"My dear Admiral," MacArthur began. "Word has just come to me of your glorious victory and of the incredible courage and devotion of your men which made it possible."
He stopped abruptly. He looked at Pickering. "Pour some of that coffee for us, will you please, Fleming? Thorne, will you have some coffee?"
"Not just now, thank you, Sir," Sergeant Thorne said.
Mac Arthur pushed himself off the desk and walked to the window.
"Read that back, please," he said.
Sergeant Thorne did so.
"Strike 'admiral,' make it 'Chester,' " MacArthur ordered. "Strike 'made it possible.' "
"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Thorne said.
MacArthur walked to the coffee table, picked up the cup Pickering had just poured, and stood erect.
"Read it, please."
"My dear Chester, Word has just come to me of your glorious victory and of the incredible courage and devotion of your men."
"Move 'has just come to me' to the end of the sentence," MacArthur ordered, "and read that."
"Word of your glorious victory and of the incredible courage and devotion of your men has just come to me."
MacArthur considered that a moment.
"Better, wouldn't you say, Fleming? Not yet quite right, but a decent start."
"I think that's fine, General," Pickering said.
"I would be grateful for any suggestions you might care to offer," MacArthur said. "This sort of thing is really very important."
Gracious and considerate, Pickering thought. But important?
And then he realized why it was important.
And not only as a footnote in the History of World War II, he thought, when someone got around to writing that That cable is an olive branch being offered to the Navy. Nimitz is supposed to be a salty sonofabitch, but he's human, and getting a cable from MacArthur addressed, 'My dear Chester' and using phrases like 'glorious victory' and 'the incredible courage and devotion of your men' is going to have to get to him.
Is MacArthur aware of that? Is that the reason for this? Or is it just what he said, that his heart was filled with thoughts of the nobility of the profession of arms' and nothing more?
It's probably both, Pickering decided. And I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and think it is mostly emotion. But he is not unaware of the ancient tactic of putting your enemy off guard, either.
"General, I wouldn't presume to attempt to better that," Pickering said.
MacArthur didn't hear him.
"The Battle of Midway will live in the memory of man- strike 'memory of man,' make it 'hearts of our countrymen, alongside Valley Forge,' " he dictated. "Got that, Thorne?"
"Yes, Sir."
"I am having trouble,'' MacArthur said, "recalling significant U.S. Naval victories. If only he'd said something, I could compare that to 'Don't give up the ship,' or 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.'"
For God's sake, Pickering. Don't chuckle. Don't even smile. He's deadly serious.
"If I may say so, Sir, Valley Forge seems appropriate. A small band of valiant men, with inadequate arms, showing great courage against overwhelming odds."
MacArthur considered that for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "I see what you mean. Valley Forge will do. Thorne, add forever' after 'live'-'will live forever.'"
"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Thorne said.
"Read the whole thing back," MacArthur ordered.
Master Sergeant Thorne stood almost at attention before General MacArthur's desk as The Supreme Commander read the fifth-and Thorne hoped last-neatly typed version of his Personal for Admiral Nimitz. MacArthur handed it back to him. "Give that to Captain Pickering, please." Pickering read it, although he knew it by heart "I think that's fine, Sir," he said. "The language is magnificent."
"From the heart, Pickering. From the heart" Sergeant Thorne put his hand out for the Message Form. "I can take it downstairs, Sir," Pickering said. "I have to see Lieutenant Hon anyway."
Downstairs was the Cryptographic Office and Classified Document Vault in the hotel basement.
"Very well," MacArthur said.
"Sir, I have the Personal for General Marshall ready, too," Sergeant Thorne said.
"Well, give that to the Captain, too," MacArthur said. "Two birds with one stone, right?"
Thorne left the office and returned with two envelopes. One was sealed. He took the Personal for Admiral Nimitz Message Form from Pickering and sealed it in the other.
"If that's all you have for me, Sir?" Pickering said.
"I appreciate your assistance, Fleming. See you at six?"
"And I'll tell Lieutenant Hon to stand by from seven, Sir?"
He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was quarter to two. He had been in MacArthur's office for nearly three hours. That seemed incredible. There had been interruptions, of course, but they hadn't taken much time at all. There had been two calls from Mrs. MacArthur and a dozen officers seeking decisions. MacArthur had wasted little time making them. Most of that time had been spent composing Mac-Arthur's Personal for Admiral Nimitz.
"Seven," MacArthur confirmed.
(Three)
First Lieutenant Hon Song Do, Signal Corps, U.S. Army Reserve (his very unlikely nickname was "Pluto"), and Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, had an unusual relationship for an Army first lieutenant and a Navy captain. This had its roots in Hon's duties at SWPAO. There was virtually nothing classified SECRET or above in Supreme Headquarters SWPAO with which Lieutenant Hon was not familiar.
Lieutenant Pluto Hon was carried on the books as a cryptographic-classified documents officer. He was one of half a dozen so designated; and he performed those duties carefully and diligently. Only a very few people knew his primary function, however; for Pluto Hon had a MAGIC clearance. He was thus privy to the same information made available in Melbourne solely to MacArthur himself; his Intelligence Officer, Colonel Charles Willoughby; and Captain Fleming Pickering, Personal Representative of the Secretary of the Navy.
Hon, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the war, was directly commissioned into the Army's Signal Corps, where mathematicians were critically needed for cryptographic operations. It had then been learned that not only was he fluent in written and spoken Japanese, he was steeped in the subtleties of Japanese culture.