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

"They can just forget that, " MacArthur said. "We shall hold Australia. "

Logic told me, Frank, that that was highly improbable. But my heart told me that we would indeed hold Australia. Mac-Arthur had just said so.

Marshall also reported that two companies of the 182ndInfantry and a company of Army Engineers had landed on Efate with orders to build an airfield, "whatever the hell that means. "

Without reference to a map,and more important, without my having told him thatAdmiral King had ordered the recapture of Rabaul-and if I hadn’t told him, who else had this knowledge and could have?- Mac-Arthur explained that Efate was an island in the New Hebrides, about 700 miles southeast of Tulagi, and that "someone with a knowledge of strategy" had seen the establishment of an air base there as essential to the recapture of Rabaul, which was itself essential to deny the Japanese a chance to make a successful landing on the Australian continent.

Marshall also told him that there would be reporters waiting for him in Adelaide, and that some sort of a statement would be expected.

The two of them started to work on that, and were still working on it when he arrived at Adelaide. This is, essentially verbatim, what he said there :

"The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary object of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through, and I shall return. "

If you want to know what he‘s thinking, Frank, I suggest you study that short speech carefully. It wasnot off the cuff.

The Commissioner of Railroads had sent his own private car to Adelaide, where it was attached to the Melbourne Express. From Adelaide to Melbourne, the track is standard width. I scurried around getting a sleeper on the train, and had just succeeded when Huff found me. I was, so I was informed, to have one of the staterooms in the private car. I don’ t know who was more surprised, Huff or me.

We got to Spencer Street Station, Melbourne, just before ten a.m. the next day. We backed in, with MacA. standing like a politician on the rear platform of the private car. There were half a hundred reporters in the station, and even an honor guard.

MacA. delivered another speech, which I am sure was as carefully prepared as the

"I shall return" speech in Adelaide. In it, again just about verbatim, he said, "success in modern war means the furnishing of sufficient troops and materiel to meet the known strength of the enemy. No general can make something out of nothing. My success or failure will depend primarily upon the resources which the respective governments place at my disposal."

He cold-shouldered General Brett and General Royce at the station, rather cruelly I thought; and I think he‘s going to hold a grudge about the B-17s. There is no excuse for it that I can see. Nor-as I just learned from Huff-is there any excuse for recommending the award of a Presidential Unit Citation to every unit on Corregidor except the 4thMarines. His reason for not giving it to the Marines, again quoting Huff, is that "they have enough publicity as it is. "

He also, politely, refused the offer of several mansions and moved into the Menzies. I can only wonder what will happen when he finds out that lowly Captain Pickering, USNR, occupies an identical apartment directly above him.

I don’t think he has made up his mind what to do about me, and for the moment, at least, I am considered a memberpro tem of the palace guard.

One final thing: I learned from the Australians that they have left behind, on various islands now (or about to be) occupied by the Japs, former colonial officers, planters, missionaries, etcetera. They are calling these people "Coast-watchers," and they feel they will be able to provide very valuable intelligence. They have commissioned them into the Royal Australian Navy Reserve, so they’ll be under the Geneva Convention. I suspect that they are just whistling in the wind about that.

Admiral Leary does not seem to be impressed with their potential, I am. If we have anybody who speaks Japanese, and who can be spared, I suggest you send them over here now to establish a relationship with the Coastwatchers.

I really hope this is what you were hoping to get from me.

Respectfully,

Fleming Pickering, Capt., USNR.

(Eight)

Walker Hasslinger’s Restaurant

Baltimore, Maryland

1 April 1942

The basic principles of both leadership and organization have evolved over many centuries. Among the most important of these principles is the chain of command. The military services, and for that matter any organization, may be thought of as a pyramid. Authority and responsibility flow downward from the pinnacle, passing through progressively junior levels of command. Simplistically, if the first sergeant of an infantry company, for example, wants a PFC to load a truck with sandbags, he does not stop the first PFC he encounters and tell him to do so. Instead, he tells a platoon sergeant, who tells a section leader, who tells a corporal, and the corporal selects the PFC who gets the sandbags loaded.

To do otherwise would create chaos. The corporal would wonder where his PFC had gone without orders. The man in charge of the sandbags would question the PFC’s right to take them away. The truckdriver would not know why sandbags were being loaded on his truck.

The chain of command is even more important at the highest echelons of military and naval service. Although in law the Secretary of the Navy has the authority, he does not issue direct orders to captains of ships, or even to commanders-in-chief of the various fleets.

He tells the Chief of Naval Operations what he wants done, in general terms: "I think we should reinforce the Pacific Fleet." The Chief of Naval Operations decides how the Pacific Fleet should be reinforced, again in rather general terms: "Add a battleship, two cruisers, and a half-dozen destroyers." As the order moves down through the pyramid, other officers make more specific decisions and issue more specific orders: which battleship, which cruisers, and which destroyers; in other words, which commands will lose assets to reinforce the Pacific Fleet, and when.

Only six or seven levels down in the chain of command will the captain of a destroyer finally order the officer of the deck to make all preparations to get under way, and then to set course for the Hawaiian Islands. And he will not associate the movement of his vessel with a vague suggestion given to the Chief of Naval Operations by the Secretary of the Navy.

The chain of command is so important that it is almost never violated. People at the top, civilian or military, very rarely issue orders to anyone not in the level of command immediately subordinate to them.

But there are exceptions to every rule.

Captain David Haughton, USN, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, got off the Congressional Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad and climbed the stairs to the Baltimore Pennsylvania Station. He walked across the waiting room, left the station, and turned right. He was in uniform, and he was carrying a black briefcase.

A block away, he entered the bar of Walker Hasslinger’s Restaurant, a Baltimore landmark that justly enjoyed the reputation of serving the finest seafood in town. Captain Haughton had been coming to Walker Hasslinger’s since he was a midshipman at Annapolis. He looked up and down the bar for the man he was here to meet, but didn’t find him.

He took a stool at the bar, and reached for a bowl of oyster crackers.

"The free lunch went out when the New Deal came in," a large, red-faced man in chefs whites said, sliding the bowl out of his reach. "Now it’s cash on the bar."