Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

Groscher introduced a number of factors Pickering had previously either not known or not given much thought to. The strength and direction of winds aloft was enormously important to Naval Aviation operations at sea now, and would become more important when—as seemed very likely—the time came for the Navy to strike the enemy home islands from carriers. And even more important when the Army Air Corps began strategic bombing of the Japanese home islands with heavy bombers, including the new B-29.

It had never occurred to Pickering, either, that weather information was a critical factor in the direction of fire from the enormous naval cannon on battleships and cruisers.

Groscher also spoke of geopolitical considerations. Pickering remembered hearing—but not particularly caring—that the Japanese had taken the last emperor of China from his palace in Tientsin (where, stripped of power, he had been in something like house arrest) to Manchuria. There they had installed him as Emperor of Manchuko. Manchuko (formerly Manchuria) was the first nation to join with the Japanese in their Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Emperor of Manchuko, Captain Groscher related, had invited his new Japanese allies to station troops in his domain, and they had done so, which meant that the United States could not use Manchuko/Manchuria—which would have been ideal for the purpose—as a base for a weather station.

That left either the Soviet Union or the Gobi Desert within Mongolia as the only place where such a weather station could be—

had

to be—established. So far as Captain Groscher was concerned, the chances were nonexistent that the Soviet Union would permit the establishment of a weather station/radio station on their territory.

Pickering learned for the first time that the Soviet Union was holding close to one hundred American airmen (and no one knew how many British or other allied airmen) who for one reason or another had landed on Soviet territory. Predictably, the Soviets denied this, even when presented with names, ranks, serial numbers, aircraft tail numbers, and in some cases photographs of the downed airmen in Russia.

«By a process of elimination,» Captain Groscher said, «that leaves the Gobi Desert.»

Pickering next learned that the Gobi Desert was not, as he had previously pictured in his mind's eye, a vast area of shifting sands. Actually it had very little sand. The terrain was rock, most of it flat. It was possible, he learned, to drive an ordinary automobile for hundreds of miles in any direction without difficulty. Presuming, of course, one had fuel.

As it had been for a thousand years, the area was regularly traversed east to west, and north to south, by camel caravans. The first contact with the handful of Americans who were wandering around in the vast rocky Gobi Desert had been messages sent out on several camel caravans that had reached India.

There had been three messages, Groscher reported. Each had said about the same thing: There were retired U.S. military personnel in the desert. They were trying to reach Allied lines. They had a shortwave receiver and would monitor a frequency in the twenty-meter band at 1200 Greenwich time whenever possible.

Each message was signed differently, Groscher went on. With the rank and initials (not the full name) of individuals who had retired from the Yangtze River patrol, the 15th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment, and the 4th Marines.

«From the available records,» Groscher said, «we determined that indeed there was a Chief Motor Machinist's Mate Frederick C. Brewer—corresponding with the initials FCB on one message—who retired from the Yangtze River patrol. And a Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr.—corresponding with the initials WTCJr on another—who retired from the 17th Infantry. And there was a Sergeant James R. Sweatley—corresponding with the initials on the third message—who was assigned to the Marine detachment in Peking, and was presumed to have become a Japanese POW.»

«When contact was first established with Fertig in the Philippines,» Pickering observed, «there was some question whether it might be a Japanese trick.»

«Our gut feeling has been that's not the case here,» Groscher replied. «Meanwhile, we were investigating ways to get radio transmitters into these people, when they suddenly came on the air themselves. Their radio equipment is almost certainly cobbled together from whatever they could lay their hands on, is not very good when it works, and doesn't work very often. But it does give us a communications link with them.»

«The transmitter Fertig used to first establish contact with the outside was built by a Filipino sergeant with parts from the sound apparatus of a movie projector,» Pickering said.

«The one in the Gobi was probably built by some retired electrician's mate,» Groscher said. «Most of these people are probably Yangtze River patrol sailors.»

«Why do you say that?» Nimitz asked, as Pickering opened his mouth to ask the same thing.

«Sir, the records indicate that there are far more retired Yangtze sailors in China than Marines, by a factor of five; and by a factor of seven, more river patrol retirees than soldiers.»

«Is that somehow significant?» Pickering asked.

«Sailors rarely have—what shall I say?—'the live off the land skills,' or the ability to function as infantry that Marines and soldiers may be presumed to have,» Groscher said. «Consequently, when we have to ask the question 'what shape are these people in?' we are forced to operate on the least pleasant likelihood. That is to say, these people are probably more on the order of a group of nomads than anything resembling a military force of any description, especially considering that they are accompanied by women and children.»

«A point which the Army Air Corps has made, time and again, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,» Nimitz said. «And, I'm afraid, with justification.»

«I've been around the fringes of this, Admiral,» Pickering said. «But until now I didn't know what it was really all about.»

«Politics are at play, of course,» Nimitz interrupted him. «The State Departmentdoesn't want to do or say anything that might annoy our Russian allies, which means we can forget about sending anyone into Mongolia through the Soviet Union. The Army Air Corps are convinced that they should be in charge of this, but they don't really have any sense of urgency. B-29s are not going to bomb the Japanese home islands this year, and probably not until late in 1944. The Navy needs a weather station

now

.»

Nimitz

, Pickering thought,

probably figures that I will now have Donovan's ear, and will be able to plead his case to him. That's why he brought Groscher here

.

The problem is that my support of a project like this

—

my advocacy of any project, for that matter

—

would be the kiss of death for it in Donovan's eyes

.

«Sir,» Pickering said. «I'm probably missing something here. But what has this to do with me?»

«I had a Special Channel from Admiral Leahy two days ago,» Nimitz said. «It was the decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the responsibility for determining whether or not the Americans in the Gobi Desert can be used to set up a weather station and get it running will be given to the OSS.»

«Admiral, I'm sure that the OSS will do whatever it can.»

«Yesterday I sent Admiral Leahy a special channel message expressing my belief that you were the obvious choice within the OSS to assume this responsibility, and asked him to exert his influence to see that you are so assigned.»

«I wish I shared your confidence in me,» Pickering said. «And I am sure Mr. Donovan doesn't.»