Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  The distance was a little over three miles, and the boat was making—even against the rapidly receding tide— close to fifteen knots. It took them just over fifteen minutes to reach the end of the island, but that was apparently enough time for the North Koreans on the southern end of the island to notify the North Koreans on the northern end that they were under attack. When McCoy’s boat turned out of the Flying Fish Channel toward the village of Nae-ri, they were immediately brought under rifle fire.

  They’ve probably laid a telephone line across the island, McCoy thought, as he watched a Royal Marine sergeant speak into the microphone of his field radio: “Mother, Mother, Baby Two, Baby Two, Sixteen, Sixteen,” he said, lowered the microphone, and turned to McCoy.

  “On the way, sir,” he said. “If the captain remembers, Sixteen is four rounds from Charity’s five-incher, sir.”

  “Good show, Sergeant!” Captain McCoy said, in the best English accent he could muster.

  A few moments later, there was the thruttle-thruttle sound of a large-caliber round moving in the air, and then an enormous explosion in the village of Nae-ri. And then another, and another, and another.

  McCoy, who was riding in the bow, gestured to the coxswain to make for the shore, and then to Sergeant Jennings to get on the bow with his Browning Automatic Rifle.

  [THREE]

  TOP SECRET

  0500 GREENWICH 25 AUGUST 1950

  FROM OFFICER COMMANDING HMS CHARITY

  TO HMS JAMAICA PERSONAL AND IMMEDIATE ATTENTION VICE ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM MATTHEWS, RN

  SIR

  I HAVE THE HONOR TO REPORT, BASED ON INFORMATION FURNISHED ME BY CAPTAIN GEORGE F. HART, USMC, THE FOLLOWING:THE ISLANDS OF YONGHUNG-DO AND TAEMUUI-DO WERE SUCCESSFULLY INVESTED BY U.S. AND ROYAL MARINE FORCES EARLY THIS MORNING AND ALL RESISTANCE WAS ENDED AT 1500 LOCAL TIME THIS AFTERNOON.

  U.S. AND BRITISH CASUALTIES ZERO KILLED AND ZERO WOUNDED.

  ENEMY CASUALTIES SEVEN KILLED SIX WOUNDED NINE PRISONERS.

  IT IS THE INTENTION OF CAPTAIN K. R. MCCOY, USMC, TO INVADE THE ISLAND OF TAEBU-DO AS SOON AS TIDAL CONDITIONS PERMIT. HE REPORTS WHITE FLAGS HAVE BEEN HOISTED PRESUMABLY INDICATING A DESIRE OF THE ENEMY TO SURRENDER. CAPTAIN MCCOY REQUESTS THAT BRIGADIER GENERAL PICKERING, USMC, BE APPRISED BY YOU OF THESE DEVELOPMENTS.

  MOST RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED

  DARWIN JONES-FORTIN, RN COMMANDING HMS CHARITY

  TOP SECRET

  [FOUR]

  THE RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME COMMANDER UN COMMAND/ALLIED FORCES IN JAPAN THE EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES TOKYO, JAPAN 1930 25 AUGUST 1950

  “Oh, Fleming,” MacArthur said, rising from an armchair in the upstairs sitting room, “there you are. Thank you for coming.”

  “It was good of you to receive me on such short notice,” Pickering said, “and even kinder to ask me to supper. I know I’m intruding . . .”

  He walked to Jean MacArthur and kissed her cheek.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “We don’t see enough of you socially, Fleming.”

  “This isn’t exactly social, Jean,” Pickering said.

  “For the next ten minutes, it will be, while we have a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres,” MacArthur said.

  A Filipino steward offered Pickering a tray, on which sat a squat crystal glass dark with whiskey.

  “Your health,” Pickering said, as he picked it up.

  “Do you hear often from Patricia?” Jean asked.

  “I call her, or she calls me, just about every day,” Pickering said.

  “And how, poor dear, is she bearing up?”

  “The tough part is not knowing,” Pickering replied honestly.

  “And there’s still no word about your son?” MacArthur asked.

  “Only in the sense that my station chief in Pusan reports that there is no word that Pick has been captured.”

  “And would he know?” Jean MacArthur asked.

  “He would,” Pickering said. “Actually, he’s very good at what he does.”

  “Forgive me,” MacArthur said. “He didn’t—the CIA didn’t—seem to be able to give us advance knowledge of what happened on June 26.”

  My God, if I get into that, I’ll really be in trouble.

  “Yes, I know,” Pickering said. “That’s one of the reasons I was sent here, to see if I can prevent a blunder like that from happening again.”

  “And I can think of no one better able to do that,” MacArthur said. “Your report will be to Admiral Hillenkoetter, I presume?”

  “I haven’t even begun to prepare a report,” Pickering said. “But when I do, it will go to the President.”

  “Despite the perhaps unkind things I have said about the OSS in the past, I questioned President Truman’s decision to abolish it immediately after the war,” MacArthur said.

  “He seems to have quickly realized his mistake,” Pickering replied. “He formed the CIA several months later.”

  “I sometimes wonder . . . ,” MacArthur said. “Let me phrase it this way: President Truman seems to understand what a threat Joseph Stalin and company pose to the world. Frankly, I have often wondered if many of those close to President Roosevelt were similarly concerned. Many of those were still in the upper echelons around President Truman when he abolished the OSS.”

  “I’m sure it pleased those people, General,” Pickering said. “But my best information was that it was senior officers of the military who wanted to bury the OSS, and successfully urged Truman to do so.”

  “Why would they want to do that?”

  “Because they couldn’t control it themselves.”

  “That’s a hell of an accusation, Fleming,” MacArthur said, “and let me quickly and emphatically disassociate myself from any group of senior officers . . . I was never asked what I thought should happen to the OSS. Had I been asked, I would have said I felt it to be quite valuable to the nation. And when the CIA was formed, I was delighted when they sent their experts to assist me here.”

  Oh, what the hell. I’m going to infuriate him anyway. Why put it off for ten minutes?

  “General, the point there is that the CIA wasn’t here to assist you,” Pickering said. “Not in the sense you’re implying. You’re suggesting that you considered them part of your staff, and that implies you controlled them.”

  “And you find something wrong with that?”

  “To do their job properly, CIA people cannot be subordinate to the local commander,” Pickering said.

  “Even to someone like Douglas?” Jean MacArthur said loyally. “I can understand your position, I think, at division level, or corps level, but Douglas is the Supreme Commander! ”

  “That’s the point, Jean,” Pickering said. “The more important, the more imposing, the local commander is—and I submit that your husband is the most important and most imposing of all the commanders I know of—the less likely the CIA man is to challenge his judgment. And he is supposed to think, and act, independently.”

  “Would you say that applies to our relationship?” MacArthur asked.

  “Yes, sir, I would,” Pickering said. “Our friendship aside, I really think you were happier before I came here, when the CIA station chief thought of himself—and you thought of him—as a member of your staff, and you both behaved accordingly.”

  “You apparently don’t think much of your CIA station chief,” MacArthur said.

  “Or maybe Douglas, either,” Jean said. “Fleming, I never thought I’d hear you talk like this—”

  “Jean, you know better than that,” Pickering interrupted. “My admiration for Douglas is bottomless, as an officer and a man.”

  “It certainly doesn’t sound like it,” she said.

  Pickering turned to face MacArthur.

  “The only reason I haven’t relieved the station chief is that I’m afraid his replacement might be even worse.”

  “In what sense?” MacArthur said icily. “That he would be even more cooperative with the local commander?”

  “I think it’s pe
rfectly natural for any senior officer—including you—to be uncomfortable with the notion of having people playing on their fields whom they do not control. And to do whatever they can to get that control. In the case of the Tokyo CIA station chief, you did just that. Or Charley Willoughby did, which is the same thing.”

  MacArthur stared at him icily for a moment.

  “Granting, for the sake of argument, that I did, or General Willoughby did, manage, so to speak, to bring your station chief to think of himself as a member of the team, what harm was done?”

  “I was less than completely honest a moment ago when I implied I’m going to relieve the station chief for having allowed himself to be sucked into Charley Willoughby’s— and your—orbit. The fact is that he was derelict—even criminally derelict—in the performance of his duties.”

  “That certainly deserves amplification,” MacArthur said.

  “In his case, it was an act of what I have to believe was intentional failure to do his job properly. It was either that, or he was, literally, so inept or so stupid that he didn’t know what was going on.”

  “And what was going on?”

  “A report was prepared by an intelligence officer on the staff of the Naval Element, SCAP, strongly indicating that the North Koreans had prepared an invasion force.”

  “I know of no such report, and, frankly, Pickering—”

  “General, there was a report. I’ve seen it. You apparently didn’t get to see it because General Willoughby ordered it destroyed.”

  “That’s an outrageous accusation!”

  “Unfortunately, it’s true,” Pickering said.

  “What intelligence officer?” MacArthur said. “What we are going to do right now, General Pickering, tonight, is get General Willoughby and this intelligence officer of yours in here and get to the bottom of this. After which I will take whatever action seems appropriate.”

  “You can get Charley Willoughby in here, General, if you like, and I will repeat to him what I just told you. If that is your desire, I would suggest that you also summon Captain Edward C. Wilkerson—”

  “Who’s he?” MacArthur interrupted.

  “The Chief of the Naval Element, SCAP. He’s the other villain in this sad affair. He acquiesced when General Willoughby ordered the report destroyed.”

  “I don’t believe any of this,” Jean MacArthur said.

  From the look on Douglas MacArthur’s face, neither did he.

  “We will start with the intelligence officer who allegedly prepared this report,” MacArthur said. “And then . . .”

  “Unfortunately, he’s not available tonight,” Pickering said.

  “Why not? Where is he?”

  “On Tokchok-kundo Island,” Pickering said.

  “Where?”

  “From which, early this morning, he launched an invasion of Taemuui-do, Yonghung-do, and Taebu-do islands in the Flying Fish Channel, which, as of 1500 this afternoon, are under our control.”

  MacArthur stared at him in disbelief.

  “Do I understand you correctly, General Pickering, that you have launched an operation—without any consultation, much less permission from myself or anyone on my staff— that may—without question will—seriously impact the Inchon invasion?”

  Pickering didn’t immediately reply. But he smiled, which caused MacArthur’s face to turn white.

  “I fail to see the humor in any of this, so perhaps you would be good enough to tell me why you are smiling?”

  “Forgive me,” Pickering said. “I was thinking about General Patton’s reply to General Bradley during the Sicilian campaign. . . .”

  MacArthur, after a moment, chuckled and then laughed.

  “I don’t understand,” Jean MacArthur said.

  “Bradley was concerned, darling,” MacArthur explained, “that the mutual dislike between George Patton and General Montgomery would see Georgie take extraordinary—possibly too risky—steps to be in Palermo before Montgomery could get there. So he messaged him words to the effect, ‘Do not do not take Palermo without my permission. ’ To which Georgie replied, ‘I hold Palermo, should I give it back?’ ”

  She chuckled. “I’d never heard that before,” she said.

  “Would that this situation were as amusing,” MacArthur said to Pickering.

  “General, I think I should tell you that President Truman was aware of my plan,” Pickering said.

  “Would you tell me why you did it?” MacArthur asked.

  “General, I’ve been privileged to be in on the planning of many of your invasions,” Pickering said. “I like to think I learned from watching you.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “Your staff was determined to take the islands on D Minus One,” Pickering said. “You agreed. I thought doing so would give the enemy twenty-four hours’ notice of our intentions. That question had come up and been decided in favor of D Minus One. If I had come to you with this, you would have been forced to choose between your trusted staff and an amateur challenging their—and your—judgment. ”

  “I have overridden my staff before, and you know that.”

  “I wasn’t sure I could carry it off. Not me. Captain McCoy. I thought it was worth the risk. If we failed, only a few men would be lost. If we succeeded . . .”

  “And what makes you think the enemy won’t immediately take action to retake the islands?”

  “The hope is that the enemy will believe it’s nothing more than the South Koreans improving their positions along the Flying Fish Channel. They may not even take action. If they do, all they’re going to find on the three islands are South Korean national police.”

  “And when the invasion doesn’t take place in the next three or four days, you think they will relax?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering said. “I spoke with Captain McCoy on the radio shortly before I came here. He said the North Koreans on the islands were not in radio contact with the mainland. So they could not have reported they were under attack by U.S. and Royal Marines. He believes the deception worked.”

  “Royal Marines?”

  “Yes, sir. From HMS Jamaica. And HMS Charity provided naval gunfire for the assaults.”

  “So Admiral Matthews also felt D Minus One for the assault on the islands was not a good idea,” MacArthur said. “I wonder why he didn’t come to me with his objections.”

  “I can only guess that he felt much as I felt, sir.”

  MacArthur looked at him for a long moment, then asked, thoughtfully, “We have no idea what will happen between now and the invasion, do we?”

  “No, sir. But McCoy feels—and I concur—that if there is an attack on the islands, and we refrain from using gunfire from the Charity to repel it, it would lend credence to the idea that the whole thing was a South Korean operation, nothing more.”

  “In which case, we would lose the islands.”

  “Not necessarily, sir. There’re thirty South Korean police already on the islands, and we intend to reinforce them. If an attack doesn’t come for several days, we should have enough South Koreans in place to repel anything but a major effort.”

  “That’s a pretty iffy situation,” MacArthur said. “So iffy that I don’t consider it wise to throw this equation—what if we already held the islands?—into the last-minute planning just yet. Right now, the fewer people who know about this, the better, and we will take things as they develop. Wouldn’t you agree, Fleming?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Don’t tell me that’s it?

  We’re back to “Fleming”? And he just wants to sit on this, “take things as they develop”?

  “Would you like another little drop before we go into supper, Fleming?” the Supreme Commander asked. “Or not?”

  “I think another one would go down nicely, sir. Thank you.”

  [FIVE]

  TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 0530 26 AUGUST 1950

  “I can stay,” Lieutenant David Taylor, USNR, said to Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMC. “Kim is as
good a skipper for the Wind of Good Fortune as I am, and Major Kim will be aboard.”

  “What, are there two last names in all of Korea—Kim and Lee?” Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman observed rhetorically.

  Taylor and McCoy chuckled.

  “Don’t let this go to your head, Taylor,” McCoy said. “But I disagree, and right now we can’t afford to get in trouble with the Wind of Good Fortune. You go. We’ll be all right.”

  “Says the eternal optimist,” Zimmerman said.

  “The sooner we get the militia off the islands, and Kim’s national police on them, the better off we’re going to be,” McCoy said.

  “What makes you so sure there’s going to be more national police?” Zimmerman asked.

  “Because we now hold the islands, and I don’t think any national police commander would want to take the chance of becoming known as the guy who was responsible for us losing them again, simply because he was afraid to reinforce them.”

  Zimmerman’s shrug indicated he accepted the logic.

  “I wish we could have kept the Limeys,” Zimmerman said. “At least the boats.”

  “They couldn’t swim back to the Charity,” McCoy said. “They left us one of their boats, and the radio . . .”

  “But not the guy to drive it,” Zimmerman argued.

  “. . . and we’ll have to do with that,” McCoy went on, ignoring him. And then he changed his mind.

  “I want you to have this straight in your mind, Ernie, so I’ll go over it one more time. There is no way we can hold any of these islands if the North Koreans really want to take them back. And if they tried they would become damned curious if we put up a hell of a fight—”

  “So what we’re going to do is hope they stay stupid,” Zimmerman interrupted.

  “You’re getting close to the line, Ernie,” McCoy said very coldly. “What we’re going to do is when they send a couple of boats—and they will—to see what happened on Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, is have the militia fire on them with rifles. They may get lucky—none of the militia can really shoot, and all they have is the Japanese Arisakas—and kill a couple of the NKs. But even if they don’t, bullets will be flying, and nobody likes that. The first time that happens, the NKs may pull back. But they’ll come back, and when they do, the militia takes a couple more shots at them, and then takes off into the hills. The NKs, we hope, will take a look around, see no evidence of anybody but Koreans being there, and maybe, maybe, go into the hills after them. More likely, they’ll just get back in the boats. They won’t have enough men, we don’t think, to leave enough men on the islands to garrison them. And why should they? There’s nothing on the islands but a bunch of South Koreans armed with some Jap rifles, pissing in the wind against the inevitable triumph of the Armies of Socialism. Their misguided brethren can be left there to be dealt with later, by somebody else.”