Behind the Lines

by W. E. B Griffin

  “How do you do?”

  “My wife and 1, Captain, as you can certainly understand, are hungry for any word of the Philippines.”

  “I’ll be happy, Sir, to tell you what I can. But that isn’t much.”

  The orderly appeared.

  “Will you raise a glass with us, Captain?” MacArthur asked. “Is your physical condition such that ...”

  “They’ve just given him a clean slate, General,” Pickering answered for him. “He’s undernourished, of course, but that was to be expected.”

  “In that case, Captain, what can Manuel fix you?”

  “Scotch, please, Sir. Scotch and water.”

  “Through General Pickering’s generosity, we have a more-than-adequate supply of scotch,” MacArthur said. “Famous Grouse all around, please, Manuel.”

  El Supremo hasn’t said anything about the beard, Pickering thought. I’m sure he’s noticed it. Is he just being gracious, or indulgent?

  “The beard, I presume, is on medical advice?” MacArthur asked.

  There he goes again. I really think El Supremo can read my mind.

  “He kept his beard on my orders, actually,” Pickering said.

  “Indeed?” MacArthur said.

  “It occurred to me that Captain Weston would probably find himself being debriefed by one of Colonel Donovan’s people,” Pickering said. “And I thought—”

  “What made you think Colonel Donovan would wish to debrief him?” MacArthur interrupted.

  “Just a gut feeling,” Pickering said, “and sure enough, shortly after the operation was launched, I received a radio from his deputy—oddly enough an old acquaintance of mine, a lawyer, named L. Stanford Morrissette—asking me to arrange for any of General Fertig’s people we brought out to be debriefed by the OSS here as soon as possible.”

  The white-jacketed orderly passed around a silver tray holding glasses dark with scotch.

  MacArthur raised his glass.

  “If I may, gentlemen, three toasts. First, to this valiant young officer, who did what I truly would have exchanged my life to do—disobeyed my orders to seek safety and continued the fight.”

  “Hear, hear,” Pickering said, and the others joined in. Weston looked uncomfortable.

  “Second, to the valiant warriors,” MacArthur said, “Filipino and American, still in the Philippines.”

  “Hear, hear,” Pickering said again, and they all sipped their drinks.

  “And finally, to victory!”

  “Hear, hear,” Pickering repeated a third time. He sipped his drink.

  “If I may, General—it seems we left them out,” Pickering said. “To General Wendell Fertig, and U.S. Forces in the Philippines.”

  “I had, I hoped, included Fertig and his men in my toast,” MacArthur said, a tone of annoyance in his voice. “But, by all means, we should toast our irregular forces in the Philippines, and their commander.”

  Pickering, restraining the urge to smile, thought: God, he’s magnificent. He’s unable to call Fertig “General” but USFIP has instantly become, in the regal sense, “our”—read “my”—“irregular forces.”

  MacArthur took a sip from his glass, set it down, and turned to Pickering.

  “I heard from your friend Morrissette, too,” he said. “Complaining of inadequate communications between the OSS in Washington and here. He asked if there wasn’t some special communications channel to which his people could be given access.” He paused significantly, and smiled. “I politely replied that the only special communications channel I knew of was controlled by you, Fleming.”

  “Then I shall doubtless be hearing from Morrissette again,” Pickering said.

  “And what will you tell him?”

  “A wise old friend once told me that the greatest danger involved with the OSS was letting the camel’s nose work its way under the tent flap, General,” Pickering said. “If the question comes up, I shall keep that wise observation in mind.”

  “You are suggesting that you have had personal proof that what this wise, old—but unnamed—friend warned you about the dangers of the intrusive nose of an ugly dromedary was true?”

  “I would be very surprised if my wise, anonymous old friend didn’t know that already,” Pickering said.

  “I understand that you took at least one more officer on your operation than you had originally planned for?”

  “Just one more, General.”

  MacArthur chuckled.

  “Excuse us, Jean, and gentlemen,” MacArthur said. “A private joke between myself and my young but growing wiser friend here.” He touched Pickering’s shoulder in a gesture of affection and then went on. “So are you going to subject this young man to an OSS debriefing?”

  “I don’t see how I can avoid it,” Pickering said. “Colonel Stecker will take him to see the OSS Station Chief here—”

  “Colonel John J. Waterson,” MacArthur interrupted.

  “Class of ’22 at West Point. He resigned in 1934, as a passed-over-for-promotion captain. He was commissioned in the reserve in 1939, and called to active duty in September 1941. I rather doubt if he’s ever heard a shot fired in anger.”

  There are several reasons for that little biographical sketch, Pickering thought. The first being that he wants me to know that Charley Willoughby has done his homework vis-à-vis Waterson—Know Thine Enemy is the first rule for an intelligence officer. And the second is to make sure that I understand that Waterson had something less than a brilliant career when he was in the Army, and is not a real warrior, in the sense that El Supremo and Stecker and I-and, for that matter, Weston and Hart—are.

  ... Colonel Waterson, in the morning,” Pickering finished.

  “Before Captain Weston leaves SWPOA,” MacArthur said icily, “I would very much like for General Willoughby to have the opportunity to speak with him. Would that be possible, do you think, Fleming?”

  “General Pickering, Captain Weston and I spent two hours with General Willoughby and his people this afternoon,” Colonel Stecker said.

  That announcement surprised him. He obviously didn’t know. I would have thought Willoughby would have come right to him after hearing what Weston had to say.

  “Did you really?” MacArthur said, and warmth came back into his voice and eyes. “I wonder why Charley didn’t mention that to me?”

  Probably, Pickering thought, now that I think about it, Charley Willoughby didn’t come to see you immediately because he knew you would not want to hear what Weston told him, that Fertig has done an amazing job, and that just as soon as we can get some supplies to him, he is going to really cause the Japanese a good deal of trouble.

  “Probably because he’s boiling down what Weston had to tell him into a more convenient form, so as not to waste your time, General,” Pickering said.

  “Yes, of course, that must be it,” MacArthur said. He changed the subject. “You were telling us about Captain Weston’s beard, that you had ordered him to keep it?”

  “Until after he deals with the OSS, General. I thought it might—”

  “Impress them with the fact that they are dealing with a warrior?” MacArthur interrupted.

  “Well, at least with a Marine whom the fortunes of war have placed where he had more important things to worry about than five o’clock shadow.”

  “You and I share a sense of humor, Fleming,” MacArthur said. “I don’t know how Jean feels about it.”

  “I think his beard is handsome!” Jean MacArthur said.

  “My grandfather wore a beard,” MacArthur said. “My father, General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., did not. It is family lore that he could not grow one, possibly because at the time of the battle, Missionary Ridge—where he won the Medal of Honor—he was just eighteen years old. Family lore also holds that after he was brevetted colonel—he was then nineteen, the youngest officer ever to hold that rank—he tried to grow one to make himself look older. He failed. Humiliated by that, he was clean-shaven the rest of his life, except for his musta
che; and I suppose that I have patterned myself after him in that regard as well.”

  “You would look distinguished with a mustache!” his wife said.

  He gave her a look that could have been mild annoyance or amusement, or both, and turned to Jim Weston.

  “Captain,” he said. “Perhaps an odd question: What did you think, or more precisely, what is your assessment of the reception of the matches by the Filipinos?”

  “Matches, Sir?” Weston asked, baffled.

  “Yes, matches. Matchbooks.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  MacArthur turned to Pickering.

  “I was led to believe, Fleming,” he said coldly, “that matches were among the supplies your people took into the Philippines.”

  “I don’t think Captain Weston saw your matches, General. They probably weren’t off-loaded from the Sunfish before he was sent aboard. We sent a case, or two cases. I told McCoy to see that at least one case went with the first rubber boat.”

  “I see.”

  “Darling,” his wife said. “I have some. Should I get them?”

  “If you please, if for no other reason than to satisfy Captain Weston’s curiosity.”

  “Dinner is served,” the white-jacketed orderly announced.

  “It will have to wait,” MacArthur snapped. “Mrs. MacArthur is not quite ready. Bring another round of drinks in the meantime.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The drinks were served before Jean MacArthur returned with a handful of matchbooks. She gave one to Weston, and then, like a hostess serving cookies, gave one to Pickering, Stecker, and Hart.

  Weston looked at the matchbook in his hand. On it was printed “I SHALL RETURN! MacArthur.”

  “It was an idea my psychological-warfare people came up with,” MacArthur said. “It rather embarrassed me, but they are supposed to know what they are doing, and I gave in.”

  “I never saw these before, Sir. But with respect, I think your psychological-warfare people are right.”

  “How is that, Captain Weston?”

  “They’re like General Fertig’s gold, Sir. Proof that the United States hasn’t forgotten them. And they’ll drive the Japanese crazy.”

  “How is that, Captain?”

  “The Filipinos think you, and for that matter, your father, are sort of like gods.” Major General Arthur MacArthur, General Douglas MacArthur’s father, was formerly the Military Governor of the Philippines; he ruled with both wisdom and compassion, and was instrumental in the transformation of the captured Spanish colony into the Commonwealth of the Philippines. “They’re not going to use these matches. They’ll carry them around like religious relics. And the Japs won’t be able to do anything about it.”

  “Would you explain that?”

  “They’re killing people they find with arms, or trying to help us; but not even the Japs are going to start killing people over a book of matches. They’re still trying to push that ‘Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere’ business. They would lose face doing something brutal over matchbooks.”

  “Charley Willoughby, General,” Pickering said, “seemed to be fascinated with Captain Weston’s views about the Japanese philosophy of occupation. And with the principles General Fertig has laid out for his psychological-warfare operations.”

  “Did he really?” MacArthur said impatiently.

  “Yes, Sir,” Colonel Stecker said. “I had the feeling that General Fertig was setting that sort of thing up the way General Willoughby would himself.”

  “Fascinating,” MacArthur said. “I will discuss that with him.” He turned to Weston.

  “And you don’t think, Captain, that putting my name on it was going a bit too far? Instead of, for example, the American flag, or crossed Filipino and American flags, something on that order?”

  “No, Sir. Without the name MacArthur, all they’d be is matches.”

  “You see, Douglas?” his wife said. “I told you.”

  “Well, I don’t mind being proven wrong by an expert,” MacArthur said.

  “Sir, could I ask you for a favor?” Weston asked. “Could I ask you to autograph one of these for me?”

  “You would like my autograph, Captain?”

  “Yes, Sir. If you would please, Sir.”

  “Not on a matchbook, Captain,” MacArthur said. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. If General Pickering will bring you to my office at, say, oh nine hundred tomorrow, I will be happy to give you my autograph. It will be affixed to a document awarding you the Silver Star medal for conspicuous gallantry in action.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  If a medal is well deserved, Fleming Pickering decided, the circumstances surrounding its award are not really important. And it is probably very cynical of me to suspect that the notion to decorate you for your valor come shortly after you told El Supremo the Filipinos regard him as- a god.

  “Douglas, what time did you order dinner?”

  “Right now, my love,” he said. “Captain Weston, would you do Mrs. MacArthur the honor of taking her in to dinner?”

  [SIX]

  Office of the Director

  Office of Strategic Services

  National Institutes of Health Building

  Washington, D.C.

  0900 Hours 8 January 1943

  “I didn’t know if you would want to see this or not,” L. Stanford Morrissette said, laying a long sheet of teletypewriter paper on the desk of OSS Director William J. Donovan.

  “What is it?”

  “A synopsis of Waterson’s debriefing of the officer who came out of the Philippines on the submarine.”

  “Why did you think I wouldn’t want to see it?”

  “There’s nothing new in it. All it does is confirm what Lieutenant McCoy has been reporting all along. And McCoy’s reports, which you’ve seen, have much more detail.”

  Donovan shrugged and pulled the long sheet of teletypewriter paper across the green blotter of his desk and began to read it.

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT URGENT

  BRISBANE NUMBER 138

  1500GREENWICH7JAN43 3

  FROM CHIEF OSS STATION

  BRISBANE AUSTRALIA

  TO DIRECTOR OSS

  NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

  BLDG

  WASHINGTON DC

  SUBJECT OPERATION WINDMILL

  (1) RE YOUR MESSAGE FROM MORRISSETTE FOR HAND DELIVERY TO GEN MACARTHUR: UNDERSIGNED ATTEMPTED TO DELIVER SAME TO GEN MACARTHUR. WAS ADVISED BY COL SIDNEY HUFF, AIDE DE CAMP, THAT SUPREME COMMANDERS BUSY SCHEDULE PRECLUDED RECEIVING ME. GAVE MESSAGE TO HUFF. HUFF SUBSEQUENTLY TELEPHONED TO STATE QUOTE ONLY SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL WITH WHICH GEN MACARTHUR IS FAMILIAR IS CONTROLLED BY BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING USMC AND ANY REQUESTS FOR ITS USE SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO HIM ENDQUOTE. UNDERSIGNED THEN ATTEMPTED TO CONTACT BRIG GEN PICKERING AND WAS INFORMED THAT HE WAS NOT PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN BRISBANE. REQUESTED THAT HE CONTACT ME ON RETURN. HE HAS NOT YET DONE SO. SUBSEQUENTLY LEARNED THAT HE WAS ON ESPIRITU SANTO ISLAND DIRECTING OPERATION WINDMILL.

  (2) UNDERSIGNED WAS CONTACTED 1600 6JAN43 BY COL JACK NMI STECKER USMC WHO STATED BRIG GEN PICKERING HAD RETURNED TO BRISBANE BUT THAT HIS BUSY SCHEDULE PRECLUDED HIS MEETING WITH ME. HE ALSO STATED THAT PICKERING HAD BROUGHT WITH HIM CAPT JAMES B. WESTON, USMC, WHO HAD BEEN SERVING AS G-2 US FORCES IN PHILIPPINES AND THAT CAPTAIN WESTON COULD BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR OSS DEBRIEFING 0800 HOURS 7JAN43

  (3) SYNOPSIS OF DEBRIEFING OF CAPTAIN JAMES B. WESTON, USMC, BY UNDERSIGNED 1005-1240 7JAN43 FOLLOWS:

  (A) WESTON IS MARINE AVIATOR CAUGHT IN PHILIPPINES AT OUTBREAK OF WAR AND ATTACHED 4TH MARINES ON CORREGIDOR. WHILE ON A SUPPLY MISSION ON BATAAN PENINSULA, LUZON, WITH SGT PERCY LEWIS EVERLY USMC ON 1APR42 THEY FOUND THEMSELVES BEHIND ENEMY LINES. UNABLE TO RETURN TO CORREGIDOR, THEY DECIDED TO ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE TO AUSTRALIA BY SMALL BOAT.

  (B) ON 80CT42, THEY LANDED AT GINGOOG BAY, MISAMIS-ORIENTAL PROVINCE, ISLAND OF MINDANAO, HAVING BEEN JOINED ENROUTE
BY TWELVE OTHER US MILITARY AND NAVY PERSONNEL SEPARATED FROM THEIR UNITS. ON LANDING THEY FOUND NAILED TO TELEPHONE POLE PROCLAMATION ISSUED BY BRIG GENERAL WENDELL FERTIG ANNOUNCING HIS ASSUMPTION OF COMMAND OF ALL US FORCES IN PHILIPPINES.

  (C) ON 11OCT42 CONTACT WAS MADE WITH FERTIG NEAR MONKAYO, DAVAO-ORIENTAL PROVINCE. FERTIG INFORMED WESTON THAT HE WAS LTCOL CORPS OF ENGINEERS, RESERVE, AND THAT HE HAD DECLARED HIS RANK TO BE BRIG GEN IN BELIEF THIS WAS NECESSARY TO COMMAND RESPECT OF FILIPINO MILITARY AND CIVILIANS. AT THIS POINT WESTON PLACED HIMSELF AND HIS MEN UNDER FERTIG’S COMMAND. FERTIG APPOINTED WESTON CAPT AND EVERLY 2ND LT IN USFIP. WESTON STATED THAT IT IS FERTIG’S POLICY TO RAISE US OFFICERS WHO PLACE THEMSELVES UNDER HIS COMMAND AT LEAST ONE RANK IN USFIP, AND TO COMMISSION US NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICERS IN USFIP. SIMULTANEOUSLY WESTON WAS NAMED G-2 USFIP AND EVERLY HIS DEPUTY.

  (D) DESPITE CRITICAL SHORTAGES OF ALL SUPPLIES AND WEAPONS ACTION AGAINST JAPANESE COMMENCED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. SHORTAGE OF WEAPONRY SUCH THAT AMMUNITION FOR US 30-06 ENFIELD RIFLES LOCALLY MANUFACTURED USING BRASS CURTAIN RODS FOR BULLETS, LOCALLY MANUFACTURED BLACK POWDER, AND MATCHHEADS FOR PRIMERS. WESTON STATED FERTIG BELIEVED ANY COMBAT ACTION AGAINST JAPANESE WOULD CAUSE FILIPINOS TO ACCEPT HIM AS CG USFIP. WESTON STATED USFIP NOW ALMOST ENTIRELY ARMED WITH WEAPONS CAPTURED FROM JAPANESE.

  (E) WESTON STATED THAT AFTER WORD OF INITIAL EIGHT OR TEN COMBAT ACTIONS AGAINST JAPANESE CIRCULATED THROUGHOUT MINDANAO FOLLOWING HAPPENED:

  1 US AND FILIPINO MILITARY PERSONNEL WHO HAD EITHER NOT SURRENDERED OR WHO HAD ESCAPED BEGAN TO COME TO HIS HQ FROM PLACES OF HIDING IN SUCH NUMBERS (WESTON STATES MORE; THAN TWO THOUSAND (2000)) THAT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO EITHER ARM OR FEED THEM. MOST WERE ORDERED BACK INTO HIDING UNTIL SUCH TIME AS SUPPLIES BECAME AVAILABLE. OTHERS (PRIMARILY US AND FILIPINO COMMISSIONED OFFICERS) WERE ARMED AND DISPATCHED THROUGHOUT MINDANAO WITH ORDERS TO FORM NUCLEI FOR LATER EXPANSION OF USFIP.