED TO THE 124TH RED CHINESE DIVISION. BOTH STATED THAT THE 124TH IS NOT REPEAT NOT ATTACHED TO OR SUBORDINATE TO ANY NORTH KOREAN COMMAND OR HEADQUARTERS BUT IS OPERATING ON ITS OWN, UNDER THE COMMAND OF THE RED CHINESE 42D FIELD ARMY. THE CAPTAIN STATED THE 42D FIELD ARMY IS ENTIRELY INSIDE NORTH KOREA, AND HAS THE MISSION OF EXPELLING UNITED NATIONS FORCES QUOTE FROM ALL AREAS NOW OCCUPIED BY UNITED NATIONS FORCES ENDQUOTE.
5. HE FURTHER STATED THERE WERE OTHER RED CHINESE FORCES NOW PRESENT IN NORTH KOREA, CONSISTING OF AT LEAST ONE MORE FIELD ARMY, CHARGED WITH THE SAME MISSION, BUT WAS UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO MAKE FURTHER IDENTIFICATION OF SUCH FORCES.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED
EDWARD M. ALMOND
MAJOR GENERAL
COMMANDING X US CORPS
END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MAJGEN ALMOND TO GENARMY MACARTHUR
TOP SECRET
[FIVE]
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FISHBASE 1125 30 OCTOBER 1950
EYES ONLY BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING TOKYO
VIA STATION CHIEFS SEOUL AND PUSAN
TO ENSURE DELIVERY BOTH INTERMEDIATE ADDRESSEES WILL FORWARD FOLLOWING MESSAGE TO GENERAL
PICKERING IMMEDIATELY ON RECEIPT
MESSAGE BEGINS
AT APPROXIMATELY 0900 THIS DATE UNDERSIGNED COMPLETED INTERROGATION OF TWO SIGNIFICANT PRISONERS HELD BY 3D ROK DIVISION IN VICINITY OF CHOSIN RESERVOIR. MAJOR SIN HOW LEE AND SENIOR LIEUTENANT WONG SU OF CHICOM 42D ARMY WERE CAPTURED BY ROKS WHILE ON A RECONNAISSANCE MISSION PRECEDING A SUCCESSFUL DIVISION SIZE ATTACK, WITH ARMOR, ON 26TH INFANTRY, 3D ROKDIV BY CHICOM 124TH INFANTRY DIVISION. THE ATTACK SUCCEEDED AND ENTIRE 3D ROK DIVISION WAS RENDERED SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT INEFFECTIVE.
BOTH OFFICERS WERE UNUSUALLY COOPERATIVE DURING INTERROGATION BECAUSE OF THEIR BELIEF THAT AN OVERWHELMING STRENGTH OF CHINESE FORCES WAS ABOUT TO ENTER WAR, AND THEY WILL SHORTLY BE RELEASED FROM CAPTIVITY.
THE INFORMATION THEY PROVIDED CONFIRMS IN EVERY IMPORTANT DETAIL WHAT THE UNDERSIGNED HAS LEARNED FROM OTHER SOURCES. MOREOVER, BOTH OFFICERS, WHO SAID THEY SERVED IN INTELLIGENCE LIAISON CAPACITIES BETWEEN CHICOM 4TH FIELD ARMY AND 42D ARMY, HAD AN USUALLY DETAILED KNOWLEDGE OF US X CORPS INTENTIONS.
THEY STATED CHICOM ATTACKS ON ROK UNITS WILL CONTINUE BUT ATTACKS ON US FORCES WILL PROBABLY WAIT UNTIL US FORCES ARE STRETCHED OUT BETWEEN EAST COAST PORTS AND THE CHINESE BORDER, WHEN QUOTE THEY WILL BE EASIER TO COMPLETELY ANNIHILATE ENDQUOTE.
BASED ON INFORMATION PROVIDED, STAY-BEHINDS WILL BE INSERTED TONIGHT AT VARIOUS PLACES WHERE THEY WILL BE IN A POSITION TO LOCATE AND CONFIRM IDENTITY OF CHICOM FORCES AS DESCRIBED BY PRISONERS. THEIR CONFIRMATION WILL FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY IF AND WHEN AVAILABLE.
IN VIEW OF THE COOPERATIVE SPIRIT OF THE PRISONERS ONCE THEY BELIEVED THEY WERE BEING INTERVIEWED BY SENIOR US INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS BOTH WITH REGARD TO IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING CHICOM FORCES AND SPEAKING OF CHICOM INTENTIONS THE POSSIBILITY MUST BE CONSIDERED THAT THEY WERE ORDERED TO PERMIT THEMSELVES TO BE CAPTURED SO THAT AMERICAN COMMANDERS WOULD RECONSIDER OR CANCEL MOVEMENT TO THE CHINESE BORDER. THIS POSSIBILITY WOULD SEEM MORE LIKELY IF STAY-BEHINDS INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY CHICOM UNIT IDENTITY, LOCATION, AND STRENGTH.
THIS INTEL HAS NOT REPEAT NOT BEEN FURNISHED TO X CORPS OR 1ST MARDIV. IN LATTER CASE, THIS IS BECAUSE UNDERSIGNED HAS LEARNED GEN SMITH IS VERY DISPLEASED WITH TRANSFER OF PERSONNEL TO CIA.
MCCOY, MAJ, USMCR
TOP SECRET
[SIX]
Room 39A, Neuro-Psychiatric Ward
U.S. Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
O945 31 October 195O
When Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, pushed open the door he found Major Malcolm S. Pickering in pajamas and robe sitting in his plastic-upholstered chrome armchair attempting, without much success, to spin playing cards into his wastebasket, which he had placed on his metal folding chair.
"A little bored, are we?" McGrory inquired.
"I'm looking forward with immense anticipation to the arrival, about now, of a Corpsman who will ask if I would like some canned grapefruit juice, if you find that of interest, Doctor."
"Well, cheer up, you're about to have a visitor."
"Well, then I guess I'd better clean up the mess"—he pointed to what looked like far more than one deck of playing cards on and beneath the folding chair. McGrory remembered the Ship's Store sold playing cards in packs of four decks—"before Mommy gets here, hadn't I?"
"It's not your mother," McGrory said. "It's somebody's wife. Can I leave here assured that you will behave as an officer and a gentleman?"
"Is her name Dawkins? Tiny little woman?"
"No. It's somebody else's wife. You are going to behave?"
"What does she want?"
"To bring a little cheer into your drab life, I suppose."
"I don't want to see anybody."
"Too late, I cleared her in. If there is misbehavior, there will not be martinis at the cocktail hour. Understood?"
Pick gave him the finger.
McGrory put his right hand on his hip, waved the left, and in a feminine lisp said, "Oh, you Marines are so crude!"
Pick had to laugh.
"I'll see you in a while," McGrory said, and the door swung closed.
Three minutes later, just after Pick had finished picking up the cards, dumping them in the wastebasket, and putting the wastebasket back where it belonged, the door opened.
A good-looking young woman put her head into the room.
Wholesome, not striking, Major Pickering thought. But, all in all, a very attractive package.
"Major Pickering?" she asked.
"Guilty," he said.
"I'm Barbara Mitchell," she said.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Dick's wife," she said, and then corrected herself: "Dick's widow."
Oh, shit! Jesus Christ, did that fucking McGrory know this? Is this his idea of therapy?
"I was sorry to hear about Dick," Pick said as he got to his feet. "He was a fine man."
"May I come in?"
"Of course," Pick said. And then his mouth ran away with him. "I'll even let you sit in the upholstered chair."
She gave him a strange look.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess you noticed this is the lunatic ward. I'm afraid you'll have to take that into account."
"It's all right," she said. "And that doctor—McGrory?—said that you were in here only for evaluation, that you were . . ."
"Harmless? True. Ill-mannered, but harmless."
She walked past him and sat down in the armchair.
Nice tail.
What the fuck's the matter with you?
This is not a potential piece of tail; this is a lad
y whose husband just went in.
And what would you do with apiece of tail if one jumped at you?
Even one not the widow of a fellow Marine officer and Naval aviator fallen in honorable combat?
Being the prick you know you are, you'd probably nail it.
"I got a very nice letter about Dick from Colonel Dunn," Mrs. Mitchell said. "Actually, I got a letter about a week ago, and then yesterday there was another letter from Colonel Dunn, with a carbon copy of the first letter. He said that he wanted to make sure I had gotten the first. He said he'd given it to you to mail when you were taken off the Badoeng Strait, but that you were in pretty bad shape and it might have been . . . misplaced."
He didn't reply.
"Anyway, somewhere in his second letter he said that you were being sent here, so I had the impulse, and gave in to it, to come see if there was anything I could do for you. Bad idea, huh?"
"Not at all," Pick said. "I very much appreciate your coming."
"Really?"
"Really. Dr. McGrory is a fine fellow, but he's not much to look at."
She smiled uneasily.
Your fucking mouth is out of control. There was a clear implication there that you like looking at her.
What a fucking insensitive thing to say to a widow!
I hope she thinks I am nuts.
"Is there?" she asked.
"Is there what?"
"Anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"
Don't even start to think what you started to think. You sonofabitch!
"I'm really in pretty good shape. I really think I should be asking you that question. How are you doing?"
"Well, you tell yourself over and over that you married a Marine pilot, and that sometimes they go away and don't come back. But when it happens, you just don't believe it for a while. It's unreal."
Yeah, I know. When it happens, you just don't believe it for a while.
"I think I understand," Pick said.
She didn't challenge the statement, but he saw in her eyes that she simply thought he was being nice.
She doesn't want to hear your problems. She's got a load of her own.
"The same day I was rescued," he heard himself saying, "my girlfriend—we were talking about getting married—was in an Air Force medical supply Gooney Bird that went down in Korea."
"Oh, how terrible for you!" she said.
"You're right, you just don't believe it for a while," he said.
"She was a nurse?"
"A war correspondent," he said. "Jeanette Priestly. Of the Chicago Tribune."
"Oh, I saw that in the paper," she said. "I'm so sorry."
"Thank you," he said.
"I didn't believe it when the notification team came," she said. "I guess I didn't believe it until yesterday, when they called up to ask 'what my wishes were with regard to funeral arrangements.' Then it really sank in."
"What were they talking about?" Pick asked.
"Well, they've recovered what they call Dick's 'remains.' Why can't they say 'body'?"
"I don't know," Pick confessed.
"And they wanted to know 'my wishes.' "
"What about? Where to ... bury him?"
"Uh-huh. And when did I want to accept his Distinguished Flying Cross? At the funeral, or separately?"
"What did you decide?"
"Well, he's not going back to Arkansas. He hated Arkansas."
"That's where his family is?"
She nodded. "Mine, too."
"Are you going there? What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. The only thing I know is that I'm not going to go back to Arkansas. I'm going to bury Dick here. We were happy here."
"You mean in San Diego?"
"At the National Cemetery, on Point Loma?"
"I know it."
"It overlooks the ocean. Dick loved the ocean. I do, too. Maybe because there's no ocean in Arkansas."
"I grew up on the ocean," Pick said. "And I love it, too."
"Where?"
"San Francisco," Pick said. "My parents have a place on the ocean a little south of San Francisco."
"You're not a regular, are you?" she asked.
He shook his head no.
"Just a weekend warrior," he said.
"What did you do as a civilian?"
"I flew for an airline," he said. "Trans-Global."
"That's what I'd like to do," she said.
"Fly for an airline? I don't think they have lady pilots."
She giggled, and smiled at him. Jesus Christ, I could fall into those eyes.
"No, silly. I meant see if I could get a job as a stewardess. Maybe I could get a recommendation from you at Trans-Global? Absolutely no experience, but willing to learn. Free to travel. No family ties."
"I thought you said your family was in Arkansas."
"They were annoyed—Dick's family and mine, both—when I wouldn't go 'home' when Dick shipped out. There were words then. And when I wouldn't go home . . . after Dick died, there were more words."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Pick said.
"And I'm sorry I told you," she said, and stood up. "I really am. I came here to see what I could do for you, and here I am, telling you all about my woes." "Haven't you ever heard 'misery loves company'?"
"Yeah, but I don't think it means what you're suggesting."
"What do you think it means?"
"It means that people that complain, whine a lot, like to be around people who complain and whine a lot."
"I think people like you and me, Mrs. Mitchell, who have lost the most important person in our lives, have every right to feel a little sorry for ourselves. This miserable person, Mrs. Mitchell, hopes that your standing up doesn't mean you're going to leave."
She met his eyes again.
Jesus, she looks right through me!
"I was about to say 'I have to run,' " she said. "That would have implied I have somewhere to go. I don't, really. So if you'd like me to stay awhile, Major Pickering, I'd like to."
"Pick," he said. "My name is Malcolm, but nobody calls me that."
She put out her hand.
"Babs," she said. "How do you do?"
"You mean aside from being in the loony bin?"
She giggled and looked at him again and smiled, and Pick realized he was holding on to her hand longer than he should be. He quickly let go. He saw a faint blush on her face, and decided that proved she had picked up on the hand-holding.
You may relax, Mrs. Babs Mitchell. The one thing this miserable sonofabitch is not going to do is one fucking thing that will give you any reason to suspect that I'm even thinking of anything that could resemble a pass.
[SEVEN]
Room 39A, Neuro-Psychiatric Ward
U.S. Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
13OS 31 October 195O
"I was wondering when you were going to show up," Major Malcolm S. Pickering said to Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, when McGrory came into the room.
"I'm flattered," McGrory said. "I didn't think you cared. Especially after I saw you and your visitor in the O Club."
"It was lunchtime, I offered to take her to lunch," Pick said. "That's all there was to that. No, that's not true. Tell me how much I have to tell you about my terrible ordeal to get a six-hour pass the day after tomorrow."
"What the hell was it, lust at first sight?"
"The lady is burying her husband. She asked me to attend the service and the funeral. Jesus Christ, McGrory!"
"She told me she was a Marine pilot's wife. She didn't say he was dead."
"He flew a Corsair off the Badoeng Strait and then into the ground," Pick said. "He was a very nice guy. She doesn't have any family, and I intend to be there with her when she buries him. Don't fuck with me on this, Doc."
"I won't even demand that you describe your ordeal, Pick," McGrory said. "You probably wouldn't tell me the truth anyway. I want you to talk about it with me when you want to, not before."
"I get the pass?"
McGrory nodded. "Thank you."
"I don't know if I'm saying this as your friend or your physician, Pick, but either way, I think it has to be said."
"What has to be said?"
"There's what I call the boomerang syndrome in the relations between men and women. Most commonly it's when a divorced guy, after lifting the skirts of every bimbo in town, finds and falls in love with a twin—physically or psychologically, and often both—of his detested ex-wife. When there is a death— in this instance, there are two deaths—the woman, whether she's aware of it or not, hungers for a strong male shoulder to lean on, and the man—although he may hate himself for it—starts looking for a replacement for his lost love."
"It's not like that here, Doc," Pick said.
"You're on goddamned thin ice, Pick, in a situation like this. If you don't want to hurt the woman, keep your distance. If you don't want to get kicked in the balls again—this widow is not your late girlfriend—keep your distance."
"How did you hear about my late girlfriend?"
"In my first transoceanic telephone call," McGrory said.
"Your father told me. They're sending her body back, too, and he thought I should know." "Were you going to tell me about that, McGrory?" Dr. McGrory chose to ignore the question.
"If you're going to be going on pass the day after tomorrow," Dr. McGrory said as he took his notebook from his shirt pocket, "you'll have to have a uniform. I'll give you an authorization for the officers' sales store, and to prove what a really good guy I am, I'll call the manager—a Jewish boy named Francis Xavier O'Malley— and tell him you're a friend of mine, and really need the uniform tailored by tomorrow at seventeen hundred."
"Were you going to tell me about Jeanette's body, McGrory?"
"That was then, no. This is now, and I just did. They're going to have a formal—what the hell is the word?—'reception ceremony' for it at North Island Naval Air Station in three, four days."
"And am I going to get to go to this 'reception ceremony'?"
"That depends on how you behave when you bury the lady's husband," Dr. McGrory said.
He tore a page from his notebook and handed it to Pick.
"Give that to O'Malley," he said. "And don't let them cut the material too much when they take it in. I have every hope that you'll soon be a little heavier."
Retreat, Hell! tc-10 Page 50