W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

"I didn’t mean to snap at you, Mrs. Cavendish," Pickering said.

"I didn’t know that you had," she said, smiling, as she took his coat.

He walked down the corridor to the library and pushed the door open.

"I will be damned," he said, smiling. It really was a friend. "How are you, Jake?"

Major Jake Dillon, USMC, crossed the room to him, smiling, shook his hand, and then hugged him.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Dillon said. "Patricia’s sitting at home knitting scarfs and gloves for you, imagining you living in some leaking tent; and here you are, living like the landed gentry-even including a Jaguar."

"If I detect a broad suggestion of jealousy, I’m glad," Pickering said. "I see you’re already into my booze."

"Banning took care of that, after I told him how dry it was all the way from the States to Wellington, New Zealand."

"That was probably good for you. I’m sure you hadn’t been sober that long in years. You came with the 1stDivision?" Headquarters, 1stMarine Division, and the entire 5thMarines had debarked at Wellington, New Zealand, on June 14, 1942.

"All the way. And it was a very long way. The ship was not the Pacific Princess. The cuisine and accommodations left a good deal to be desired."

"What are you doing here? And where did you meet Ed Banning?"

"Here. Tonight. He’s a friend of Colonel Goettge."

"Who’s Colonel Goettge?"

"I am, Sir," a voice said, and Pickering turned. Banning and a tall, muscular Marine colonel had come into the library from the kitchen. "I suspect that I may be imposing."

"Nonsense," Pickering said, crossing to him and offering his hand. "Any friend of Banning’s, etcetera etcetera."

"Very kind of you, Captain," Goettge said.

"Also of Jack Stecker’s," Jake Dillon said. "It was Jack’s idea that I come along. He sends his regards."

"So far, Colonel," Pickering said, "that’s two good guys out of three. But how did you get hung up with this character?"

"Watch it, Flem. I’ll arrange to have you photographed being wetly kissed by a bare-breasted aborigine maiden, and send eight-by-ten glossies to Patricia."

"He would, too," Pickering said, laughing. "Colonel, you’re in dangerous company."

"Colonel Goettge is the 1stDivision G-2, Captain Pickering,"

Banning said. "He was sent here to gather intelligence on certain islands in the Solomons."

Pickering met Banning’s eye for a moment. They both knew more about pending operations in the Solomon Islands than Colonel Goettge was supposed to know, even though he was G-2 of the 1stMarine Division.

Pickering was worried, however, about how much Goettge actually knew.

On Friday, June 19, twelve days before, Vice-Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, USN, had activated his headquarters at Auckland, New Zealand, and become Commander, South Pacific, subordinate to Admiral Nimitz at Pearl Harbor.

Pickering immediately flew down to meet him, not sure in his own mind if he was doing so in his official role as observer for Frank Knox, or as a member (if unofficial) of Mac Arthur’s palace guard.

Once he saw Pickering’s orders, Admiral Ghormley had no choice but to brief him on his concept of the war, and on his planning. But he went further than paying appropriate respect to an officer wrapped in the aura of a personal representative of the Secretary of the Navy required.

There were several reasons for this. For one, they immediately liked each other. Over lunch, Ghormley drew out of Pickering the story of how he had worked his way up from apprentice seaman in the deck department to his "Any Ocean, Any Tonnage" master’s ticket. And it quickly became clear that the two of them were not an admiral and a civilian in a captain’s uniform, but that they were two men who had known the responsibility of the bridge in a storm.

And, too, Ghormley had come to the South Pacific almost directly from London. Thus he had not spent enough time in either Washington or Pearl Harbor to become infected with the parochial virus that caused others of his rank to feel that the war in the Pacific had to be fought and won by the Navy alone- perhaps as the only way to overcome the shame of Pearl Harbor.

And to Pickering’s pleased surprise, Ghormley had independently come up with a strategy that was very much like Mac-Arthur’s. He saw the Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain as a likely and logical target for the immediate future. He thought it would be a very reasonable expenditure of assets to assault New Britain amphibiously with the 1stMarine Division, and, once the beachhead was secure, to turn the battle over to the Army’s 32ndand 41stInfantry Divisions.

Pickering then informed Admiral Ghormley that he was privy to General MacArthur’s thinking, and that the two of them were in essential agreement. He made this admission after briefly considering that not only was it none of Ghormley’s business, but that telling Ghormley such things would enrage both Frank Knox and Douglas MacArthur if they learned of it, as they almost certainly would.

Which was to say, of course, that MacArthur and Ghormley both disagreed with Admiral Ernest King’s proposed plans for immediate action: These called for a Navy attack under Admiral Nimitz on both the Santa Cruz and Solomon Islands, while MacArthur launched a diversionary attack on the East Indies.

When Pickering returned to Brisbane, he dropped the other shoe (after one of MacArthur’s private dinners) and informed MacArthur of Ghormley’s ideas for the most efficient prosecution of the war. Lengthy "independent" cables then went from Ghormley (to Admiral King, Chief of Naval Operations) and MacArthur (to General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army). These strenuously urged an attack to retake Rabaul as the first major counterattack of the war.

General Marshall cabled MacArthur that he fully agreed Rabaul should be the first target, and that he would make the case for that before the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Admiral King, however, not only flatly disagreed with that, but was so sure that his position would prevail when the final decision was made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he "unofficially" alerted Nimitz, who in turn "unofficially" alerted Ghormley, that a Navy force, with or without MacArthur’s support, would attack the Solomons as soon as possible-probably within a month or six weeks.

"Presuming" that Nimitz certainly would have told MacArthur of the Navy’s plans, Ghormley discussed (by memoranda, hand-carried by officer courier) Nimitz’s alert with MacArthur. This, of course, resulted in more emphatic cables from MacArthur to Marshall. It was still possible that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would decide against King and in favor of striking at Rabaul first.

The decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not yet made, although it was clear that it would have to be made in the next few days.

Pickering had briefed Banning on his meetings with Ghormley and all that had happened after that. He now wondered if that had been a serious mistake. Had Banning told his old friend, Goettge, the First Division G-2, any-or all-of what Pickering had told him in confidence?

"Captain Pickering," Colonel Goettge said, "it’s been my experience that when you have something delicate to say, you almost always get yourself in deeper trouble when you pussyfoot around it."

"Mine, too," Pickering replied. "What’s on your mind?"

"I can only hope this won’t leave this room-"

"You’re pussyfooting," Pickering interrupted.

"The word in the 1stDivision is that General MacArthur’s attitude toward the Navy generally, and the Marine Corps in particular, is ‘Fuck you,’" Goettge said.

"That’s unfortunate," Pickering said.

"There’s a story going around that he wouldn’t give the 4thMarines a Presidential Unit Citation in the Philippines because ‘the Marines already get enough publicity,’ " Goettge said.