In the unmarked (but obviously government owned) car they drove back from Eighth and "I" Streets to Rickabee's office on the Mall, Rickabee gave him the first inkling of the billet that General Forrest had now officially given him.
"You know the good news-bad news routine?" Rickabee asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"The good news is that you are, effective today, a lieutenant colonel and on leave. The bad news is that when you come off your leave you will be in San Diego, about to board an airplane for Pearl Harbor. Your ultimate destination is Brisbane, Australia, where you will be the Marine liaison officer between CINCPAC-Admiral Nimitz-and The Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area-General MacArthur."
"Why is that bad news, Sir?"
"Haven't you ever heard that primitive cultures always shoot the bearers of bad news?" Rickabee said.
Despite what General Forrest said about contamination, Lieutenant Colonel Dailey was briefed by a team of officers of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel. The lieutenant colonel in charge told him (and Dailey believed him, and could not help but be flattered by the statement) that G-l had been looking all along for a suitable assignment for him... God knew the Corps needed experienced officers; but, until the day before, there had been "a G-2 Hold" on his records; and as long as that was there, he could not be reassigned without G-2 concurrence; and that had not been given.
"We didn't even propose you for this billet, frankly," the lieutenant colonel said. "We thought it would be a waste of time with the G-2 Hold. So, wouldn't you know, G-2 proposed you to us. We're delighted, of course. And I suppose I will have to take back all the unpleasant things I've been saying about G-2."
The G-l lieutenant colonel went on to describe the bad feeling between General MacArthur's and Admiral Nimitz's headquarters. This was recently brought to a head when SHSWPA (Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Area) formally charged that CINCPAC had been denying MacArthur information he was entitled to have; or at least was delaying it until it was too late to act upon.
"That brought the Secretary of the Navy in on this, Dailey," the lieutenant colonel said. "He sent word down that he didn't want MacArthur to have grounds to even suspect that anything was being kept from him; he ordered that an officer be assigned to Brisbane to do nothing but pass information between CINCPAC and SHSWPA; and he specified a Marine. We thought of you right away, of course, with your diplomatic experience... but with that G-2 Hold?" he shrugged. "Anyway, here you are."
Lieutenant Colonel Dailey took a seven-day leave, spending it with his mother in Greenwich, Connecticut. And then returned to Washington, where Colonel Rickabee informed him that he would travel at least as far as Pearl Harbor with a briefcase chained to his wrist.
"Two birds with one stone," Rickabee explained. "And it will free the seat the officer courier would normally occupy."
At Anacostia Naval Air Station, Dailey asked Rickabee about the G-2 Hold. He did that just before he got on the plane to San Diego, reasoning that it was too late for Rickabee to do anything about it, even if he did make him mad.
"I presume the G-2 Hold situation has been resolved, Colonel," he said. "May I ask what it was, specifically?"
"I see that our friends in personnel have diarrhea of the mouth again," Rickabee said.
"What I'm asking, Colonel, is whether there is some sort of cloud over me."
"No. I assure you there is not."
"Then may I ask why there was a hold?"
"Am I to suspect, Colonel," Rickabee replied, "that your conscience is bothering you vis-…-vis your relationship with Fraulein Ute Schellberger?"
"I wondered if that was a matter of official record," Dailey confessed. For an instant it all seemed perfectly clear. That's why he was sent to Princeton. If there was anything worse for a young officer on attach‚ duty than getting drunk and pissing in the Embassy's potted palms, it was getting involved with a German blonde.
"Well, it bothered the FBI some, frankly," Rickabee said. "But then I told them that so far as the Corps was concerned, we would have been worried if a red-blooded young bachelor Marine officer far from home had not been fucking the natives, and that we were convinced you had not become a National Socialist."
"Christ!" Dailey had said.
Rickabee smiled at him.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that," Dailey said.
"You didn't hear anything from me, Colonel," Rickabee said. "Understood?"
"Understood."
"And now you are wondering, naturally, how come you were given this assignment? And are too polite, or too discreet, to ask?"
"Yes, Sir."
"There are several things going on over there in which we have an interest. Since you have no need to know what they are..."
"I understand, Sir."
"We may need replacements for the incumbents. An ideal replacement would be an officer of appropriate grade, who had already gone through the FBI's screening and been declared ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure on the morals scale-like Ivory soap. And who was not only over there, but in a position to know more of what's going on than, say, a battalion commander. Or for that matter, a division G-2. A liaison officer, for example."
"I think I understand, Sir," Dailey replied, very seriously.
"Think of yourself as a spare tire, Colonel. I devoutly hope we never have to take you out of the trunk."
"Yes, Sir."
(Two)
CAPE ESPERANCE
GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS
7 AUGUST 1942
At 0200, the Amphibious Force of OPERATION PESTILENCE, Transport Groups X and Y, reached Savo Island, which lies between Guadalcanal and Florida islands. The skies were clear, and there was enough light from a quarter moon to make out both the land masses and the other ships.
The fifteen transports of Transport Group X carried aboard the major elements of the 1st Marine Division and were headed for the beaches of Guadalcanal. These turned and entered Sealark Channel, which runs between Savo and Guadalcanal.
Meanwhile, Transport Group Y sailed along the other side of Savo Island, that is, between Savo and Florida Island, and headed toward their destinations, Florida, Tulagi and Gavutu islands. Transport Group Y consisted of four transports carrying the 2nd Battalion, Sth Marines, and other troops, and four destroyer transports carrying the 1st Raider Battalion. These were World War I destroyers that had been converted for use by Marine Raiders by removing two of their four engines and converting the space to troop berthing.
The Guadalcanal Invasion Force was headed for what the Operations Plan called "Beach Red." This was a spot about 6,000 yards East of Lunga Point, more or less directly across Sealark Channel from where the Tulagi-Gavutu landings were to take place. The distance across Sealark Channel was approximately twenty-five miles.
Three U.S. Navy cruisers and four destroyers began to shell the Guadalcanal landing area at 0614. It had already been bombed daily for a week by U.S. Army Air Corps B-17s. At 0616, one cruiser and two destroyers opened fire on Tulagi and Gavutu.
By 0651 the transports of both groups dropped anchor 9,000 yards off their respective landing beaches. Landing boats were put over the side into the calm water, and Marines began to climb down rope nets into them.
Mine sweepers working the water between the ships and their landing beaches encountered no mines, but a small Japanese schooner carrying gasoline wandered into Sealark Channel. It was set afire and quickly sunk by Naval gunfire and machine gun fire from Navy fighter aircraft and dive bombers These were operating from carriers maneuvering seventy-five miles away from the invasion beaches.
The Navy sent forty-three carrier aircraft to attack the Guadalcanal invasion beach, and forty-one to attack Tulagi ,and Gavutu. Eighteen Japanese seaplanes at Tulagi were destroyed.
At 0740, B Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, went ashore near the small village of Haleta, on Florida Island. They encountered no resistance.
At 0800, the First Wave of the Tulagi Force, Landing Craft carrying Baker and Dog Companies of the 1st Raider Battalion, touched ashore on Blue Beach. A Marine was killed almost immediately by a single rifle shot, but there was no other resistance on the beach. The enemy had elected to defend Tulagi from caves and earthen bunkers in the hills inland and to the South.
The Landing Craft returned to the transports, loaded the Second Wave (Able and Charley Companies, 1st Raiders), and put them ashore. Then a steady stream of Landing Craft put 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines on shore.