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

"OK," Holcomb said wearily. He was tired. It had been a long day, ending with a long and tiring automobile ride back to Washington from Norfolk, where there had been an interservice conference at Fortress Monroe. Whatever had happened in the Coral Sea had already happened; he didn’t have to learn all the details tonight. But young Captain Steward had apparently worked long and hard preparing the briefing, and it would not do right now to tell him it wasn’t considered important.

Besides, I’ll have to take the briefing sooner or later anyway, why not now and get it over with?

The Commandant raised his eyes to the porch, intending to order, as cheerfully as he could manage, that the orderly put on the coffeepot. There was someone on the porch he didn’t expect to see, and really would rather not have seen.

"Hello, Doc," he called to Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney. "Did I send for you?"

"No, Sir. I took the chance that you might have a minute to spare for me."

Good God, a long day of the problems of Navy Ordnance and the Army’s Coast Artillery Corps is enough. And here comes Marine Aviation wanting something!

"Sure. Come on in the house. I was about to order up some coffee, but now that you’re here, I expect Tommy had better break out the bourbon."

"Coffee would be fine, Sir."

"Don’t be noble, Doc. God hates a hypocrite."

"A little bourbon would go down very nicely, Sir."

"I’m about to be briefed on a battle in the Coral Sea. You familiar with it?"

"Only that we lost the Lexington, Sir."

"Yeah. Well, you can sit in on the briefing," Holcomb said. He led the small procession into the house, handed his uniform cap to an orderly, and then went into the parlor.

"Good evening, Sir," Captain Steward said. Holcomb saw that Steward had come with all the trappings: an easel, covered now with a sheet of oilcloth bearing the Marine Corps insignia; a large round leather map case containing a detailed map; and a dozen folders covered withtop secret cover sheets-probably the immediate, radioed after-action reports themselves.

"Hello, Stew," he said. "Sorry to keep you up this late. You know General Mclnerney."

"Yes, Sir. Good evening, General."

"Is there anything in there General Mclnerney is not supposed to hear?"

"No, Sir. General Mclnerney is on the Albatross list."

The Albatross list was a short list of those officers who were privy to the fact that the Navy codebreakers at Pearl had broken several of the most important Japanese naval codes.

That’s a pretty short list,General Holcomb remembered now, a goddamned short list, and for very good reason. If the Japanese don’t find out we’re reading their mail, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of the broken codes. But the more people who know a secret, the greater the risk it won’t stay a secret long.

"How is that, Doc?" Holcomb asked evenly. "Why are you cleared for Albatross?"

"General Forrest brought me in on that, Sir."

The Commandant considered that for a moment, and decided to give Brigadier General Horace W. T. Forrest, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the benefit of the doubt.

If Forrest told Doc, he must have had his reasons.

The Commandant turned to one of the orderlies. "Coffee ready?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, bring it in, please. And a bottle of bourbon. And then see that we’re not disturbed."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"While we’re waiting, Stew, why don’t you pass around those after-actions. That’s what they are, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

Captain Steward divided the half-dozen documents with the TOP SECRET cover sheets between Generals Holcomb and Mclnerney. Before they had a chance to read more than a few lines, the orderly pushed in a cart with a coffee service, a bottle of bourbon, glasses, and a silver ice bucket. It had obviously been set up beforehand.

"Tommy must have been a Boy Scout," Holcomb said.

"He’s always prepared. We’ll take care of ourselves, Tommy. Thank you."

The orderly left the room, closing the sliding doors from outside.

Holcomb closed his folder.

"Let’s have it, Stew. I can probably get by without reading all that." "Yes, Sir."

Captain Steward went to the easel and raised the oilskin cover. Beneath it was a simple map of the Coral Sea area. A slim strip of northern Australia was visible, as was the southern tip of New Guinea. Above New Guinea lay the southern tip of New Ireland and all of New Britain. Rabaul, which was situated at the northern tip of New Britain, was prominently labeled; it had fallen to the Japanese and was being rapidly built up as a major port for them.

To the east were the Solomon Islands. The major ones were labeled: Bougainville was the most northerly; then they went south through Choiseul, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Florida, and Malaita, to San Cristobal, the most southerly.

"Keep it simple, Stew, but start at the beginning," the Commandant ordered.

"Aye, aye, Sir," Captain Steward said. "In late April, Sir, we learned, from Albatross intercepts, details of Japanese plans to take Midway Island, and from there to threaten Hawaii, with the ultimate ambition of taking Hawaii, which would both deny us that forward port and logistic facility and permit them to threaten the West Coast of the United States and the Aleutian Islands.

"Secondly, they planned to invest Port Moresby, on the tip of Eastern New Guinea. From Port Moresby they could threaten the Australian continent and extend their area of influence into the Solomon Islands. If they succeed in this intention, land-based aircraft in the Solomons could effectively interdict our supply lines to Australia and New Zealand."

I’ve heard all this before, and I’m tired. But I’m not going to jump on this hardworking kid because I’m grouchy when I’m tired.

"Via Albatross intercepts we learned that there would be two Japanese naval forces. Vice-Admiral Takeo Takagi sailed from the Japanese naval base at Truk in command of the carrier striking force, the carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku, which represented a total of 125 aircraft, and its screening force.

"The second Japanese force, under the overall command of Vice-Admiral Shigeyoshi Inouye, and sailing from their base at Rabaul on New Britain, included the carrier Shoho and several cruisers, transports, and oilers.

"On 3 May, elements of this second force, which had apparently sailed from Rabaul several days earlier, landed on Tulagi, a small island here in the Solomons"-Steward pointed with what looked like an orchestra leader’s baton-"approximately equidistant between the three larger islands of Santa Isabel, Malaita, and Guadalcanal. They immediately began to construct a seaplane base.

"Based on the Albatross intercepts, Admiral Nimitz ordered Task Force 17, with Admiral Fletcher flying his flag aboard the carrier Yorktown, into the area. At the same time, Admiral Nimitz ordered Task Force 11, with Admiral Fitch flying his flag aboard the carrier Lexington, and Task Force 44, a mixed force of U.S. and Australian cruisers, under Admiral Crace, to join up with Task Force 11.

"Admiral Fletcher ordered a strike on the Japanese invasion force on Tulagi, which was carried out at 0630 hours 6 May. The after-action reports on the success of that attack, which are in the folder marked ‘Tulagi,’ have had to be revised."

"What the hell does that mean?" the Commandant asked sharply.

"Sir, there are Australian Coastwatchers on Tulagi. Their radioed reports of the damage inflicted differed from that of the personnel involved in the attack. Admiral Nimitz feels that inasmuch as the Coastwatchers are on Tulagi, theirs are the more credible reports."

"In other words," the Commandant said angrily, "the flyboys let their imaginations run wild again, but the Coastwatchers produced the facts."