I mentioned earlier on in this report that Banning has developed a good relationship with the Australian Coastwatchers. Early this morning, the RAAF parachuted two Marines, a lieutenant and a sergeant, and a replacement radio, onto Buka Island, north of Bougainville, where the Coastwatcher’s radio had gone out. Loss of reports from the observation post was so critical that great risks to get it up and running again were considered justified. The only qualified (radio operator, parachutist) Marine was eighteen years old. And that is all he can do. He can’t tell one Japanese aircraft from another, or a destroyer from a battleship. So one of Banning’s lieutenants, Joe Howard, a Mustang, who had taught aircraft/ship recognition, volunteered to parachute in, too, although he had never jumped before. Banning confided to me that he thought he had one chance in four or five of making a successful landing.
The Lockheed Hudson that was to drop them was never heard from. We took the worst-possible-case scenario, and decided it had been shot down by Japanese fighters on the way in and that everyone was lost. Banning immediately asked for volunteers to try it again.All of his men volunteered.
As I was writing this, Banning came in with the news that Buka was back on the air. The Lockheed had been shot down on the way home. With contact reestablished, the RAN people here had routinely asked for "traffic." This is what they got, verbatim: "Please pass Ensign Barbara Cotter, USNR, and Yeoman Daphne Farnsworth, RAN. We love you and hope to see you soon. Joe and Steve. "
Those boys obviously think we‘re going to win the war. Maybe, Frank, if we can get the admirals and the generals to stop acting like adolescents, we can.
Respectfully,
Fleming Pickering, Captain USNR
TOP SECRET
(Six)
Menzies Hotel
Melbourne, Victoria
16 June 1942
Lieutenant Hon Song Do, Signal Corps, Army of the United States, was sitting in one of the chairs lining the hotel corridor when Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, stepped off the elevator. Captain Pickering had just finished dining, enfamille, with the Commander-in-Chief and Mrs. Douglas MacArthur. Over cognac afterward, General MacArthur had talked at some length about the German campaign in Russia. The dissertation had again impressed Captain Pickering with the incredible scope of MacArthur’s mind; and the four snifters of Remy Martin had left him feeling just a little bit tight.
"Well, hello, Lieutenant," Pickering said when he saw Lieutenant Hon. Hon sometimes made him feel slightly ill at ease. For one thing, he didn’t know what to call him. Something in his mind told him that "Hon" was, in the American sense, his last name. He could not, in other words, do what he had long ago learned how to do with other junior officers; he couldn’t put him at ease by calling him by his first name, or even better, by his nickname. He simply didn’t know what it was.
And Lieutenant Hon was not what ordinarily came to Pickering’s mind when "Asian-American" or "Korean-American" was mentioned. For one thing, he was a very large man, nearly as tall and heavy as Pickering; and for another, he had a deep voice with a thick Boston accent. And on top of this, he was what Pickering thought of as an egghead. He was a theoretical mathematician. He had been commissioned as a mathematician, and he’d originally been assigned to Signal Intelligence as a mathematician. Only afterward had the Army learned that he was a Japanese linguist.
"Good evening, Sir," Lieutenant Hon said, rising to his feet. "I have a rather interesting decrypt for you, Sir."
"Why didn’t you bring it downstairs?"
"I didn’t think it was quite important enough for me to have to intrude on the Commander-in-Chief s dinner."
Pickering looked at him. There was a smile in Lieutenant Hon’s eyes.
"Well, come on in, and I’ll buy you a drink," Pickering said, then added, "Lieutenant, I think I know you well enough to call you by your first name."
"I wouldn’t do that, Sir," Lieutenant Hon said dryly. " ‘Do’ doesn’t lend itself to English as a first name. Why don’t you call me Pluto?"
"Pluto?"
"Yes, Sir. That’s what I’ve been called for years. After Mickey Mouse’s friend, the dog with the sad face?"
"OK," Pickering chuckled. "Pluto it is."
He snapped the lights on.
"What will you have to drink, Pluto?"
"Is there any of that Old Grouse Scotch, Sir?"
"Should be several bottles of it. Why don’t you give me the decrypt and make us both one? I think there’s a can of peanuts in the drawer under the bar, too. Why don’t you open that?"
"Thank you, Sir," Pluto Hon said, and handed Pickering a sealed manila envelope.
Pickering tore it open. Inside was atop secret cover sheet, and below that a sheet of typewriter paper.
NOT LOGGED
ONE COPY ONLY
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FOLLOWING IS DECRYPTION OF MSG 234545 RECEIVED 061742
OFFICE SECNAVY WASHDC 061642 1300 GREENWICH
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
EYES ONLY CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING USNR REF YOUR 8 JUNE 1942 REPORT
SECNAVY REPLIES QUOTE
PART ONE YES
PART TWO YOUR FRIEND BEING INVITED HAWAIIAN PARTY
PART THREE BEST PERSONAL REGARDS SIGNATURE FRANK
END QUOTE
HAUGHTON CAPT USN ADMIN OFF TO SECNAVY
Pickering walked to the bar. Pluto was just about finished making the drinks.
"A little cryptic, even decrypted, isn’t it?" he said to Pluto, taking the extended drink.
Pluto chuckled. "I don’t think it’s likely, but even if the Japs have broken the Blue Code, their analysts are going to have a hell of a time making anything out of that."
"Would you care to guess, Pluto?"
"There was a message from the JCS adding General Willoughby to the Albatross list. Am I getting warm?"
Pickering smiled and nodded.
"I have no idea what ‘Yes’ means," Pluto Hon said. .
"I asked for permission to give Major Banning access to Magic intercepts" Pickering said. "What I decide to show him. I didn’t ask that he be put on the Albatross list."
Pluto nodded. "Are you going to want that logged, Sir?"
Pickering shook his head, then took out his cigarette lighter and burned the sheet of typewriter paper, holding it over a wastebasket until it was consumed.
Lieutenant Pluto Hon refused a second drink and left. Pickering went to bed.
In the morning, at breakfast, Major General Willoughby walked over to Captain Pickering’s table in the Menzies Hotel dining room and sat down with him. A large smile was on his face.
"Have you had a chance to read the overnight Magics yet, Pickering?"
"No, Sir," Captain Pickering said.
"You should have a look. Very interesting."
General Willoughby looked very pleased with himself.
(Seven)
The Elms
Dandenong, Victoria, Australia
1825 Hours 1 July 1942
It was windy; and there was a cold and unpleasant rain. As Captain Fleming Pickering drove the drop-head Jaguar coupe under the arch of winter-denuded elms toward the house, he was thinking unkind thoughts about the British.
As cold as it gets in England, and as much as this car must have cost, it would seem reasonable to expect that the windshield wipers would work, and the heater, and that the goddamned top wouldn’t leak.