"He is also very anxious to see his son," Fowler said. "His idea is to see you, get out of the Navy, and then go to Florida."
"I offered to have the boy flown to San Diego!"
"I think he wants to see him alone. He's managed to convince himself that the boy will not come through the war."
"He's not the only father who feels that way. You heard what our mutual friend's son has been up to?" That was an unmistakable reference to James Roosevelt, a Marine Corps Captain. Captain Roosevelt had recently participated in the raid on Makin Island.
The Marine Corps had somewhat reluctantly formed the 1st and 2nd Raider Battalions. They were the President's answer to the British Commandos. The 1st was one of the units participating in the Guadalcanal operation. At about the same time, the son of the President of the United States was paddling ashore from a submarine with elements of the 2nd Raiders to attack Japanese forces on Makin Island.
"I also heard the Germans have taken Stalin's son prisoner.
Do you think our mutual friend-make that `acquaintance' has considered the ramifications of that?"
"I have brought it to his attention," Knox said, then went on:
"Technically, I suppose you know, Fleming Pickering is AWOL."
"I don't think you could make the charge stick. And he has a lot of friends in high places."
"And doesn't he know it?" Knox said, and then went on, again without waiting for a response: "I'm on my way to the White House. I'll get back to you, Richmond. Keep him there.
I don't care how, keep him there."
"I'll do what I can," Fowler said, and hung up.
[One]
HEADQUARTERS,
2ND RAIDER BATTALION
CAMP CATLIN, TERRITORY OF HAWAII
31 AUGUST 1942
When Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, Company A, 2nd Raider Battalion, was summoned to battalion headquarters, he suspected it had something to do with Sergeant Thomas Michael McCoy, USMCR.
Zimmerman was stocky, round-faced and muscular. And he'd been in The Corps almost exactly seven years, having enlisted as soon as possible after his seventeenth birthday. He'd celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday a week before aboard the submarine USS Nautilus on the way home to Pearl Harbor from the raid on Makin Island. At the time he was nursing a minor, though painful, mortar shrapnel wound in his left buttock.
Sergeant McCoy-four inches taller and forty-two pounds heavier than Gunny Zimmerman-had celebrated his twentyfirst birthday the previous January in San Diego, California.
He was then in transit, en route to the Portsmouth U.S. Naval Prison in the status of a general prisoner. There was little question at his court-martial at Pearl Harbor that he had in fact committed the offense of "assault upon the person of a commissioned officer in the execution of his office by striking him with his fists upon the face and other parts of the body." He had also been fairly charged with doing more or less the same thing to a petty officer of the U.S. Navy in the execution of his office of Shore Patrolman, both offenses having taken place while PFC McCoy was absent without leave from his assignment to the 1st Defense Battalion, Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor.
The Marine Corps frowns on such activity. Thus PFC McCoy was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged from the Naval Service and to be confined at hard labor for a period of five to ten years.
However, very likely because it was conducted during the immediate post-Pearl Harbor-bombing period when things were quite hectic, the court-martial failed to offer the accused certain procedural aspects of the fair trial required by Rules for the Governance of the Naval Service.
These errors of omission came to light while the Record of Trial was being reviewed by the legal advisers to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. It was therefore ordered that the findings and the sentences in the case be set aside.
Another trial was impossible, not only because of the possibility of double jeopardy, but also because the witnesses were by then scattered all over the Pacific.
PFC McCoy was released from the San Diego brig an assigned to the 2nd Raider Battalion, then forming at Camp Elliott just outside San Diego.
There PFC McCoy met Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman. He almost immediately posed a number of disciplinary problems for Gunny Zimmerman. For instance, while he had apparently learned his lesson about striking those superior to him in the military hierarchy, on two occasions he severely beat up fellow PFCs with whom he had differences of opinion.
But what really annoyed Gunny Zimmerman about PFC McCoy's behavior was that it was seriously embarrassing to a Marine officer. Normally, this would not have bothered Gunny Zimmerman-indeed, under other circumstances, he might have found it amusing-but this particular officer was Second Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, PFC McCoy's three-year-older brother. Lieutenant McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman had been friends before the war, when Zimmerman had been a buck sergeant and McCoy a corporal with the 4th Marines in Shanghai.
There were very few people in The Corps who enjoyed Ernie Zimmerman's absolute trust and admiration, and Lieutenant "Killer" McCoy was at the head of that short list.
Since all other means of instilling in PFC McCoy both proper discipline and the correct attitude had apparently failed, Zimmerman decided that it behooved him to rectify the situation himself.
He accomplished this by going to the Camp Elliott slop chute, where he politely asked PFC McCoy if he could have a word with him. He led PFC McCoy to a remote area where they would not be seen. He then removed his jacket (and, symbolically, the chevrons of his rank) and suggested to PFC McCoy that if he thought he was so tough, why not have a go at him?
When PFC McCoy was released from the dispensary four days later-having suffered numerous cuts, bruises, abrasions and the loss of three teeth: after a bad slip in the shower-he'd undergone a near miraculous change of attitude.
The change was not temporary. Within three weeks, with a clear conscience, Gunny Zimmerman recommended PFC McCoy for squad leader. The job carried with it promotion to corporal.
And Corporal McCoy performed admirably on the Makin raid. Because of his size and strength, Zimmerman had given McCoy one of the Boys antitank rifles. The Boys, which looked like an oversize bolt-action rifle, fired a larger (.55 caliber) and even more powerful round than the Browning Heavy.50 caliber machine gun.
Although he could not prove it -there were other Boys rifles around-Zimmerman was convinced that McCoy was responsible for shooting up a Japanese four-engine Kawanishi seaplane so badly that it crashed while trying to take off from the Butaritari lagoon.
Nothing heroic. Just good Marine marksmanship, accomplished when the target was shooting back.
And when they were in the rubber boats trying to get off the beach back to the submarines disaster-McCoy really came through, really acted like a Marine. His had been one of the few boats to make it through the surf, almost certainly because of his enormous strength. Then, when they reached the sub, which was all that was expected of him, McCoy volunteered to go back to the beach for another load-despite his exhaustion.
Again nothing heroic, but good enough to prove that McCoy had the stuff Marine sergeants should be made of. After they were back at Camp Catlin, Colonel Carlson asked him if anyone should get a promotion as a reward for behavior during the raid. The first name Zimmerman gave him was Corporal McCoy's.
Word reached Gunny Zimmerman an hour before his summons to battalion headquarters that Sergeant McCoy had apparently strayed from the path of righteousness. He'd had a telephone call from another old China Marine, now working with the Shore Patrol Detachment in Honolulu. The Shore Patrol sergeant informed him that Sergeant McCoy apparently took offense at a remark made to him by a sergeant of the Army Air Corps. He expressed his displeasure by breaking the sergeant's nose. He then rejected the invitation of the Shore Patrol to accompany them peaceably.
Zimmerman's old China Marine pal told him, not without a certain admiration, that it took six Shore Patrolmen to subdue and transport Sergeant McCoy to the confinement facility. He was now sleeping it off there.
There seemed little doubt that before the day was over Sergeant McCoy would once again be Private McCoy. Unless, of course, Colonel Carlson wanted to make an example of him and bring him before a court-martial.
In Zimmerman's opinion, busting McCoy would be sufficient punishment. He would be humiliated and taught a lesson.
And then in a couple of months they could start thinking about promoting him again.
The facts were that he had been a good corporal and would almost certainly have been a good sergeant.
Good sergeants are hard to find, Zimmerman thought. Sending him to the brig for thirty days will teach him nothing he doesn't already know, and it might make his attitude worse.
With a little bit of luck, maybe the sergeant major, or maybe even one of the officers, will ask me what I think should be done to McCoy. Or maybe even I can take a chance and just tell the sergeant major what I think.
Zimmerman went into battalion headquarters, walked up to sergeant major's desk, and stood waiting while the sergeant or went very carefully over a paper that had been typed up or the Colonel's signature. He finally finished and looked up at Zimmerman.
He smiled.