Edge of Valor

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  With that, Peoples stopped humming. The two pilots looked at each other, then Peoples said, “You want it, boss?”

  “Naw, that’s okay, Leroy. You take it. Just don’t rear-end the general’s beautiful airplane. My insurance lapsed due to insufficient funds.”

  Peoples muttered, “First a damned flame thrower up my ass, and now this.”

  The bicyclist, an MP, led the C-54 through streams of taxiing C-54s and C-47s. It seemed as though one popped up every hundred feet or so, their engines running. “Here we go,” said Peoples. They followed the MP to a taxiway that led in front of the tower. They had pulled to within fifty yards of MacArthur’s plane when another MP stood before them and crossed his wrists over his head.

  “That’s it, Leroy. Shut her down. Chief, break out the pins and wheel chocks. Looks like they’ll be offloading us here.”

  “Roger.” Hammer rose and clumped aft.

  “Hey.” Peoples pointed.

  A man wearing the Philippine marshal’s combination hat was exiting the Bataan. A corncob pipe was clamped between his teeth and he wore working khakis without a tie, just like the uniforms in Hot Rod 384. The five stars glistening at the general’s collar points were the difference. He paused on the stairway platform and looked about for a moment. Then he descended toward a group of waiting officials. Camera flashbulbs popped as they crowded around to shake hands.

  He did that alone. Amazing, thought Radcliff.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” asked Peoples. “General MacArthur?”

  “Damn right.” Radcliff felt a lump in his throat. America had been waiting for this moment since December 7, 1941. He couldn’t believe his luck at being able to see it from such a great vantage point.

  “Damn, look at all them reporters,” said Peoples.

  Photographers rushed in, dozens of them, popping flashbulbs off their cameras. Just behind them a crowd of cheering civilians pushed in. White-gloved police stepped in to keep people from engulfing the general and his party. The police made room for two men in top hats, who walked up, removed their hats, and bowed. The general shook their hands and they spoke for a moment.

  A company of Japanese troops, fully armed, stood alongside a line of dilapidated cars and trucks. But they faced away from the MacArthur party, keeping the growing crowd at bay. The general continued to converse as more Army personnel descended the ramp from the Bataan. Among them Radcliff recognized Gen. Richard Sutherland and Brig. Gen. Otis DeWitt.

  “You getting this, Jon?” asked Radcliff.

  Berne snapped his fingers. “Damn. It’s in my bag.” He shuffled aft to retrieve his movie camera.

  Radcliff looked back to see that a working party had drawn up under their cargo hatch. A forklift raised a man to open the cargo door and prepare for offloading. Just below, another man climbed the boarding ladder to the cockpit.

  They were still gawking as General MacArthur’s party headed toward the convoy of dilapidated passenger cars. There was a polite cough behind them. Radcliff turned and his eyes bugged out. Holy shit. A brigadier! “Ten-shun!”

  It was Otis DeWitt. “Now, how in the hell can you guys stand at attention in this little cramped outhouse, Major?”

  “Sorry, General. I only meant—”

  “I have about fifty-five seconds to deliver this to you, Major.” DeWitt pointed out the cockpit window. “See that? Gen. Douglas MacArthur has just deplaned and now stands on Japanese soil. Can you imagine? Sort of a replay of when Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay ninety-two years ago. But unlike Perry, the general walked in here unarmed. We’ve been told to leave our weapons on board. No reason to be afraid of all those Japs out there. Look at their cars—straight from a demolition derby. That’s what’s supposed to take us into town. Pray for our souls.” He patted Radcliff on the shoulder. “Anyway, General Sutherland is a man of his word. He congratulates you all on a great job up at Karafuto.”

  Hammer walked into the cockpit and quietly sat at his station.

  Radcliff nodded and said, “That’s okay, General. We didn’t expect that—”

  “Like I told you in Okinawa, we can’t give you medals. But we can invite you to the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Radcliff.

  An MP sergeant ran under the cockpit window and waved. Radcliff slid open his side window. The sergeant shouted up, “Ready, General.”

  DeWitt hollered out the window, “Right there, Sergeant.”

  DeWitt handed a packet to Radcliff. “These are your orders and passes. Special seats. It’s gonna be really tight—lots of people from all over the world—but you’ll have a good view. Congratulations, fellas.” He extended his hand to each of them in turn.

  Radcliff asked, “General, how about Todd Ingram?”

  “Yes, he’ll be there. In fact, you’re in his party. Now I gotta go. Time to skedaddle into Yokohama. No, no, damn it, don’t get up. Hell’s bells. You can’t anyway.” Otis DeWitt walked out and exited the airplane.

  Radcliff opened the packet. Orders for all four of them spilled out. “Here you go boys, congratulations.” He passed them around.

  “Humpff,” went Peoples.

  “What?” said Radcliff.

  “We gotta step onto some Navy rust-bucket and watch these guys whompin’ on a bunch of Japs?”

  “Leroy, let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot, boss.”

  “Do you plan on having grandchildren?”

  Peoples rubbed his jaw. “Well, now that you mention it, yes. It’s a fine old tradition in the Peoples family. Kids all over the place.”

  “Well, hang on, Leroy. With all that coon-dog stuff you spread around, this is gonna be the best story you’ll ever tell them.”

  PART TWO

  ADMINISTRATIVE MESSAGE

  ROUTINE

  DTG: 02091741Z SEP 45

  FROM: CINCPACFLT

  TO: ALNAV-PACFLT

  INFO: CNO

  SECNAV

  JOINTCHIEFS

  SECSTATE

  SECWAR

  THE PRESIDENT

  //UNCLAS//N5370

  MSGID/GENADMIN/CINCPACFLT//

  SUBJ: DEPORTMENT, EVERY MAN’S DUTY

  IT IS INCUMBENT ON ALL OFFICERS TO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WITH DIGNITY AND DECORUM IN THEIR TREATMENT OF THE JAPANESE AND THEIR PUBLIC UTTERANCES IN CONNECTION WITH THE JAPANESE. THE JAPANESE ARE STILL THE SAME NATION WHICH INITIATED THE WAR BY A TREACHEROUS ATTACK ON THE PACIFIC FLEET AND WHICH HAS SUBJECTED OUR BROTHERS IN ARMS WHO BECAME PRISONERS TO TORTURE, STARVATION AND MURDER. HOWEVER, THE USE OF INSULTING EPITHETS IN CONNECTION WITH THE JAPANESE AS A RACE OR AS INDIVIDUALS DOES NOT NOW BECOME THE OFFICERS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. OFFICERS IN THE PACIFIC FLEET WILL TAKE STEPS TO REQUIRE OF ALL PERSONNEL UNDER THEIR COMMAND A HIGH STANDARD OF CONDUCT IN THIS MATTER. NEITHER FAMILIARITY NOR ABUSE AND VITUPERATION SHOULD BE PERMITTED.

  C. W. NIMITZ, FLT ADMIRAL, USN

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  1 September 1945

  USS Missouri (BB 63), Tokyo Bay, Japan

  The minesweepers had cleared what they could, allowing more than two hundred ships of the U.S. and Allied navies to anchor in Tokyo Bay. Battleships, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious and auxiliary ships lay quietly in their berths, some teeming with life and sending men ashore, others still waking up, feeding their men before quarters were called at 0800.

  Conspicuously absent from the line of capital ships in Tokyo Bay were the carriers. Fearing a trick or a counterattack by hotheads in the Japanese military, Fleet Admiral Nimitz had ordered Adm. Raymond Spruance to lay offshore with his Task Force 58, the Big Blue. These deadly carriers and escort carriers could, at a moment’s notice, wipe out any kind of Japanese military effort with hundreds of fighters and bombers. Admiral Nimitz, who had flown in from Guam on his Coronado aircraft, allowed four carriers into Tokyo Bay. All were escort carriers: two from the U.S. Navy and two belonging to the Royal Navy.

  A few bombed-out
hulks of the once proud Imperial Japanese Navy littered the harbors of Tokyo Bay. One of these, a titan with empty fuel bunkers, was the battleship Nagato, now dockside at the Yokosuka naval shipyard. At 42,850 tons Nagato was the world’s first battleship fitted with 16-inch guns. On 7 December 1941 she had served as Admiral Yamamoto’s flagship during the raid on Pearl Harbor. After suffering damage at the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the Nagato was taken to the Yokosuka shipyard for repairs. But Yokosuka’s yard workers couldn’t restore the ship quickly enough. Worse, the Japanese navy simply didn’t have enough fuel to waste on such a dinosaur. She was converted to a floating AA platform until, on 18 July, Admiral Halsey’s carriers caught her with two bombs and a rocket that took her out of the war entirely.

  A few POWs escaped from local camps and made their way to friendly picket boats off the shores of Kamakura. They described the horrible conditions in the camps and made it clear that a large number of prisoners needed immediate attention. On hearing this, Admiral Halsey sent the USS Benevolence (AH 13) in ahead of schedule and docked her at the Yokosuka naval shipyard on 29 August. Within twelve hours she had taken on a full load of 794 POWs from surrounding camps, with hundreds more en route.

  Surrender ceremony preparations had been under way for days. The star of the show in Tokyo Bay would be the 52,000-ton USS Missouri (BB 63). When Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz flew in from Guam on the twenty-ninth, he made the Missouri his flagship and Admiral Halsey politely shifted his flag to the battleship USS South Dakota (BB 57). Surrender ceremony preparations began in earnest when the Missouri moved into Tokyo Bay on 30 August. Admiral Halsey started off by making sure the Missouri anchored in the same spot where Commodore Matthew Perry had dropped his anchor ninety-two years previously. And then came the real work. Most of the ship’s crew was pressed into service. There were innumerable errands to be run ashore and to ships anchored about the bay. Nimitz and Halsey decided the ceremony would take place on the 01 deck, a showplace sometimes called the “veranda deck.” The veranda deck’s starboard side lay under the Big Mo’s massive number two 16-inch gun turret, which would serve as a backdrop. Shipfitters and welders were detailed to build a large platform outboard of the 01 deck to support journalists, photographers, and other special visitors.

  An enormous task was the chipping away of the dark gray paint on the battleship’s main and 01 decks to expose bare teak that hadn’t seen the light of day since the Missouri’s commissioning. With extra hands laid on from other ships, the “deck apes” got it done. Then, in the time-honored tradition, they holystoned the newly found teak, bringing the hard wood back to life.

  No detail was left untouched. The flag that flew over Washington, D.C., on 7 December 1941 was flown to Tokyo and broken on the Missouri’s foremast. At Admiral Halsey’s instigation, the U.S. flag flown by Commodore Matthew Perry when he entered Tokyo Bay in 1853 was flown out from the U.S. Naval Academy. They mounted it in a special frame on a veranda deck bulkhead overlooking the spot where the ceremony would take place.

  The actual document of surrender was flown out from the State Department accompanied by an Army colonel. There were two copies: one bound in leather for the United States, the other bound in canvas for the Japanese. Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu would be the two principal signatories for Japan: Shigemitsu for the government of Japan and Umezu for the military. The Allied signatories to the surrender agreement were to be Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as supreme commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP); Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz for the United States; and for Britain, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, who had steamed into Tokyo Bay on board his battleship, the Duke of York. Other delegates were General Hsu Yung-Chang for China, Lieutenant-General Kuzma Nikolayevich Derevyanko for the USSR, General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia, Colonel Lawrence Moore Gosgrove for Canada, General Jacques Leclerc for France, Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich for the Netherlands, and Air Vice-Marshal Sir L. M. Isitt for New Zealand.

  General MacArthur insisted that two special guests attend, both recently rescued from Manchurian prison camps. Shaken but somewhat rested and wearing fresh uniforms were Lieutenant-General Arthur E. Percival, who commanded the British Army that surrendered to the Japanese at Singapore in February 1942, and Lt. Gen. Jonathan W. “Skinny” Wainwright, the defender of Corregidor when it fell in May 1942. Activity was frantic when later in the day food and bathrooms were prepared for civilians and special delegates. General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz also had large guest lists, many of them from the world press.

  General MacArthur insisted the ceremony start at exactly 0900—no sooner, no later. Timing was critical. So was the sound system. Communication specialists tested and retested the ship’s PA system. Movie cameras were positioned. A special radio network was set up to broadcast the ceremony to listeners around the world.

  A dress rehearsal was conducted during the afternoon of 1 September that simulated the delegates’ arrival and places during the ceremony. Most of the personnel on the veranda deck were to be flag officers standing in ranks. Three hundred of the Big Mo’s sailors were rounded up to act as stand-ins for the admirals and generals. Grinning boatswain’s mates and gunner’s mates with Popeye-like forearms stood on the deck markings where generals and admirals would stand. Eleven crewmembers stood where the Japanese delegates were to be posted. The planners even went so far as to simulate the faltering steps of Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, who walked with great difficulty on an artificial leg and cane, his real leg having been blown off by an assassin’s bomb years before in Shanghai.

  Some sailors, particularly the career ones, resented seeing their well-honed fighting machine turned into a circus. As the day wore on, there was a lot of horseplay and the inevitable breakdown in discipline. But at the back of every mind was the worry that the Japanese would try one last trick, and they would be unprepared for it. It was all strange and different. They wondered if it could come back to haunt them.

  By sunset everything was ready—at least for the morrow’s activities. But there was a more difficult issue yet to face: How were Americans and their Allies to set aside their hate and resentment for all the lives lost, the horrible wounds, the time lost from loved ones, and the irreparable damage done to priceless buildings and works of art throughout Japan’s once-vaunted Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? For some, there would be a lifetime of resentment and pain, of nightmares, and sadly, in some cases, of drunkenness and suicide. But clear thinkers, the real statesmen who worked so hard in the background, hoped better times would begin on 2 September 1945. At least, that is what they planned: that the tone would set a new beginning for Japan, her neighbors, and the world.

  But tonight there was still mistrust. Japan technically remained at war with the Allies, and the men in the anchorage felt it acutely. After years of battle, people were edgy. Nobody knew what tomorrow would bring. Rumors persisted—would a flock of kamikazes appear? What sort of trick would the Japanese pull at the last minute?

  Hardened by years of fighting and hate, the men on the ships in Tokyo Bay followed their instincts. All lights were doused at sunset, and darken ship was strictly enforced. Fleet Admiral Nimitz, the senior officer present afloat (SOPA), ordered condition III watches set. Guns were loaded and ready to fire on pre-designated targets ashore. The younger men fell asleep easily and began snoring. But sleep wouldn’t come for many of the veteran sailors and Marines. They had seen too much on the long road across the Pacific. Many didn’t want to sleep for fear of the horrible nightmares that struck in the middle of the night: the cold sweats, the quick breathing, the pounding heart, the curses of others growling at them to shut up.

  Steady on, mates. God be with thee.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  2 September 1945

  USS Missouri (BB 63), Tokyo Bay, Japan

  The morning dawned overcast over Tokyo Bay. There was no wind, leaving the water a flat slate gray with barely a ripple. Seagulls ranged about the fleet crying to one an
other, perhaps sensing a change in the air. To the west lay Tokyo, its firebombed silhouette barely discernible against the morning mist. To the southwest was the once-busy port of Yokohama, also a bombed-out relic. South of Yokohama was the Yokosuka naval base, a prize the U.S. Navy would soon claim. To the eastern side of Tokyo Bay lay the scenic Miryra Peninsula, its trees and craggy hills likewise shrouded in morning mist.

  The Maxwell’s motor whaleboat was fully loaded. In the back sat Cdr. Alton C. Ingram, the ship’s commanding officer; Lt. Cdr. Elton P. White, the executive officer; and Capt. Jeremiah T. Landa, commodore of DESRON 77. Seated forward were members of the U.S. Army Air Corps: Maj. Marvin F. Radcliff, 1st Lt. Leroy Telford K. Peoples, Capt. Jonathan L. Berne, and Sgt. Leonard Hammer. Representing the U.S. Marine Corps were GySgt. Ulysses Gaylord Harper and his twelve-man squad. The uniform of the day, as prescribed by SOPA, was working khakis, no tie, for officers, and working whites or utilities for enlisted. No ribbons and no weapons were to be displayed.

  Standing high in the stern, the tiller between his legs, was Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Alvin Birmingham, the motor whaleboat’s coxswain. Birmingham’s shoes were shined, his hair was clipped, and he wore crisp undress whites. His hat rode low on his forehead, an inch above the eyebrow, telling everyone that this was Birmingham’s boat; that he was the coxswain and that today he was proud to be part of a major event in history. Similarly dressed was the bowhook, Richard Dudley, the seaman deuce GQ lookout with sharp eyes. A third member of the boat’s crew was her engineer, Fireman Third Class Louis T. “Sherlock” Rathbone, also in starched whites, who handled the whaleboat’s four-cylinder Buda diesel.

  With all the men on board, the whaleboat was at capacity and wallowed in the wakes of the boats crisscrossing the busy bay as it drew closer to the Missouri on what should have been a placid Tokyo Bay. But wakes merged and slapped at them as they drew closer to the Missouri, causing them to buck and heave. Ingram figured they had maybe twelve inches of freeboard, meaning water would slop in the boat from time to time. But the bilge pump could handle that.