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

"And when they come here? They'll know Americans are here."

"We'll deal with that when it happens," McCoy said. "And pray it doesn't happen in the next two weeks. What we have to do now is buy time. You got all that straight, now?"

"I got it," Zimmerman said.

"What I was hoping to get, Mr. Zimmerman, was the ex-pected response of a Marine who has been given an order."

Zimmerman met his eyes.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman."

"Jesus, Killer, all I was doing was asking."

"I'll leave you lovebirds now," Lieutenant Taylor said.

"With a little luck, I'll be back in forty-eight hours."

"With fresh eggs, chickens, and bread, right?" Zimmer-man asked.

"With fresh eggs, chickens, and bread," Taylor said.

He saluted, which surprised McCoy, and walked down onto the wharf, gestured to the crew of the Wind of Good Fortune to let loose her lines, and climbed aboard. The ebbing tide immediately started to pull her away from the wharf and toward the Flying Fish Channel, even before Taylor made it to the stern and started her engine.

"Can I say something?" Zimmerman said.

"Why not?"

"Remember Guadalcanal? The Navy dumped the First Division on the beach, and then they took off with the heavy artillery and the rations, leaving the Division on the beach?"

"I remember hearing something about that," McCoy said.

"I used to wonder how those guys felt about getting dumped on some island and watching the Navy sail away. Now I know."

[SIX]

U.S. NAVY BASE SASEBO

SASEBO, KYUSHU, JAPAN

1500 5 SEPTEMBER 1950

LST stands for Landing Ship, Tank, which means the ves-sel was designed to deposit tracked armored fighting vehi-cles directly onto beaches. When approaching a beach, the less draft-the portion of the vessel extending underwa-ter-the better. So the design for the LST had provided for a flat bottom. It was known by the Naval architects, of course, that a flat-bottomed oceangoing vessel was, in any but the calmest of waters, going to toss and turn and twist and otherwise move in such a manner that passengers aboard were liable to be very uncomfortable and possibly, even probably, suffer mal de mer, but passenger comfort was not a design criterion, and getting tanks as close to the beach as possible was.

The first Marine of B Company, 5th Marines, to suffer mal de mer became nauseous ten minutes after LST-450 left Pusan for Sasebo. By the time LST-450 tied up at Sasebo, all but three members of B Company had suffered mal de mer to one degree or another, including Captain Howard Dunwood, USMCR, the company commander.

He found this both depressing and professionally humil-iating. A commanding officer tossing his cookies countless times hardly stands as an example for his men to follow.

The commanding officer of LST-450, Lieutenant John X. McNear-a thirty-year-old naval reservist who six weeks before had been the golf professional at Happy Hollow Country Club, Phoenix, Arizona-extended to Captain Dunwood the privilege of his bridge, and between bouts of nausea, Captain Dunwood learned from Lieutenant McN-ear that while this-the weather, the seas-was pretty bad, it was nothing like the weather he had experienced sailing the sonofabitch from San Diego, California, to Pusan.

He also informed Captain Dunwood that their destina-tion was the U.S. Navy Base, Sasebo, Japan.

This caused Captain Dunwood to think that at Sasebo, his company would be brought back up to strength-Baker was down to 101 men and three officers, including Captain Dunwood-and that they would probably be participating in the supposedly secret invasion of some port-Inchon, he had heard-up die Korean peninsula.

He was very curious, however, about why-literally on the pier at Pusan, about to board one of the attack trans-ports-Baker Company had been separated from the bat-talion and ordered aboard the LST.

It was only scuttlebutt, of course, but the word on the pier had been that the attack transports were headed for Yokohama, near Tokyo. If that was so, why was Baker Company going to Sasebo?

Captain Dunwood had unpleasant memories of Sasebo.

It was at Sasebo that that candy-ass "Marine" captain who had done the job on his finger had debarked from the air-craft in his splendidly tailored uniform.

Lieutenant McNear couldn't even hazard a guess about why Baker Company was going by itself on LST-450- which could have easily transported, for the relatively short voyage, four times that many men-or what would happen to them in Sasebo. His own orders were to remain in Sasebo until further orders; he had expected to be or-dered right back to Pusan.

On docking at Sasebo, Baker Company was marched into an aircraft hangar that had been hastily converted to a temporary barracks by the installation of long rows of fold-ing canvas cots, a row of toilets, and a row of showerheads.

The enlisted Marines were stripped, showered, and then given a rudimentary physical examination-which in-cluded a "short-arm inspection" to detect gonorrhea, which showed, in Captain Dunwood's judgment, that the Navy had no fucking idea what was going on in Korea-and then were issued three sets of underwear and stockings and two sets of new utilities. Privates through corporal were then given a partial pay of twenty dollars, sergeants and up of thirty, and officers of fifty.

Baker Company was then informed that, due to the spe-cial circumstances, the Officer Commanding Sasebo Naval Base had waived the standing uniform regulations, and they would be permitted to have liberty in Sasebo from 1700 until 2330.

A Navy chaplain and a Navy surgeon then spoke almost emotionally about the dangers to body and soul the Marines would encounter in Sasebo, unless they remem-bered their mothers and other female loved ones who were waiting for them at home and trusted them to behave like the Christian-or Jewish, as the case might be-gentlemen they were supposed to be.

This was followed by a twenty-minute color motion pic-ture of individuals in the terminal stages of syphilis, and of other individuals whose genitalia were covered with suppurating scabs. Captain Dunwood had seen the film before, at Camp Drake, when he had first arrived in Japan, and at Camp Pendleton, California, when he reported on active duty.

Then a bus appeared to take whichever of the Marines desired to avail themselves of a little local culture to town.

Captain Dunwood then debated whether it would be wiser to take dinner in the mess, which had a section for officers, but no intoxicants, or in the Officers' Club, which did. If he went to the O Club, and had a couple of drinks, and that candy-ass sonofabitch who'd done the job on his finger was there, he was likely to get himself in trouble.

A couple of drinks and the sudden insight-If I do knock out some of the bastard's teeth, which he deserves, the fucking finger's still not right, what are they going to do to me, send me to Korea?-saw Captain Dunwood take both his dinner and breakfast the next morning in the Officers' Club.

He did not see the candy-ass sonofabitch during either meal, and couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or not.

At 0800 their first morning ashore at Sasebo, two Ma-rine officers, a major and a lieutenant, and a technical ser-geant, came into the "temporary barracks," ordered guards posted at all doors, set up a blackboard and a tripod, and announced they were from the G-3 section of what was now the First Marine Division, and that they were here to brief Baker Company on its very special role in the first amphibious invasion by the United States Marine Corps since World War II.

Using maps-and the surprisingly skillful technical ser-geant, who drew on the blackboard whatever needed to be illustrated-it was explained to the men and officers of Baker Company that to reach the landing beaches at In-chon, the invasion fleet would have to traverse the Flying Fish Channel, and that in the Flying Fish Channel were two islands, Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do.