The second cardboard tube contained a preliminary plat for the proposed subdivision of Findlay Island, which was south of, one-sixth the size of, and shielded from the At-lantic Ocean by Hilton Head.
The thinking was that the sooner they got things rolling on Hilton Head, the sooner there would be money to put into the development of Findlay Island. Moving cau-tiously, they would be ready in plenty of time for the wave of military retirees that would start in 1960, and grow for the five years after that.
Colonel Banning had made it clear that he wasn't trying to sell anything, that it was just something Ken and Ernie should take a close look at, think about.
There would be plenty of time to do that on the way to Camp Pendleton.
Ken and Ernie had originally intended to spend only a day or two with the Bannings. Then they would have driven to Beaufort, South Carolina, outside Parris Island to spend another day-or part of one-with the Zimmermans. From there, they had planned to drive to St. Louis, Missouri, to spend a day-or part of one-with George Hart, and then from there to southern California.
Instead, after two days in Charleston, they'd gone to Beaufort with the Bannings and spent three days there, in Zimmerman's surprisingly large and comfortable house on the water. Two days had been spent looking at the property on the islands, and on the third, the men had all put on their uniforms and taken a physical trip down memory lane to the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot, Parris Island. Captain McCoy had taken his boot camp at Parris Island, and had been back only once since then, when, shortly after he'd returned from the Makin Island raid he'd been assigned to work for General Pickering, and had gone there to jerk Private George Hart out of a recruit platoon to serve as Pickering's bodyguard.
The next day, the McCoys and the Bannings had re-turned to the house on the Battery in Charleston, and a farewell dinner prepared for them under the supervision of Mother Banning.
With the time spent, they were now going to have to drive straight across the country to San Diego, and put off the visit to George Hart until after McCoy went through the separation process at Camp Pendleton.
Mother Banning surprised her son by going down the wide staircase to the Buick-instead of standing, as she usually did, on the piazza, with her hands folded on her stomach when guests left-to kiss both Ernestine and Ken goodbye.
"Drive carefully," Colonel Banning said. "And give this some serious thought, Ken."
"Yes, sir, we will," Ken said, shook his hand, and got be-hind the wheel.
At the end of the Battery, waiting for a chance to move into the flow of traffic, he said, "I wish I could."
"Could what?"
"Give it some serious thought. Doing what they're going to be doing looks like a lot more fun than filling toothpaste tubes."
There was a break in the flow of traffic, and he eased the Buick into it.
"Things will work out, sweetheart," Ernie said. "What is it they say, `it's always darkest before the dawn'?"
He laughed, but it was more of a snort than a laugh.
"What time is it, honey?" Ernie asked.
He looked at his watch.
"A little after 1400," he said.
"You're going to have to get used to saying `two,'" she said.
"I guess," he said, and added, "Mrs. McCoy, it is now a little after two p.m."
Ernie chuckled.
There is a fourteen-hour difference between Charleston, South Carolina, and the Korean Peninsula. In other words, when it was a little after two p.m. on 24 June 1950 in Charleston, South Carolina, it was a little after four a.m., 25 June 1950, on the Korean peninsula.
The North Korean attack against the Ongjin Peninsula on the west coast, northwest of Seoul, began about 0400 with a heavy artillery and mortar barrage and small-arms fire delivered by the 14th Regiment of the North Korean 6th Division. The ground attack came half an hour later across the 38th parallel without ar-mored support. It struck the positions held by a battal-ion of the Republic of Korea Army's 17th Regiment, commanded by Colonel Paik In Yup.
PAGE 27
U.S. ARMY IN THE KOREAN WAR
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1960
[ONE]
THE COMMUNICATIONS CENTER
THE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1710 24 JUNE 1950
The first "official" word of the North Korean incursion of South Korea was a radio teletype message sent to the As-sistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Department of the Army in Washington by the military attach of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul at 0905 Korean time 25 June 1950. It entered the Army's communications system a relatively short time af-terward, probably "officially"-that is to say, was "logged" in-in a matter of minutes, say at about 1710 Washington time 24 June 1950.
25 June 1950 was a Saturday. While the Pentagon never closes down, most of the military and civilian personnel who work there during the week weren't there, and only a skeleton crew was on duty.
There was a bureaucratic procedure involved. The mes-sage was classified Operational Immediate, the highest, rarely used, priority, and on receipt the senior officer on duty in the communications room was immediately noti-fied that an Operational Immediate from Korea for the G-2 had been received, and immediately sent to the Crypto-graphic Room for decryption.
The signal officer on duty telephoned the duty officer in the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, giving him a heads-up on the Operational Immediate, and informing him that he would deliver the message personally as soon as it was decrypted.
In turn, the G-2 duty officer immediately telephoned the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, and caught him at his quar-ters at Fort Myer, Virginia.
The Army's chief intelligence officer told his duty offi-cer that he was just about out the door to attend a cocktail and dinner party at the Army and Navy Club in the District, but would stop by the Pentagon en route to have a look at the Operational Immediate from Korea.
Then he called the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and found him at his quarters-Quarters 1-at Fort Myer. He told the Chief there was an Operational Immediate from Korea, and that he was en route to the Pentagon to have a look at it. And where would the Chief be in case it required his immediate attention?
The Chief said he was going to Freddy's retirement party at the Army and Navy, and since the G-2 was going there, he could see no point in he himself going to the Pen-tagon. Sometimes, the Operational Immediate classifica-tion was applied too easily.
By the time the G-2 reached his office, the Operational Immediate from Korea had been decrypted. He read it, and after a moment ordered his duty officer to see if he would reach the Chief, who was probably en route to the Army and Navy Club, over his car radio.
It was possible, even likely, that somewhere in the Em-bassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or in the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia, or in the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Albania, or elsewhere, there was a man sitting at a radio receiver tuned to the frequency of the police-type shortwave radio in the Chief's car, so the conversation was phrased accord-ingly: