There they were given thorough physical examinations to determine if they had any medical condition that required immediate attention. None did. One of them-who had for some unaccountable reason regained his sight-even demanded immediate return to duty, but that was out of the question. He was told that because his shrapnel wounds had not completely healed, he would be evacuated to the United States with the others.
Actually, it had been decided that this man's case indicated the necessity of a psychiatric examination. His temporary blindness was psychosomatic in nature, and that was sometimes an indication of psychiatric problems. But telling him that was obviously not the thing to do; it might even aggravate the problem.
The nine blind then and the one who had regained his sight were placed in the medical holding detachment for transport (when available) to the United States for further medical evaluation and treatment.
The first available shipping space turned out to be aboard a civilian freighter under contract to the Navy. When this came to the attention of a senior medical officer, a Navy captain, he found the time to examine the ship, and he saw that its berthing space was temporary. Its number-two and number-three holds had been temporarily rigged with bunks consisting of sheets of canvas stretched between iron pipe. The head available to the sightless then was primitive, the ladders steep, and there were many places where a blind man could smash against sharp objects.
The Navy doctor then went to see the personnel shipment officer on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, to ask him if they couldn't do a little better for the blind then in the way of accommodation.
The personnel shipment officer was also a Navy captain. Aware that the doctor might actually outrank him, he didn't stand him tall as he would have liked to do, but rather contented himself with a lecture, which touched on the fact that he was a busy man, that there was a war on, and that medical officers should really stick to medicine and leave the conduct of the Navy to line officers.
This encounter was followed, as soon as the doctor could find a telephone, by a call to the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. The doctor had a little trouble getting the Commander in Chief onto the phone, but eventually he heard the familiar voice.
"Did you really tell my aide," the admiral asked, "that you'd boot his ass from here to Diego if he didn't get me on the horn?"
"Or words to that effect," the doctor said.
"What's the problem, Charley?" the admiral said, suppressing a chuckle. The admiral had known the doctor for twenty years; they had once shared a cabin as lieutenants on the Minneapolis.
"One of your chickenshit part-time sailors wants to send those poor bastards, the blind guys the Pickerel brought here from Corregidor, to the States on a cargo ship. The pasty-faced, candy-ass sonofabitch told me with a straight face there's a war on and everyone has to make sacrifices."
"I gather you are referring to my personnel shipping officer?" the admiral asked, dryly.
"I think his name is Young," Paweley said. "Tall, thin sonofabitch. Came in the Navy the day before yesterday, and thinks he's Bull Halsey, Junior."
"I'll take care of it, Charley," the admiral said. "How many of them are there?"
"Ten."
"I'll take care of it, Charley," the admiral repeated. "Now you calm down."
"Sorry to bother you with this, Tom. I know you're busy-"
"Never too busy for something like this," the admiral said.
The next afternoon, the departure of the regularly scheduled courier flight to the United States was delayed for almost an hour. Already loaded and in the water, the Martin PBM-1 was ordered back to the seaplane ramp, where its seven passengers and six hundred pounds of priority cargo were offloaded.
Nine blind then were loaded aboard under the supervision of a Marine captain. All of the seven passengers removed from their seats were senior in grade to the captain, and all had urgent business in the United States, and protest was made to the personnel shipment officer.
It was to no avail. The personnel shipment officer, the previous afternoon, had had a brief chat with the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. No one had ever talked to him like that before in his life.
(Three)
USMC Recruit Training Depot Parris Island, South Carolina 0845 Hours, 19 January 1942
The motor transport officer, the officer charged with operating the fleet of trucks and automobiles for the recruit depot, was First Lieutenant Vincent S. Osadchy. A lithe, deeply tanned twenty-eight-year-old, he was a mustang with eleven years in the Corps. He had been an officer three months, and the motor transport officer nine days. The previous transport officer, a major, as the TOE (Table of Organization Equipment) called for, had been transferred. He knew what he was doing. Osadchy, who didn't, had been given the job until such time as an officer of suitable grade and experience could be found.
Lieutenant Osadchy drove himself in a jeep from the motor pool to the brick headquarters building, not sure of his best plan of attack. Should he make a display of anger? Or should he get down on his knees before the personnel officer and weep?
The personnel officer was a major, a portly, natty man completely filling his stiffly starched khaki shirt. He wasn't bulging out of it, nor really straining the buttons; but, Osadchy thought, there would not be room inside the shirt for the major and, say, a hand scratching an itch.
"Hello, Vince," the major said, smiling. "Can I offer you some coffee?"
"Yes, sir," Osadchy said. "Thank you. And if you have one, how about a weeping towel?"
The major chuckled. He poured coffee from a thermos into a china cup and handed it to Osadchy.
"I thought maybe you'd drop by," he said.
"Can I deliver a lecture on what it takes to operate a motor pool?"
"By all means," the major said.
"Aside from vehicles," Osadchy said, pronouncing the word "vee-hic-els," "and tools and POL [petrol, oil and lubricants], it requires five or six good noncoms, corporals, or sergeants who know the difference between a spark plug and a transmission, and at least one, but preferably two or three, officers who know at least half as much as the noncoms."
"That sounds reasonable," the major said, smiling warmly at him.
"A month ago, our motor pool had both," Osadchy went on. "And then the Corps transferred out all-not some, all- the non-coms who could find their ass with both hands without a map."
"Very colorful," the major said, chuckling.
"And then the Corps, in its wisdom, sent us one sergeant who had previously seen a truck with the wheels off. Actually a pretty good man, even if he just got out of the hospital. But then-the Corps giveth and the Corps taketh away-the Corps transferred the motor transport officer out."
"The Corps is having a few little personnel problems, Vince," the major said. "It's supposed to have something to do with mere being a war on."
Osadchy had to smile, although he didn't want to. He was afraid this would happen, that the major would hear him out, be as pleasant as hell, and give him no help whatsoever.
"Which left the motor pool in the hands of an officer who knows as much about operating a motor pool as he does about deep-sea fishing. And of course the one sergeant who does know what he's doing."
"And now the Corps says promote the sergeant to gunnery sergeant and transfer him, right? Is that the source of your unhappiness, Vince?"
"Yes, sir," Osadchy said. "Sir, don't misunderstand me. Sergeant Zimmerman is a good man. I'd like to see him as a staff sergeant, or a technical sergeant. But gunny? I was a gunny. Zimmerman is not the gunny type."
"In other words, if you could have your way, Zimmerman would be promoted, but not to gunnery sergeant, and kept here?"
"Yes, sir."
"I know, Vince," the major said, "that you really believe that what I do here all day is think up ways to torment people like you-"