John Schettler - 1943

“I hear Nimitz doesn’t want it. He’s of a mind to bypass the Phils and just leapfrog along Pacific Islands, all the way to Japan. That’ll keep your Marines nice and busy. If MacArthur wins that argument, I guess he’ll want the Army to do the job in Papua New Guinea.”

“I expect we’ll find out what’s up soon enough. First things first—we’ve got to push the Japs off this island, and now it looks like they’ve handed the job to MacArthur. You get along with his majesty?”

“He’s just another CO,” said Krueger. “He’ll call the shots, but I’m the man on the ground getting things done. Fine with me.”

“When do you figure you’ll be ready to go after the Japs?”

“January. That’s when we’re scheduled to receive reinforcements from Brisbane. What about you, Archie? When do those fighting leathernecks of yours get back in the game?”

“God only knows,” said Vandegrift. “I’m told my boys get two weeks off in Samoa. After that, they’ll have something in mind. I can smell another big carrier battle shaping up here soon, and I suppose that will decide the matter.”

That wasn’t a hard thing to predict, but Archie Vandegrift was correct.

Asfor the Navy, the Fiji Group was not the only thing on the minds of Navy planners. Now ready to go on the offensive, the Americans had moved both Marine Divisions to Samoa and they were waiting for the first clear opportunity to push into the New Hebrides, a place singled out by both Nimitz and King as the key to flanking the Japanese on both Fiji and New Caledonia.

“The initial objective will be this island,” said Nimitz. Eh-fa-tah , but for some damn reason the spell it Efate. The code name is ROSES. They wanted to change it to TRUCULENCE, but who wants to try and spell that on a thousand reports?”

“It doesn’t matter how they spell it,” said Halsey. “A rose is a rose by any other name. Where do I hit it?”

“Right here, at Port Vila on the southwest coast. There’s a decent small harbor there, but the bay beyond it gets a lot of rough swell. The place flanks Noumea, and if we get some good fighter groups in there, we can cut off their LOC to New Caledonia. Up north here at Havana Harbor there’s room for a seaplane base as well. We’ll take it with a single regiment, the 8th Marines. That’s job one, and this base will support any move we make on New Caledonia.”

“And job two?” Halsey was ready for more.

“Espiritu Santo,” said Nimitz. “That’s what we want next. It’s the largest island in the New Hebrides, and there’s an excellent anchorage at Luganville. From there we can throw up fighter and bomber fields and then build the place up for any move we might have to make into the Solomons. It’s perfect.”

“Japanese?” asked Halsey.

“None to speak of. They put all their chips in the Fiji Group. The French have a battalion from their Tonkin Division there, but they won’t fight.”

“Alright, how you gonna hit the place?”

“I want to put the other two regiments of 2nd Marines in there, with one landing up here in the north at Saint James Bay, and the other right at Luganville.”

“Two Regiments?”

“We won’t need both to take the place, but we might need them to hold it,” said Nimitz. “That will also give me enough to jump on anything else we might need. We’ll follow up with a Marine Defense Battalion, Naval construction troops, the works.”

Nimitz had put his finger on the island that would become the largest US Naval operating base in the South Pacific. Before the war ended in Fedorov’s history, two fighter fields and three bomber fields would be built there, along with a seaplane base, coastal guns of the 155th CD Regiment, massive supply and ammunition depots, a naval repair dock, and even aircraft engine shops and facilities to service and store torpedoes for both planes and subs. As many as 100,000 men would be based on the island, and over 2 million would pass through it enroute to other objectives. If taken here, it would likely replace Suva Bay as the US forward operating base for the Solomons Campaign, just as it did in the old history.

“So I’ll want us to form up here, about 100 miles northwest of those islands. We’ll only have to use one carrier to hit anything the French have on them, and the remainder can wait for the Japs. In fact, we have the 1st Parachute Battalion available to pioneer this landing. We can take them out to sea with us, escorted by Antietam . The main landings won’t be authorized unless we can assure sea control.”

“What if they don’t come after us?”

“All the better,” said Nimitz. “Then we bring in the Marines, and stand there with a chip on our shoulder to see if the other fellow wants to do anything about it. Don’t worry Bull, they’ll come. They wouldn’t leave a mug like yours off their dance card.”

Halsey grinned at that. “All that R & R in Pearl did wonders for me,” he said. “I feel like a new man.”

“And you’ve got a whole new fleet. Spruance has Enterprise and Hornet, and you take in the three new Essex Class carriers. Where will you plant your flag?”

“ Essex ,” said Halsey. “I thought I might go with the Lexington , but first in the class always gets the nod. Besides, that ship and crew have had more time to work in.”

“A good choice. How are the air wings shaping up?”

“We’ve been running drills for the last week. I’ve got 38 F4U Corsairs, and they look good. Yorktown still has the older Wildcats, but they honored Lexington with a couple dozen of those hot new F6Fs.”

“Those are the first of the new planes we’ll be getting,” said Nimitz. “They’ve been burning the midnight oil at the drafting tables for the last year. You’d be amazed at what we have coming.”

On both sides of the war, designers were busy with prototypes and handing them off to test pilots for evaluation. Ronnie Harker was one of those rare men when he got into a plane, another great British test pilot like Winkle Brown, who had a magic touch when he flew. Harker had his eye on a newcomer, and he first fell in love with it in April of 1942.

A latecomer to the dance, it was the P-51, rolled out of the design bays in a little over 100 days after the contract was signed. Oddly, the plane had been built for the British, who were looking for something new as they shopped American built planes to help flesh out new RAF squadrons. The Curtiss P-40 was getting long in the tooth, so they asked for something else. They specified the engine they wanted, the Allison V-1710, and the price they would pay. The North American 73, or NA-73, started test flights and had some very promising features.

The airfoils created very little drag, and the heated engine exhaust had the effect of giving the plane a little boost akin to that of a rocket thrust, called the “Meredith Effect,” after a British engineer who proposed that extra heat from a liquid cooled engine could be put to this use. The Supermarine Spitfires already benefited from the effect, but this plane delighted early fliers when it was found to be faster than even the latest model Spitfires at low to medium altitudes. It also handled extremely well, at least under 15,000 feet, but RAF test pilot Ronnie Harker didn’t like what he was seeing with the plane above that altitude.

“It’s a bit sluggish up there,” he said. “Put a Rolls Royce engine in it and we might have a much better plane.” Harker might be forgiven for being just a little biased in making such a suggestion, for he was actually employed by Rolls Royce at the time, their very first test pilot looking over new aircraft proposed for the RAF.