OFFICER'S MESS, MAG-21
HENDERSON FIELD
GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS
0730 HOURS 5 OCTOBER 1942
The officer's mess of Marine Air Group 21 was pretty much the same as the enlisted mess. They differed mainly in location and in size. The officer's mess (a sandbag enclosure topped by an open-walled tent) was on the north side of the communal kitchen (a sandbag enclosure topped by an open-walled tent).
The enlisted mess (an open-walled enclosure topped by an open-walled tent) was about twice as large as the officer's mess, -and it was on the south side of the communal kitchen.
Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, in a fresh but already sweat-soaked cotton flight suit, sat on the plank seat of what looked like a six-man picnic table. Both hands were on a mug of coffee. The remnants of his breakfast tray (a steel tray holding mostly uneaten powdered eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade) were pushed to the side.
Before he spoke, Colonel Dawkins carefully considered what he intended to say.
"It's bullshit, Charley, is what I think," he finally said to Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR, commanding officer of VMF-229. Galloway was sitting on the other side of the picnic table.
Charley Galloway shrugged.
"And I'll tell you something else, I think your Major Dillon's orders are bullshit, too," Dawkins said.
"You don't mean phony?" Galloway asked, surprised.
"Not forged, " Dawkins said. "I think that there is a General Pickering, even if I never heard of him, and that he works for Admiral Leahy."
"I've got a kid named Pickering in my squadron," Galloway said. "He got two Bettys his first time out, a Zero the second." Dawkins ignored that aside. "It's the endorsement that I think is bullshit."
"I think you mean that," Galloway said, surprised.
"Think about it," Dawkins said, "Think about two things.
First ask yourself if it's reasonable that the President's Chief of Staff-Jesus, he used to be Chief of Naval Operations, and now he got promoted higher than that!- I find it hard to accept that Admiral Leahy is personally concerned with two guys on a tiny island he probably couldn't find on a map. He's got better things to do."
Galloway looked at him and shrugged again.
"For the second thing," Dawkins went on, "it wouldn't be the first time in the recorded annals of military history that an officer with a set of vague orders giving him lots of authority went ape shit."
Galloway did not reply.
"Did you know, for example, that just before the Spanish-American War, the American Ambassador to Spain went to the Spaniards and ordered them to get out of Cuba? He had absolutely no orders from Washington. Nada."
"Really?" Galloway found that fascinating.
"Really. He didn't have two cents' worth of authority; he just decided that's what he wanted to do, and did it."
"I don't think Dillon's that kind of guy. He used to be a sergeant with the Fourth Marines in China."
"And now he's a major running around with orders on White House stationery. You're making my point for me, Charley. I can easily see where that would go to an ex-sergeant's head, having orders to do just about anything he wants to do." He hesitated. "Present company excepted, of course."
"Yeah, sure," Galloway said. "I think it's just as reasonable to assume that this General Pickering... I agree, I doubt if Admiral Leahy knows where Buka is, or didn't-"
"I don't follow you," Dawkins interrupted.
"OK. This General Pickering. He knows that we have our ass in a crack here; that about the only reason the Japanese don't bomb this place into oblivion, and bomb the hell out of the supply ships coming here, is that the Coast watchers on the islands let us know when they've launched their aircraft from Rabaul; and that the Coastwatcher station on Buka is pretty fucking close to going out of business. I just thought of another one: and that nobody here seems to give a damn.
Maybe because the Navy thinks it's MacArthur's responsibility, since the Coast watchers are under the Australians, and he's sort of in charge of the Australians. But MacArthur figures it's the Navy's business, since Guadalcanal and Buka are CINCPAC's concern; they're not in his SWPOA. So Pickering goes to Admiral Leahy and gives him a quick rundown, and Leahy says, `OK, General, take care of it."
"That's possible, I suppose," Dawkins said reluctantly.
"I think that's more likely than what you're suggesting," Charley said.
"How about an URGENT radio from Leahy to both CINCPAC and SWPOA: `Settle it between yourselves, but make sure Buka stays in operation. Love and Kisses, Admiral Leahy'?"
Galloway chuckled.
"All Dillon asked me to do, Colonel, is make a quick trip up there and back. And only if they can't reinforce Buka by submarine."
"In an unarmed transport, landing right under the nose of the Japanese on a beach that may or may not take the weight.
"They'll know if the beach will take the weight before I go," Galloway said.
"You and Finch, from our vast pool of qualified squadron commanders who are otherwise unoccupied," Dawkins said sarcastically.
"We have more time in the R4D than most people," Galloway said.
"Speaking of the R4D. Why the R4D?"
"You saw the skis. I think they'll work. The problem with the regular landing gear, I think, is not that the airplane might stick in the sand while it's landing or taking off. But when it's stopped. If it's not moving, it might sink. The skis will fix that, I think."
"You think," he said, and gave him a look. "But I meant, why the R4D in the first place? Specifically, why not a Catalina? It could land in the water, for one thing. For another, it has.50 calibers in the blisters and a.30 in the nose. The R4D has zero armament."
"Dillon said they considered the Catalina-"
"Who's `they'?"
"I guess Dillon and this General Pickering."
"And?"
"Decided against it. Dillon said that getting rubber boats through the surf on the Makin Island raid wasn't as easy as it came out in the newspapers. And the Japanese don't have an airplane that looks like the Catalina. But they do have a bunch of R4Ds...,actually, they're not R4Ds but DC-2s; Douglas licensed the Japs to make DC-2s before the war. But they look like R4Ds from a distance."
"And your General Pickering thinks the Japanese will think your R4D is one of their DC-2s and leave it alone?"
"The Japanese would not think a Catalina was one of theirs," Galloway said.
Colonel Dawkins decided not to argue the point. Charley Galloway had volunteered for this idiotic mission because he was gallant. There was no other word for it. That also applied to Major Jack Finch. Major Finch and Captain Galloway were both gallant. They fit the classic definition of gallant: warriors who knew goddamned well they were likely to be killed, and were willing to take that risk, (a) because the mission was important, and (b) because they might possibly save the lives of other warriors.