Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy

by Newt Gingrich

  “You mean John Ford?”

  “That’s him. Like you to meet him as well on your way back, talk things over a bit. Maybe something there a bit farther down the road.”

  Now he was curious. A Wall Street lawyer, hero of the last war, now supposedly heading up some hush-hush operation, and a hard-drinking Irishman with little love of the English, who nevertheless made damn good films. What was Winston thinking of?

  “Off with you now and get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow before you catch your flight out.”

  Finishing up his drink, Cecil stood up, and a Royal Marine guard outside the door beckoned the way up the long flight of stairs to the outside. An antiaircraft gun lit off over in the small park in front of Parliament, a stream of tracers going up, the flashes illuminating the grounds. He paused to watch.

  “Not much of a show tonight, sir,” the sergeant announced cheerfully.

  There was a flash across the river, a thundering explosion rolling over them several seconds later.

  “Nothing at all, a miss is as good as a mile, sir.”

  The guard walked him up, through the blacked-out streets to Number 10, and handed him off to another guard who guided him into the residence of the PM. He knew he should be honored by this; few were granted the privilege of staying in Winston’s private quarters. The windows, of course, were all cross-hatched with tape; inside, blackout curtains darkened the room. An all-so-proper butler was waiting, asking if he needed refreshment before retiring, perhaps a cup of tea with something in it, sir? Cecil politely refused and minutes later was up on the third floor, door closed, the room decorated in late Victorian, heavy on knickknacks and pastoral paintings.

  The bed was already turned back, and he barely took the time to take off his shoes and jacket, collapsing atop the bedspread.

  But sleep was impossible. Back to Singapore, damn it. His subterfuge, and Winston most likely had seen clear through it, was that by personally delivering his memo, Winston would ask him to stay on here, rather than go back to what he suspected would be a hellhole under siege come spring. It was not that he was afraid of a fight, far from it. A posting now to Spain, Turkey, for that matter even back into the secret activity he knew must be going on up at Bletchley Park, was more his ideal line now. And this talk of Donovan and John Ford was interesting stuff. But Winston wanted him back in Singapore for now and he could not say no. And sleep was impossible as well, for at regular intervals, every ten minutes or so, another bomb whistled down, sometimes far, sometimes near enough that the blackout curtains rustled, and though disgusted to admit it after all he had been through... he was afraid.

  Pearl Harbor 9 November 1941: 9:30 a.m. Local Time

  “Sir, there’s someone waiting outside to meet you.”

  James Watson looked up from his desk, bleary-eyed, as usual. He had been working since . . . well, he wasn’t quite sure when, on several naval transmissions triangulated out of Manila as coming from Formosa, indicating an increase of traffic. There had been talk of trying to sneak a reconnaissance flight up to just off the island for a look around. MacArthur had vetoed the idea as too provocative.

  Provocative, hell--the Japanese were wandering “by accident” into Philippine airspace nearly every day, popping in along the entire west coast of Luzon. Commercial flights between Hong Kong and Manila were disgorging what was now the usual array of alleged businessmen who seemed a little too fit and trim, several cameras in their luggage, who would stay for a day then fly back out.

  And yet he was still hampered by the absurdest of controls. In fact, an investigation team led by a senator and a federal judge had been sent out at the behest of the Senate to see whether the navy and army out here were breaking any laws regarding trying to look at outgoing mail and telegraph messages from Japanese who seemed more than a little suspicious. It was promised that if the slightest impropriety was uncovered, heads would roll, perhaps all the way up to CinCPac himself. Fortunately they had not heard about James and Collingwood’s little venture of sending an enlisted man down to prowl through Western Union’s trash; that lad had been quickly transferred off to an outgoing destroyer, bound for Manila, so he would not be forced to perjure himself.

  He pushed back from the desk, rubbing the stubble of his chin again--a couple of days’ worth of growth--and he knew, without even raising his arm for a quick whiff, that he most likely stank. The air conditioner, a great luxury that everyone else on the base was envious of, wondered about, and grumbled about regarding those “weird birds in the basement,” had gone on the blink again, and the temperature in the room was somewhere in the low eighties.

  He went into the washroom, splashed some water on his face, toweled off, and wove his way back down the narrow corridor, past dozens of others, some bent on the same task as he, others laboriously working on translations of what little they had, looking for any finer nuances, well-worn Japanese-English dictionaries open by their side. In the signals room, to his left, behind a locked door, a dozen operators were monitoring a dozen frequencies around the clock, some of them in the clear transmissions, weather reports from commercial Japanese ships, messages back to the mainland that might have, concealed within them, some hidden text or clue. Others were engaged in the laborious process of taking down each Morse dot and dash, not really understanding the words at all, just jotting them down as fast as they were received to be passed on to someone like himself. Still others listened to the commercial and state-run radio stations, enduring the at times god-awful screeching noise that the Japanese claimed passed for music, and on rare occasions even a Western piece, though decadent American jazz and big band had been banned. Of late the song about the air raid shelter and ignoring the bombs had found new rivals extolling the prowess of the army as it fought to free innocent China from the brigands and Communists, another something of a recruiting song about the joys to be found aboard a ship on the high seas, defending Japan. All of it had to be monitored; but not all of it was. Navy simply didn’t have the money, the equipment, nor the manpower to monitor all possible sources of information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. So every few days “the chief,” as they called him, would hold a quick meeting, educated guesses would be presented as to which frequencies and stations might bear fruit, and personnel were assigned, and the rest of the traffic went unlistened to, perhaps bearing a message that would fit into another message and together would help crack the newest code, which the Japs were changing ever more rapidly of late.

  It was like watching a dozen leaks in your ceiling, but you only had one bucket to run around with, trying to catch the drops; and it drove them all mad, made worse by the four-and- a-half-hour time difference, which meant they lived on Tokyo time rather than Hawaiian.

  Opening the door, he stopped before the marine guard, the two of them just nodding, both knowing each other well, but still the ritual of holding up his identification card and a slight extending of his arms to show he was not carrying out any papers concealed under his light tropical-weight uniform.

  Up the flight of stairs and a second door with yet another marine guard before finally stepping out into the foyer of the main administrative building of the base. He squinted for a moment, morning sunlight flooding in, disoriented, for inside his body was telling him it was five a.m. tomorrow. That always threw him, the whole dateline thing that it was a Sunday,

  November 9, and not Monday, November 10, 1941, Japanese time, another bother when it came to duty assignments given holidays and weekends, both there and here.

  “James?”

  Still squinting a bit he turned, immediately recognizing the voice ... it was Cecil!

  “Damn me, when did you get in?” James cried, going over to his old friend and in a very un-Britishlike gesture slapping him with nearly a bear hug.

  The traffic in and out of the building on this Sunday morning was light--it was, after all a Sunday at 9:30 a.m.--but still there were enough passing back and forth to take a second, somewhat jaund
iced glance at a very disheveled naval commander, with coffee-stained shirt, embracing a very proper- looking captain of the British navy, complete to, American eyes, the rather silly-looking tropical Bermuda shorts and knee-high white socks.

  But the two didn’t care and both looked at each other appraisingly as, a bit embarrassed, they stepped back from each other. Both, of course, had aged in each other’s eyes since the last time they had seen each other.

  “I’d suggest visiting the office,” James said, nodding back to the door where at the mere mention of a visit, the normally friendly marine guard stiffened a bit, “but you understand.”

  “I took the liberty of picking up some sandwiches and coffee,” Cecil said, gesturing to his leather attaché case, which was bulging slightly. “My transportation was most kind in lending me a vacuum bottle. Let’s just go sit down by the waterfront and chat. I haven’t much time.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “The Clipper takes off at thirteen hundred, your time here. A bit confusing I daresay. My watch is still set on San Francisco time, so how long does that give us?”

  “Three hours or so,” James replied, squinting at his own watch, doing a quick calculation since the watch was set to Tokyo time. He could see Cecil noting the difference as well, but nothing was said.

  “I’ll arrange a ride for you back to Pan Am; that should buy us a little more time together. Damn all, Margaret will tear my head off when she hears you were here and didn’t visit.”

  Cecil smiled and shook his head, motioning to the door, the two stepping out into the warm humid heat of a Hawaiian autumn day.

  “Do you still tell her everything?” Cecil asked.

  James hesitated, then shook his head.

  “No, I see. You aren’t here,” James said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Then why not mufti instead of that absurd getup you Brits call a uniform?” James asked with a smile.

  “Do you think I’d have even gotten through the gate otherwise?” he asked, nodding back toward the main entrance.

  The two wandered down to the waterfront, a small grassy area shaded by palms, a few benches set out for those who wished to take a lunch break outside. Across the loch was battleship row. The fleet, as usual for a Sunday, was in, Liberty Boats plying back and forth, a group of young sailors noisily disembarking wearing loud Hawaiian shirts, two of them toting a heavy wooden board, rounded at one end, TURRET ONE BOYS, OKLAHOMA stenciled on one side, a picture of the forward turret, all three guns firing with lurid flames, stenciled on the other side. They assumed it would pass for a surfboard, the young men laughing, talking about the women they’d meet over at Waikiki, taxicabs lined up just outside the gate waiting for them ... and he wondered how that group would get their homemade surfboard to the beach and if it would survive the day.

  A lucky few had dates waiting by the gate, the girls drawing more than a few friendly wolf whistles as they waited for their boyfriends to come ashore.

  He had all but forgotten days like this since coming back to duty. On Sunday mom, sometimes they’d go to mass, other times just sleep in then walk down to the beach or motor to the north end of the island up by Kano Point, and watch the local surfers trying the big waves and go for a dip themselves. Mornings like this in Hawaii were the closest he could imagine paradise to be, a warm tropical breeze drifting across the island, first clouds beginning to form along the high peaks, the air rich with the scent of flowers.

  Cecil opened his attaché case and drew out what the Brits called a vacuum bottle, and two heavy cups, Pacific Clipper emblazoned on each. Unscrewing the lid he poured for both of them, black, no cream or sugar, the scent rich and inviting, not the oily slop that sludgelike would drip out of the ever-present pot down in the bowels of the cryptographers’ lair.

  The sandwiches were nicely wrapped in fresh linens, no wax paper here, still warm slices of roast beef and a small bowl of potato salad for each, even silverware, real silver from the feel of it.

  “Damn, you are traveling in luxury!” James exclaimed.

  Cecil grinned.

  “Occasionally traveling at the expense of the Crown has its moments. Rare, but there are moments. Your clipper planes ... good heavens, how the Huns boasted about their zeppelins, which do have an awful tendency to burn up. The appointments pale when compared to good old American catering to the rich, or agents bent on distant missions on the far side of the globe.”

  “So are you coming or going?”

  “Going,” Cecil replied, biting into his sandwich.

  James looked at his, not sure. His inner clock telling him it was five in the morning, the outside telling him it was time for a breakfast of eggs and bacon, and Cecil feeling that this was an early dinner.

  He decided to just sip the coffee.

  “Back from England?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a moment of silence and then both chuckled at the same time.

  “Our business sure does teach us to be tight-lipped,” James finally ventured. “I assume our visit is more than just a friendly stopover as you gallivant around the world. Tell me what is going on out here.”

  And he gestured with a sweeping hand to the world around them.

  “It’s a madhouse, if you want the short answer. That Wells fellow, you know who I mean. Ever read any of his stuff?” “You mean H.G.? Sure, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, read them when I was a boy.”

  “How about The Shape of Things to Come?” James shook his head.

  “Rather prophetic, I daresay. War comes, civilization finally collapses. New and terrible weapons using the atom as an explosive a million times more powerful than the guns over there,” and he pointed to where the battleships were tied off. “How is it in England?”

  “They say the Blitz is nothing now, but I tell you, I don’t like being under any kind of plane dropping bombs, be it five or five hundred. Rationing is tight; you can see it in the faces of the civilians. Gone is glamour, everything is khaki, even the women; though there is one small advantage.”

  “And that is?”

  “Wartime rationing is so tight that hemlines have gone up quite a bit to conserve on cloth. For this old bachelor, rather a thrill.”

  James looked at him and forced a smile.

  “My London, my old London, most of it is gone. There seems to be a perpetual grit in the air now, everything dusty, worn looking from the constant pounding. Perversely, the only bright spot is that at least the two dictators finally turned on each other. Reports coming out of Russia are horrific, but they still seem to be holding on.”

  “And do you think they will hold?”

  “Hitler didn’t snatch Moscow in August when he had the chance; last report is the freeze is on, the mud rock solid. They’re moving again but I’ll bet what was stationed in Siberia and Mongolia is now waiting for them.”

  Cecil was touching into “their” territory now, and James found himself actually looking around. Even the most casual conversation about the war that in any way whatsoever might touch on Japan was forbidden outside “the dungeon,” as they called it.

  And yet he knew who this man really was, besides being a friend.

  “It’s all right,” Cecil said. “If you want I can show you the letter of introduction signed by the PM himself, it’s right here,” and he pointed to his breast pocket.

  “I know, but still, I don’t have such a letter from our president; you know the old game.”

  “Even between allies and friends standing on the edge of the abyss,” Cecil replied sadly.

  James nodded and lowered his head.

  “You stopped over here to talk with me officially, I mean actually officially in an unofficial way, is that it?”

  “Nice play of words, James, but yes. The PM is eager for anything you chaps might have, anything. I can tell you that back in Washington and London they’re building the same setup that you and I worked under in the last war. You’ve heard of Donov
an?”

  “Wild Bill?” James said, with a bit of a grin.

  “He’s setting some things up,” Cecil announced. “It’s not my place to say anything, but perhaps there might be something for you with his team.”

  James sighed and held up his left arm showing his “claw.” “I doubt if they’d want a one-handed sailor,” James said softly.

  “Bastards,” Cecil mumbled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get over to see you before you were shipped back.” He reached over and patted James on the knee.

  James said nothing. Strange, of late he felt a certain detachment from it all. The seething rage going into the background noise of life. The flying, introduced to him by Fuchida, soothed things a bit, and his work, so damn boring and numbing at times, was, in a boylike sort of way, a means of shoving it back under the table.

  “You wrote me about Nanking,” James said. “I read your reports, saw the pictures. What you went through makes Panay pale.” He held the claw in front of Cecil. “I think I’d kind of stand out if you are talking about the old cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

  Cecil laughed. “They want your brains, James, not that hook of yours; though I daresay it’d be rather effective in tearing out the guts of some Jap.”

  “A bit bloodthirsty, aren’t we?” James replied, surprised by the vehemence in his friend’s voice.

  “Thought you’d be too,” Cecil replied coldly. “After what I saw at Nanking, the hell with all the bastards.”

  “Even your cadets, our friend Fuchida?”

  “You still count him a friend? Hell, when I interviewed him a couple months after Nanking and Panay, I heard no apology there. I almost feel that was deliberate on his part.” He shook his head.

  “No, that friendship is dead. I left him your address. Have you heard from him?”

  “No,” James replied a bit wistfully. “I did try and reach him a few times, sent him a picture of me and my plane. No reply.” “Then that settles it as far as I’m concerned. But back to this other job. Are you interested?” James looked at him, incredulous.