by Chris Lynch
Will Bataan still be?
But the thing that has been completely unreal during all the horror has been, frankly, us. We’ve been there in spirit, on paper, in theory, but not for real. An American military presence is so sorely needed in the European Theater of the war. We need to at least show up and stand up straight and make the bully know that it’s simply not gonna go all his way just like that anymore. From December 7, 1941, and the bombing, which really made the whole idea of declaring war feel kind of absurd, to December 11, when Germany officially declared war on us, just to make sure everybody got the stupid, stupid joke, and on through February of ’42, and April, and October, we have been officially engaged in this war, Europe as well as Asia, Germany as well as Japan. Yet the official status just floated there alongside the bloody, destructive truth of a war that was being fought, physically, by others. Through all that, not one American unit had been engaged in the European Theater of the war. Hitler’s Theater. He held the stage, that’s for sure.
Until now. That all changes as of right now, ’cause we’re moving out, and the Nazis aren’t gonna know what hit ’em.
Hannah and I exchange letters once a week. No matter what day each of our letters arrives in the mail, we have an agreement that neither one opens and reads until Sunday. That way it’s more like we are having a conversation together and we’re not separated by thousands of miles. I originally wanted to set a time as well, to allow for the difference in time zones and everything, until Hannah pointed out that that may be a little impractical and restrictive. She used different words than that, one of them being lunatic, but we understood each other well enough. I always feel like she’s reading right when I’m reading, though.
DEAR HANNAH,
WE ARE FINALLY MOVING, WHICH EVERYBODY HERE IS PRETTY EXCITED ABOUT. SO AFTER FIVE VERY LONG MONTHS IN NORTHERN IRELAND THAT SEEMED LIKE FIVE YEARS (NOTHING PERSONAL, NI) WE ARE DISPATCHING TO … ENGLAND. WHICH, AS I UNDERSTAND IT, IS PART OF THE SAME UNITED KINGDOM THAT NORTHERN IRELAND BELONGS TO. I AM VERY TIRED, HANNAH, OF ENGAGING WITH NO ONE BUT AMERICANS AND ALLIES EVERY DAY OF MY ENLISTMENT SO FAR WITH EVERYTHING ELSE THAT’S GOING ON SO BRUTALLY EVERYWHERE ELSE. I AM SO WORKED UP AND FRUSTRATED, I’M LIKE A BIG PINEAPPLE HAND GRENADE ON LEGS WALKING AROUND AND SOMEBODY’S PULLED MY PIN OUT. I THINK MAYBE TO RELIEVE SOME OF THE PRESSURE WHEN WE TRAVEL SOUTH FROM HERE TO ENGLAND WE’LL SEE IF WE CAN GO OUT OF OUR WAY TO PICK A FIGHT WITH SCOTLAND TO BLOW OFF SOME STEAM. FROM WHAT I GATHER FROM OTHER BRITS I’VE MET, THE SCOTS WILL BE HAPPY TO OBLIGE, WITH VERY LITTLE PROVOCATION.
I MISS YOU. I MISS HOME. I MISS BASEBALL (PLEASE TELL ME BASEBALL MISSES ME BACK). MOSTLY, I THINK, I MISS ACTION. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A SENSE THAT I AM DOING SOMETHING, SOMETHING RIGHT AND WORTHWHILE, EVERY DAY WHEN I GET UP. I AM SURE ONCE WE GET TO OUR REAL DESTINATION (I DON’T KNOW WHERE OR WHEN THAT IS, BUT EVERYBODY SENSES IT COMING NOW), ALL THAT MISSING-MISSING FOOLISHNESS WILL SUBSIDE IN A HURRY.
OH. NOT YOU. I DIDN’T MEAN THAT. I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERY DAY AND I KNOW I WILL NO MATTER HOW MANY TOWNS I LIBERATE OR BATTALIONS I CAPTURE SINGLE-HANDEDLY. (I APOLOGIZE FOR BEING BRASH AND BOASTFUL THERE, BUT I HAD TO GET IT OUT. I JUST FEEL LIKE WE CAN’T LOSE. I HONESTLY FEEL WE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED, ANYWHERE, BY ANYBODY, ONCE THEY LET US IN. IS THAT IMMODEST? IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO UPBRAID ME ON THIS, THEN FEEL FREE TO DO SO. MAYBE IT’S A BAD WAY TO SOUND, BUT PROBABLY A GOOD WAY TO FEEL, APPROACHING BATTLE.)
YOURS FONDLY,
ROMAN BUCYK
Dear Roman,
President Roosevelt has done many fine and noble things since he has been in office, but I think that when he wrote, “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” right when some people were saying the game should shut down for the war, that just said a lot about who he is as a man, what he understands about the lives of regular folk. I thought it sounded like something you could have said, and maybe you did. Maybe you could run for president when you’re finished over there. You will need a job, after all, and it won’t be baseball, since the Red Sox called and signed me up as soon as you left. They even said I had a better arm than you, which I thought was rather flattering. (It is hard not to conclude that they were just waiting for you to be out of the way so they could give me your spot in the organization, don’t you think?)
Are you wearing your scapular? Well, of course you are. It’s keeping you safe, you know.
I do have some news to report regarding my war effort as well. Unfortunately, my application for the new Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron — WAFS — has been turned down. As it turns out, the commercial pilot’s certificate that I had almost completed before I got myself preoccupied with baseball (and certain baseball players) was a firm requirement, as they do not have time to train people below that level and without five hundred hours of flying time already. I am awfully disappointed, to be honest, but they say they had over twenty-five thousand applicants for fewer than two thousand spots. At least it proves the women of America are as ready and willing as you guys are.
There is a consolation, though. I went and signed up for the WAACs — the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, if you don’t know — and got myself assigned to the Army air base at Newcastle, Delaware. Just right up the road, practically. Which just happens to be the base of the very same WAFS. I am going to be a part of this thing, Roman, you just watch me.
I might even make it into the action before you do. (That’s supposed to make you laugh, not get you even more frustrated and picking fights with anybody.)
Are you proud of me? I am. Hope you’re proud of me. I know you are. The Fighting Bucyks! Here we go.
Love and prayers to you,
Hannah
Of course I am proud of her. Holy cats, am I proud of her, although she does not have a better arm than me. In a lot of ways we are still getting to know each other and rather than that being a scary thought, I find it exciting, because every new thing I learn makes me feel even more certain. Certain that this is exactly the person I would have built in my mad scientist laboratory if I wished to produce my ideal and indeed had the powers. As fresh data continues to roll in, I admire it all.
Even stuff like that pilot training, for example. And the application to the WAFS, which is true pioneering business, and brave. And her clever way of writing about it as if I had ever heard one word of it before. Which I hadn’t. That could have been an oversight on Hannah’s part. But since Hannah doesn’t tend to commit anything as sloppy as an oversight, one could conclude otherwise.
The WAFS program, and another called the Women’s Flying Training Detachment out of Houston, are great examples of what makes America the best of all possible countries. People coming up with creative ideas to solve desperate problems, whipping up whole new services that never even existed before and then locating the smartest and bravest, most capable people to take on the jobs. We have been desperately low on capable pilots. These programs are going to provide a huge service in training women pilots to fly aircraft from factories to bases and ports, transport cargo, fly simulated missions for training, and even tow targets for antiaircraft artillery practice. Women will fly back home, freeing the men to get into the live action all over the world.
Hannah would be outstanding at that job, no doubt the best, eventually. So the WAFS missed a trick there.
Thank goodness.
I know that doesn’t sound right. Hannah’s an incredibly able, tough, and talented gal, and, okay, she might even have a better arm than me. I admire this and everything else about her and know she would be absolutely the top flier in our program, never mind theirs, and she is acting the way I want every single American to act about this war.
But I’d rather fight the whole German panzer army by myself, on my bike, with a slingshot, than to think of some novice artillery gunners learning their craft by shooting at a target, towed by a plane, piloted by the person whose very face I see when I look past the war.
And that is why she did not keep me ap
prised along the way. She feels I have an unhealthy need to control all aspects of every situation. It’s not a need. It’s just for everyone’s best.
So now I just have to worry about what they’ll have her doing in the WAACs.
It is cold and raw and as November as November gets when we put out to sea. Who cares? The adrenaline and sense of mission alone are enough to warm every man on board and probably power all the ships as well. We are in a convoy of well over a hundred vessels of all description, mostly British Royal Navy, but some of ours, too. It’s a real hodgepodge, as I can see while hanging over the side of our transport ship. It’s an LST (Landing Ship, Tank), which is basically a big old cargo ship converted with a massive steel door on its nose that drops down like a drawbridge to deliver men and machinery right onto the beach. From its deck, I look out and take in the details of the rest of our armada. There is one real-deal aircraft carrier and a couple more that look like cargo ships that have had runways stuck on top. There are Coast Guard cutters converted to junior destroyers, troop ships, and what we’d have to call troop ship draftees — commercial ferries fitted for as many soldiers and vehicles as they’ll hold. It’s whatever it takes at this stage, and it’s hard to see it without feeling a kind of motley pride at the effort of it all.
By the end of the first day’s sailing, though, it’s not hard to remember why we are Army and not Navy men. Pacifico, Wyatt, and myself are spending as much time as we can up on top deck, necks craning, gulping for fresh air. We alternate between here and our makeshift quarters below, which isn’t much more than mattresses and blankets thrown on the floor in a bare storage unit.
It’s when we come down for the third or fourth time, around sunset, that Commander Cowens gives us the word. Secrecy was so tight we didn’t even know our destination when we launched, but now he can give us at least that much.
It is not what we were expecting.
“What?” Wyatt says, well above his normal tone. “Where is that?”
Logan, who is standing with Cowens and has clearly already had some time to digest the information, bursts out laughing at Wyatt’s shock. He laughs alone, however.
“Algeria,” Cowens repeats. “It’s in North Africa.”
“Oh, swell,” Wyatt says, throwing his hands up like he’s surrendering already, though I doubt that’s what he means. “So now we got a beef with the Algerians and we gotta make a side trip to fight in Africa? This is gonna take forever.”
I do almost feel like laughing at this point but can’t quite manage it. What I can manage is to drop right down on the closest mattress cross-legged while Cowens gives the class a lesson.
I’m thinking about the map. I’m thinking that we sail right past France, on our way to the Mediterranean, to get to North Africa. The Nazis seem farther away than ever at this moment and I’m sure they have no idea how lucky they are.
“Apparently, the thinking is that we’re gonna hit ’em low, come up out of Africa and get to the Germans through Europe’s weak spot.”
“Italy,” Pacifico says, sadly enough that he makes me look up. “Why does everybody forget about the Italians? We’re always talking about fighting the Germans, when we’re fighting the Italians, too.”
Don’t know why, but I never made the connection, with Pacifico being Italian and all. But it sure is clear now that he’s made the connection, and that it means something to him.
Commander Cowens reaches out and claps Pacifico medium hard, with a pap on the neck.
“Don’t you worry, I promise you we won’t forget the Italians.”
That could very easily go a number of ways, most of them not so great. But Cowens hangs onto the kid’s neck, shakes him a little, smiles, and Pacifico responds with that goofy grin and we’re all right.
“But don’t worry about Italy just now. There is a lot of grit and grief between hitting North Africa and even thinking about crossing that warm little sea. Just ask the Brits.”
We sort of sleep, mostly don’t, do a lot of nervous walking, queasy talking, between decks over the next few days. It’s hard to eat much, with the ocean motion causing so much not-quite-digested food to be jettisoned overboard. So I’m getting a bit edgy, anxious, and irritable. I even find myself at one point staring at the ocean like I’m angry with its behavior, so really, things need to turn, soon.
It’s a big deal then when we approach the Strait of Gibraltar, and we get to see that famous big rock standing sentry at the remarkably narrow passage between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It has been right there, watching over clashes of east and west, north and south, Europe and Africa, for almost as long as people have been warring. And now it’s our turn. It’s a crossroads if ever there was one, and surely a meaningful checkpoint for this voyage.
“I thought it was just a myth,” Wyatt says, admiring it. “Now I seen everything.”
“Not even close,” Cowens says, laughing. “There’s a lot more everything where that came from, young Mr. Why Not.”
“Wyatt, sir.”
“Yes, why not, indeed. And I suspect you, and we, are going to see more of the world’s everything by the time we’re done than anybody in history ever saw.”
I’ve got my bearings now. We have slipped around Spain and Portugal, and all I can think is, we passed right by it. Somewhere back in that ocean we’ve been sailing, the coast of France was lying still, all secure, taunting us, watching us make this long curious voyage.
“Thinking of making a sharp, unscheduled left-hand turn back toward northern shores?” Cowens says as I stare out into nowhere that is not nowhere at all. He’s right behind me but I don’t look back.
“No more than you are,” I say.
Truth is, everyone was half expecting we’d be attacked by German U-boats while we were traveling the Atlantic, since they have been savaging Allied convoys. Getting this far unscathed should be cause for not-so-minor celebration. Regardless, we’d both still vote for a U-turn into the U-boats and gamble on our chances.
“We certainly are taking the scenic route to Berlin,” he says.
“Certainly are,” I say.
“But oh, the sights we’ll see,” he says as he backs away, patting my shoulder crisply and leaving an eerie reverberation all up and down my whole self.
Then, we pull up. Our convoy stops short of the straits and we make anchor just off Gibraltar. There are already many warships assembled, and throughout the day we watch as more convoys link up, and more, until we have easily well over three hundred vessels.
“Are we sure this isn’t the invasion of France?” Logan asks as the whole crew of us, along with everybody else aboard, jostles and jockeys for position to see what’s unfolding on the sea before us.
“Maybe I was wrong?” Cowens says, surely by accident and surely the only time we will hear him question himself.
“Do I count … ten aircraft carriers?” I ask.
“Fifty destroyers?” asks Pacifico.
“Ten cruisers,” says Logan, rapidly, getting frustrated with the pacing. “Battleships, minesweepers, antiaircraft ships, submarines …”
“Boys,” says Cowens, “we’re goin’ in guns a’ blazin’.”
There is whooping and barking now all over the place. Just looking at all that hardware makes a guy puff his chest all the way out, like we built it all with our bare hands. I look around, and I see it in everybody, and I have that feeling again: We cannot lose. Ever.
There is a loudspeaker announcement calling us all to assemble on the main deck … where pretty much everybody is already assembled. It’s an announcement to turn around and listen, basically.
When we do turn we see Captain Dexter, the commanding officer of our ship — which now feels like a big fat rust bucket compared to the flash all around us. He is standing up high on a platform outside the ship’s control room, and as he addresses us it’s evident he’s as eager as we are to get down to business. Once he shares with us what the exact business will be.
“R
ight, men, so you know that security is paramount and that we have had to be as careful as we could be with the dissemination of information. It’s been hard on you, no doubt, being kept in the dark, and your patience has been appreciated. Now it is time for that patience to be rewarded.
“The fleet you see assembled here is going to split into three separate groups, in support of three separate, coordinated assaults along the North African coast. Three aircraft carriers, one battleship, one antiaircraft ship, and nine destroyers will be sailing with us in support of our landings in and around Oran, in Algeria, as the Center Task Force of Operation Torch.”
A cheer goes up all around at the very idea that we are a task force of any kind, part of any operation, with a definite objective. Dexter quiets us with his hands up in the air.
“The Eastern Task Force will be led by Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson and will target Algiers. The Western Task Force will attack at Casablanca under the command of General George S. Patton.”
Right behind me I hear a little growl. It is the only such reaction. I’m guessing it’s my tank commander.
Captain Dexter has not been distracted. “And if you look just a few hundred yards off our starboard side you will see the Largs, which is the headquarters ship for our task force, headed by the commander of Second Corps, Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall.”