W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

"Sorry, it's not," Major Fredericks said.

"Excuse me?"

"I have my orders, Captain. From General Pickering. The first people to go aboard the Sunfish are you and Lieutenant Lewis, followed by the other people of your party. I didn't like it at first, but after a while, it makes sense. The purpose of this operation was to get your report on General Fertig. Every-thing has to fall in line behind that."

"For Christ's sake!" McCoy protested.

"As I understand it, we're both Marine officers," Major Fredericks said. "That being the case, Captain, the proper response to an order is 'Aye, aye, Sir.' "

"Aye, aye, Sir," McCoy said.

"If you think about it, McCoy, that makes sense," Macklin said reason-ably. "The priority is to get us out of here."

"Wade out and get in the boat, Captain," Major Fredericks said. "I'll see that the others follow."

"Would you like me to go with Captain McCoy, Sir?" Captain Macklin asked.

"Why? From what I hear, Captain McCoy is the Marine Corps rubber-boat expert. He can probably get into a rubber boat without assistance."

"Yes, Sir. Of course. When would the Major like me to go out to the Sunfish, Sir?"

"You're not going anywhere, Captain," Major Fredericks said.

"Sir?"

"I wish you were, frankly, Macklin," Major Fredericks said. "Your repu-tation precedes you. But my orders are to keep you here." He looked at Mack-lin and then at McCoy. "Are you waiting for something, Captain, or will one direct order to get in a boat be sufficient for you?"

"Take care of yourself, Macklin," McCoy said. He handed Major Fred-ericks his carbine. "Round chambered, Sir. Safety on."

And then he waded into the surf.

[TEN]

OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

FROM SUNFISH

1105 GREENWICH 6FEBRUARY1943

FOR CINCPAC

ALL STATIONS COPY AND RELAY

OPERATION GROCERY STORE ONE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED 2300 LOCAL TIME THIS DATE

OSS AUGMENTATION TEAM SAFELY ASHORE AND IN CONTACT WITH OSS AGENT ATTACHED TO HQ USFIP

SUNFISH HAS TAKEN ABOARD CAPT K.R.MCCOY, USMCR, LT CHAMBERS LEWIS, USN, GUNNERY SERGEANT ERNEST ZIMMERMAN USMC AND STAFF SERGEANT STEPHEN KOFFLER USMC. ALL HANDS IN EXCELLENT SHAPE.

SUNFISH ALSO HAS ABOARD NINE (9) U.S. FEMALE CIVILIANS; FOUR U.S. MALE CIVILIANS AND ELEVEN (11) WOUNDED AND/OR SERIOUSLY ILL U.S. AND FILIPINO MEMBERS OF US FORCES IN PHILIPPINES. ALT, WILL URGENTLY REQUIRE MEDICAL ATTENTION AT DESTINATION

5 PROCEEDING AS ORDERED.

END

[ELEVEN]

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SWPOA 2315 6FEB43

VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL

TO NAVY DEPT WASH DC

FOR COLONEL F.L. RICKABEE USMC OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS

PLEASE RELAY IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING TO MISS ERNESTINE SAGE ADDRESSES KNOWN TO BOTH BANNING AND SESSIONS

DEEPLY REGRET MUST SUGGEST YOU TELEPHONE PICK AND ADVISE HIM YOU CANNOT MARRY HIM INASMUCH AS CAPT KENNETH R MCCOY IS ON HIS WAY HOME. MORE DETAILS WHEN AVAILABLE. LOVE UNCLE FLEMING

END

BY DIRECTION OF BRIG GEN PICKERING USMC

HART 2LT USMCR

[TWELVE]

T O P S E C R E T

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

0900 8 FEBRUARY 1943

VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL

GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA

FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO GENERAL MACARTHUR

MY DEAR DOUGLAS:

I'M SURE THAT YOU WILL AGREE THE FOLLOWING IS SOMETHING AT LEAST ONE OF US SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF SOME TIME AGO. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR GETTING THIS INTO FLEMING PICKERING'S HANDS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

ELEANOR JOINS ME IN EXTENDING THE MOST CORDIAL GREETINGS TO YOU AND JEAN.

AS EVER,

FRANKLIN

END PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO GENERAL MACARTHUR

FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO BRIG GEN PICKERING

MY DEAR FLEMING:

FIRST LET ME EXPRESS MY GREAT ADMIRATION FOR THE MANNER IN WHICH YOUR PEOPLE CONDUCTED THE OPERATION TO ESTABLISH CONTACT WITH WENDELL FERTIG IN THE PHILIPPINES AND MY PERSONAL DELIGHT THAT JIMMY'S COMRADE-IN-ARMS CAPTAIN MCCOY AND HIS BRAVE TEAM HAVE BEEN SAFELY EVACUATED. PLEASE RELAY TO EVERYONE CONCERNED MY VERY BEST WISHES AND GRATITUDE FOR A JOB WELL DONE.

SECOND, LET ME EXPRESS MY CHAGRIN AT NOT SEEING THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM VIS-A-VIS OSS OPERATIONS IN THE PACIFIC UNTIL, LITERALLY, LAST NIGHT. I WOULD NOT HAVE DREAMED OF COURSE OF OVERRIDING THE WHOLLY UNDERSTANDABLE CONCERNS OF GENERAL MACARTHUR AND ADMIRAL NIMITZ THAT THE OSS OPERATIONS IN THEIR AREAS OF COMMAND WOULD MEAN THE INTRUSION OF STRANGERS, AND THUS MIGHT INTERFERE WITH THEIR OWN OPERATIONS. IN THEIR SHOES, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SIMILARLY CONCERNED.

OUR NEED, OF COURSE, IS FOR SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS THE COMPLETE TRUST OF BOTH ADMIRAL NIMITZ, GENERAL MACARTHUR, AND DIRECTOR DONOVAN. I HAD FRANKLY DESPAIRED OF FINDING SUCH A PERSON UNTIL LAST NIGHT. WHILE HAVING DINNER WITH OUR GOOD FRIEND SENATOR RICHMOND FOWLER, I WAS STRUCK BY SOMETHING CLOSE TO A DIVINE REVELATION, FOR I REALIZED THAT HE YOU HAD BEEN STANDING IN FRONT OF ALL OF US ALL THE TIME.

I HAVE TODAY ISSUED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER APPOINTING YOU DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES FOR PACIFIC OPERATIONS. I AM SURE THAT GENERAL MACARTHUR AND ADMIRAL NIMITZ WILL BE AS ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT THIS APPOINTMENT AS WAS DIRECTOR DONOVAN. I HAVE FURTHER INSTRUCTED ADMIRAL LEAHY TO TRANSFER ALL PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT OF USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT SIXTEEN TO YOU, AND TO ARRANGE FOR THE TRANSFER OF ANY OTHER PERSONNEL YOU MAY FEEL ARE NECESSARY.

WHILE YOU WILL BE REPORTING DIRECTLY TO DIRECTOR DONOVAN, LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT MY DOOR WILL ALWAYS BE OPEN TO YOU AT ALL TIMES. I LOOK FORWARD TO DISCUSSING FUTURE OPERATIONS WITH YOU JUST AS SOON AS YOU FEEL YOU CAN LEAVE BRISBANE.

WITH MY WARMEST REGARDS

FRANKLIN

END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT TO BRIG GEN PICKERING

BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT

LEAHY, ADMIRAL USN

CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE PRESIDENT

T O P S E C R E T

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTE

When the U.S. Navy Cargo Submarine Narwhal, later in the war finally sur-faced off Mindanao to deliver a good many supplies and to evacuate seriously ill Americans, civilian and military, they were greeted by the band of USFIP, in uniform, playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

When General Douglas MacArthur was able to finally make good his pledge to return to the Philippines, his troops were greatly assisted in the liber-ation of Mindanao by the 30,000 trained, uniformed, and armed men, Filipino and American, of U.S. Forces in the Philippines, under the command of Wen-dell Fertig.

Fertig survived the war, and resumed his successful civilian career as an engineer. He was a familiar sight, and a revered figure, around the Special Warfare Center-home of the Green Berets-at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Although he had commanded more men in combat than does a major gen-eral commanding a division, the Army never saw fit to promote him, even in the reserve, beyond full colonel.

His comrade-in-arms (and fellow civil engineer turned demolition expert) in the early days of the war on Luzon, Lieutenant (later Major) Ralph Fralick, successfully escaped from Bataan just before the peninsula fell, taking with him forty of his men. After a harrowing 1,200-mile voyage in an open boat, they arrived at Hanoi, in what then was French Indochina.

Fralick lined up his starving, exhausted, but still-proud troops and marched them to report to the French authorities. Salutes were exchanged, and then the French turned the Americans over to their allies the Japanese. Fralick survived four horrible years of Japanese captivity, and after a brief period in the peacetime Army, also resumed his career as a civil engineer.

To the end of his life he hated all things French.

Major Ralph Fralick died in 1993, and is buried in the U.S. Cemetery at the Pensacola, Florida, Naval Air Station. The author was privileged to know him well, and ultimately to deliver his eulogy.