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

Prior to this assignment, the undersigned was assigned to the detachment of patients, U.S. Army General Hospital, Fourth Melbourne, Australia, while recovering from wounds suffered in action with the 2nd Parachute Battalion, USMC, on Gavutu during the invasion of

Guadalcanal.

Previous to the Gavutu invasion, the undersigned, a qualified parachutist with sixteen (16) parachute jumps, was on the staff of the USMC Parachute School, Lakehurst, N.J.

Prior to the war, the undersigned served with the 4th Marines in Shanghai (and elsewhere in China) in a variety of assignments, including a number that involved intelligence gathering and evaluation.

(f) The undersigned has almost entirely recovered from the wounds suffered during the Guadalcanal campaign, and believes that he could make a greater contribution to the Marine Corps in a Special Intelligence assignment than he can in his presently assigned duties.

ROBERT B. MACKLIN

First Lieutenant, USMC

Colonel Wilson looked up at Gunner Hardee, then shook his head and smiled in mixed amazement and disgust.

"What the hell are these 'special intelligence' duties he's volunteering for?" Wilson asked.

"We've been levied for two hundred 'suitable' officers for the OSS," Hardee said. "There was a memorandum sent out looking for volunteers."

"Reading this, you might get the idea this sonofabitch is just what the OSS is looking for," Wilson said. "A wounded hero of the Guadalcanal campaign, a parachutist, and even 'intelligence-gathering and evaluation duties in China.' "

Normally full colonels do not offer derogatory remarks about lieutenants in the hearing of master gunners; but Colonel Wilson and Gunner Hardee went back a long ways together in The Corps, and both were personally familiar with the career of First Lieutenant Robert B. Macklin.

Macklin first came to their attention several weeks before, when the Chief of Public Relations asked for his permanent assignment to public relations. The Chief was delighted with Macklin's performance on War Bond Tour One-he was a tall, handsome man, and a fine public speaker, just what Public Relations was looking for.

After reading his records, Colonel Wilson was happy to accede to the re-quest, agreeing at that time with Gunner Hardee that it was probably the one place the bastard couldn't do The Corps much harm.

Lieutenant Macklin, as he stated in his letter, did indeed serve with the 4th Marines in Shanghai before the war. His service earned him a really devastat-ing efficiency report.

Then Captain Edward J. Banning, USMC, wrote that Lieutenant Macklin was "prone to submit official reports that both omitted pertinent facts that might tend to reflect adversely upon himself and to present other material clearly designed to magnify his own contributions to the accomplishment of an assigned mission."

In other words, he was a liar.

Even worse, his 4th Marines efficiency report went on to say that Lieuten-ant Macklin "could not be honestly recommended for the command of a com-pany or larger tactical unit."

The reviewing officer-Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, then a major, now a lieutenant colonel on Guadalcanal-concurred in the evaluation of Lieutenant Macklin. Colonel Wilson had served several times with Chesty Puller and held him in the highest possible regard.

Before the war, shortly after being labeled a liar on his efficiency report, an officer would be asked for his resignation. But that was before the war, not now. Macklin's service record showed that when he came home from Shang-hai, The Corps sent him to Quantico, as a training officer at the Officer Candi-date School. He got out of that by volunteering to become a parachutist.

Macklin invaded Gavutu with the parachutists, as a supernumerary. Which meant that he was a spare officer, who would be given a job only after an offi-cer commanding a platoon, or something else, was killed or wounded.

As his letter stated, Macklin was in the Army's Fourth General Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, recovering from his wounds, when he was sent to the States to participate as a wounded hero in the first War Bond Tour.

Colonel Wilson got the whole story of Macklin's valorous service at Gavutu from someone he'd known years before, with the 4th Marines in Shanghai, Major Jake Dillon. (In those days, Dillon had been a sergeant.)

At the start of the war, in a move which at the time did not have Colonel Wilson's full and wholehearted approval, the Assistant Commandant of The Marine Corps arranged to have Dillon commissioned as a major, for duty with Public Affairs. The Assistant Commandant's reasoning was that The Corps was going to need some good publicity, and that the way to do that was to get a professional, such as the Vice President, Publicity, of Magnum Studios, Holly-wood, California, who was paid more money than the Commandant-for that matter, more than the President of the United States. And wasn't it fortuitous that he 'd been a China Marine, and Once A Marine, Always A Marine, was willing to come back into The Corps?

Colonel Wilson was now willing to admit that Major Jake Dillon did not turn out to be the unmitigated disaster he'd expected. For instance, Dillon led a crew of photographers and writers in the first wave of the invasion of Tulagi, and there was no question they did their job well.

Dillon was responsible for Lieutenant Macklin being sent home from Aus-tralia for the War Bond Tour.

"Most of the heroes I saw over there didn't look like Tyrone Power," Dillon said. "That bastard does, so I sent him on the tour."

Dillon told Colonel Wilson that Macklin had managed to get himself shot in the calf and face without ever reaching the beach, and had to be pried loose from the piling he was clinging to, screaming for a corpsman, while the fight-ing was going on.

"You've got to admire his gall," Gunner Hardee said. "I would have thought he'd be happy to stay in Public Relations."

"I think the sonofabitch really thinks he can salvage his career," Wilson said. "Tell me what would happen next if I endorsed this application favor-ably."

"Yeah, that would get him out of The Corps, wouldn't it?" Hardee said appreciatively. "But I don't think it would work. The first thing we have to do is get an FBI check on him, what they call a Full Background Investigation. Then we send that and his service record over to the OSS. If they want him, they tell us; and we cut his orders."

"What do you think would happen if his service record turned up missing? I mean, those things happen from time to time, don't they? What if we just got this background investigation on him... he probably didn't do anything wrong before he went to Annapolis... and his letter of application... with service record to follow when available?"

"I think the OSS might be very interested in a Marine parachutist who got himself shot heroically storming the beach on Gavutu."

"And what will happen six months from now when his service record shows up and they see his efficiency report?"

"They might send him back," Hardee said. "But by then, maybe they'll have parachuted him into France or something."

"The true sign of an intelligent man, Hardee, is how much he thinks like you do. Thank you for bringing this valiant officer's offer to volunteer to my personal attention. And have one of the clerks type up a favorable endorse-ment."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

[FOUR]

Temporary Building T-2032

The Mall, Washington, D.C.

1125 Hours 19 October 1942

There were four telephones on the desk behind the pierced-steel planking wall on the ground floor of Building T-2032. When he heard the ring, Sergeant John V. Casey, USMC, who had the duty, reached out for the nearest one, a part of his brain telling him the ring sounded a little funny.

He got a dial tone, murmured "Shit!", dropped the first phone in its cra-dle, and quickly grabbed one of the others. And got another dial tone. He dropped that phone in its cradle and grabbed the third. Another dial tone.