Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

"What's a C-46?"

"Curtiss Commando. Two-engine transport," McCoy replied.

"But what C-46?"

"I don't remember the date, exactly, but it was after we dropped the second atomic bomb, and the Emperor de-cided to surrender, August fifteenth, `forty-five, I think."

"15 August 1945," McCoy confirmed.

"My husband remembers every date he's ever heard, ex-cept two," Ernie said, smiling at McCoy. "Our anniversary and my birthday."

Whatever he did, he's apparently forgiven.

"So on the twenty-sixth, I remember that date, it had been decided to send in one airplane, to Atsugi, on the twenty-eighth, to get the lay of the land," Pickering went on. "I thought about going, but decided against it. There were better-qualified people than me who should have gone."

" `General, it is the Supreme Commander's desire that you proceed to Tokyo with the initial party...'" McCoy parroted again.

"So I went," Pickering said. "We left Okinawa at oh dark hundred..."

"Oh four hundred," McCoy corrected.

"And flew into Atsugui, where the Japs met us with bowed heads."

"I would have guessed there was a fifty-fifty chance that something would happen," McCoy said.

"Proving, of course, that K. McCoy, the perfect intelli-gence officer, has in fact made a bad guess at least once," Pickering said, chuckling. "Absolutely nothing happened. I got in a car-an old English limousine, not a Rolls, some-thing else-and a Jap drove me to the Imperial Hotel, where I reserved a wing for Major McCoy and other de-serving OSS types, soon to arrive from Okinawa...."

McCoy and his wife exchanged glances.

What the hell did I say to cause that?

What the hell is going on?

To hell with it. All they can do is tell me to butt out!

"Will somebody please tell me what's going on here? What's wrong?"

"Sir?" McCoy asked.

Too innocently.

Pickering looked at Ernie. She looked close to tears.

"What's up, honey?" Pickering asked, gently.

She looked between Pickering and her husband for a moment.

"They're throwing us out of the goddamned Corps, Un-cle Flem," she said. "That's what's up."

I can't have heard that right.

"I didn't get that, honey," he said.

"They're throwing us out of the goddamned Marine Corps," Ernie said, clearly. "We're being shipped home. They're taking Ken's commission."

"What the hell happened?" Pickering asked.

"He wrote a report that nobody liked," she said. "And re-fused to change it."

"A report on what?"

"He won't tell me," she said. "But I know it's about Ko-rea."

Pickering looked at McCoy.

"They're throwing you out of the Marine Corps? You're not talking about a court-martial?"

"I'm talking about a TWX from Eighth and Eye," Ernie said.

A TWX was a teletype message. Eighth and Eye meant Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, which is at Eighth and I Streets in Washington, D.C.

"A TWX saying what?" Pickering asked.

" `You are relieved of your present duties and reassigned to Camp Pendleton, California, effective immediately. You are being involuntarily released from active duty as cap-tain, USMCR, effective 1 July 1950, and are advised that an evaluation of your records is under way to determine in which enlisted grade you may elect to enlist, if that is your desire, following your separation. I have the goddamned thing committed to memory."

"This is hard to believe," Pickering said.

"Isn't it?" she said, bitterly.

"I shouldn't have to say this," Pickering said, "but what-ever I can do to help, I'll do."

He said it first to Ernie, then looked at McCoy. McCoy looked at him, but it was impossible to read what the look meant.

Then McCoy got out of his chair and walked out of the room.

"He doesn't like it that I told you," Ernie said.

"Hey! I'm glad you did. You're family, Ernie. You and Ken."

She smiled wanly at him.

McCoy returned a moment later, carrying a leather briefcase. A handcuff on a steel cable hung down from it.

I haven't seen one of those in a long time.

What the hell is the matter with the goddamned Marine Corps? Ken McCoy is the best intelligence officer I ever met, and that includes Ed Banning.

McCoy set the briefcase down on the coffee table be-fore the couch on which Pickering was sitting, worked the combination lock, and took from it a half-inch-thick stack of paper fastened together with a metal clip. He handed it to Pickering.

The document was covered with a sheet of manila board on which were printed three diagonal red stripes at either end of the words TOP SECRET.

"What's this?" Pickering asked, as he started to flip through it.

The second page, which had TOP SECRET printed at the top and bottom, answered his question:

TOP SECRET

Document No. NE/May50/2333 Copy 3 of 4

Duplication Forbidden

Naval Element

Headquarters

The Supreme Commander for Allied Powers

Room 2022 The Dai Ichi Building,

Tokyo, Japan

(APO 901/FPO 3347, San Francisco, Cal.)

23 May 1950

SUBJECT: Intelligence Evaluation/Korea

TO: The Supreme Commander, Allied Powers

ATTN: Major General Charles A. Willoughby

Forwarded herewith is "An Evaluation of Probable Hostile Action Within Ninety Days Against the Republic of South Korea by the People's Democratic Republic of Korea."

The Evaluation, and Attachments I through VII, were prepared primarily by Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, of Naval Element, Hq, SCAP.

Edward C. Wilkerson

Captain, USN

Chief, Naval Element SCAP

One (1) Enclosure as follows:

Evaluation, Subject as above, w/at-tachments:

I: Summary, Agents' Reports

II: North Korean Order of Battle (In-cluding Strength), Infantry Units

III: NKOB(IS), Artillery Units

IV: NKOB(IS), Armored Units

V: NKOB(IS), Motor Transport

VI: NKOB (IS), Aviation Units

VII: NKOB Depots, POL, Ammunition

VIII: NKOB: Logistic facilities (R,a-tions, Medical, POW Compounds, Misc.)

IX: Chinese Communist Order of Battle (Including Strength) Infantry Units Within 300 miles of North

Korean Border

X: ChiComOB Artillery Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XI: ChiComOB Armored Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XII: ChiComOB Motor Transport Within 300 miles of NK Border

XIII: ChiComOB Aviation Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XIV: ChiComOB Logistic facilities (Ra-tions, Medical, POW Compounds, Misc.) Within 300 miles of

NK Border

TOP SECRET

"Jesus Christ!" Pickering said when he'd read the transmittal letter. "Are you sure, Ken?"

"About as sure as I can get, General."

"Is that the report?" Ernie asked. "Do I get to see it?"

"No, baby. Sorry. It's classified Top Secret."

"Ken, I haven't had a Top Secret clearance-any clear-ance-in years. Why are you showing this to me?"

"Maybe you can do something with it," McCoy said.

"I don't understand," Pickering said. "I don't understand any of this. `Do something with it'?"

"I can't get it past Willoughby," McCoy said, simply. "Which means it won't get out of the Dai Ichi Building, and somebody at Eighth and Eye should know what's coming down."

Major General Charles A. Willoughby, who had been General Douglas A. MacArthur's intelligence officer in the Philippines and throughout World War II, was now per-forming the same function for him in the grandly named Office of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, which was really the Army of Occupation in Japan.

Pickering had had more that one run-in with General Willoughby during the Second War; several of them had involved McCoy.

That sonofabitch again!

"He give you any reason, Ken?" Pickering asked, but be-fore McCoy could reply, he asked, "Where did you get this?"