1945 (26 page)

They were past the defenses. Now they were in the heart of the American fleet. It would be full daylight in a little while. Once again the I-58 would lie on the bottom and wait for darkness to return. This time, however, when night fell, the sub would be the hunter and not the hunted. This night Hashimoto would be the predator.

Seaman Tim Jardine rubbed his burning eyes and leaned against the mount of the 40mm antiaircraft gun that was his battle station on the
Augusta .
He was supposed to be resting while others scanned the darkened sea and skies for signs of the Japanese. Everyone on board the nine-thousand-ton heavy cruiser was tired from days of being at their battle stations. It was so bad Tim wondered if they would be capable of fighting if a Jap plane did manage to find them. All he and the others really wanted was to go to sleep and the hell with the Japs.

At least they were able to let some of the men rest and doze while the others watched and waited through the night. He wished he could have a cigarette, but orders were to keep everything as dark as possible.

Jardine caught the shadow of motion behind him and froze. At the last possible second he recognized the famous silhouette and snapped to attention. He was about to salute when Gen. Douglas MacArthur swept by him, unseeing and apparently deep in thought.

Jardine turned to his mates and hissed, "Hey! You guys see that? It was MacArthur, his royal self."

"You mean Dugout Doug in the flesh?" chuckled Carl Haverman, one of Jardine's buddies in the gun mount. A couple of the others laughed softly as well.

Jardine looked at the disappearing figure as MacArthur headed toward the bow of the cruiser. "Shit, I hope he didn't hear you. I got this thing about not insulting five-star generals. Piss one of them off and he can really make your life miserable."

Haverman snorted. "I don't care if he hears us or not. What the hell can he do to us, huh? Hell, he's the reason we're here, ain't he? If it weren't for him flicking up so badly in the Philippines and all over the ocean, we'd all be home by now."

Jardine looked to see if anyone else had heard Haverman's comments. He was particularly concerned that the ensign on duty didn't take offense, but that young man was hunched over in his chair and snoring deeply.

MacArthur was considered a hero by some for his actions, and a bum by others. There was little middle ground. Either you admired the man or you thought he was scum. Jardine tended to admire him, feeling that people didn't get to five-star rank on charm alone. He rubbed his eyes again and tried to rest. In a little while it would be his turn to look into the night and try to differentiate between twinkling stars and a Jap fighter.

Alone on the bow of the
Augusta
, Douglas MacArthur gripped the rail and tried to peer through the night toward Japan. Only the slight glint of starlight off his West Point ring of the class of 1903 was visible.

Although an older man who needed glasses to read, his hearing was excellent and he had heard Haverman's comment calling him Dugout Doug. He had heard it a thousand times before and even seen it in print. It wasn't fair. None of the disasters of late 1941 and early '42 were his fault.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had put him in an impossible position, then blamed him when the Japanese had swarmed over the Philippines and caused the surrenders of Bataan and Corregidor along with tens of thousands of American and Philippine troops. Gen. Douglas MacArthur also held the rank of field marshal in the Philippine army. He had wanted to stay with his men of both nations and fight alongside them, perhaps die with them.

Roosevelt would have none of it. There had been too great a risk that MacArthur would have been captured instead of killed, then displayed as a trophy by the Japs. Instead, Roosevelt had ordered MacArthur to escape to Australia . MacArthur had reluctantly complied and, along with his wife and young son, taken the danger-filled trek across the southern Pacific.

Only when he arrived at Australia did he understand Roosevelt's treachery as augmented by his other enemy, General Marshall. MacArthur's understanding was that he would retain control over the army in the Philippines, but Marshall placed Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright in command. Wainwright had surrendered, not MacArthur. MacArthur had wanted Wainwright to fight on, but Wainwright had received permission from Marshall to surrender not only Bataan and Corregidor, but all of the Philippines. It was outrageous. Some of the land and soldiers surrendered hadn't been threatened and could have held out as armed enclaves for quite some time, perhaps until being reinforced.

Of course, as he later found out, there were to be no reinforcements. Roosevelt had decreed that Nazi Germany was the primary threat to America and that the Pacific war could wait. Instead of an army, MacArthur had been given only handftils of units and dribbles of reinforcements with which to launch limited and bloody offensives. Even so, he had persevered and won island after island and battle after battle, culminating in the liberation of the Philippines in 1944 and now, the ultimate, the invasion of Japan herself.

For that he was still castigated by some in his army, and by members of the press as Dugout Doug. Worse, what should have been his hour of triumph was rapidly becoming very, very hollow. Vital information had been withheld from him regarding true Japanese numbers and strength on Kyushu. He and his staff hadn't gotten true figures until far too late to change their plans. Thus, his army was now slogging and clawing its way inch by bloody inch into Japan instead of advancing triumphantly through its cities.

Some told him that it was his own staffs fault that he'd been misled, but MacArthur rejected that. Generals Willoughby and Sutherland had been with him through thick and thin, and while they certainly made some human mistakes, they were loyal to him and that was that.

He let go of the rail and began to pace back and forth across the narrow bow of the cruiser. Above him, the three eight-inch guns of the forward turret glowered protection for him as he reviewed the combat situation.

The marines on the west of Kyushu had reached the high ground between their landing sites and the deep waters of Kagoshima Bay. They could now look down into the large, sheltered anchorage, but they had not yet forced the west gate to the bay, and the Japs had dug in to prevent that. To deny Kagoshima Bay to the United States , the Japs only had to hold one side of the gate.

To the east, the two army corps were nowhere near their objectives. Only a few small towns had fallen, and the American navy was still unable to use Ariake Bay. Until Ariake Bay was taken, there could be no port or airfields developed. Without a port, there could be no massive reinforcements of men and equipment. Take Ariake and the army could leapfrog into Kagoshima Bay and join up with the marines. Without it, they were forced to live like vagabonds and depend on what was stored on the hundreds of support ships that waited in giant convoys just off Kyushu. It was not an efficient way to run a campaign and had to change soon.

MacArthur wondered how much of it was Krueger's fault. Certainly, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger was a solid professional soldier, although perhaps a bit unimaginative. The men under Krueger's command seemed to lack a zest for battle and were getting bogged down at the smallest obstacle. Should he replace Krueger with Eichelberger? He would think on it. Eichelberger had wanted the task, but MacArthur had insisted on Krueger having his turn. Now he wondered if he had been too hasty in appointing Krueger over Eichelberger.

The casualties had been appalling. Instead of breaking and collapsing, the Japanese had fought like the devil in most places and showed no sign of changing, although some second-rate units and individual soldiers had given up. How the insidious General Marshall must enjoy seeing MacArthur's battle reports and realizing that all was not going as well as he had predicted.

Marshall now had Truman's ear just as he'd had Roosevelt's, and that situation bore watching. Truman was such an intellectual lightweight that Marshall was bound to dominate him. MacArthur did have to give Marshall his due; he had a keener mind than MacArthur had thought and had used it to his utmost advantage.

At least MacArthur had managed to keep the invasion both an all-American show and an all-white-American war. He had withstood pressure from Roosevelt and then Truman to incorporate three divisions of British Commonwealth troops into his army. Great Britain had offered them, but he had withstood it. The three divisions— one each from Australia, Britain, and Canada— would have been a logistical nightmare to keep in the field. Unlike the European theater, where there were ports and occupied landmasses where vast and differing kinds of supplies could be stored, all of his men would have to live for some time off what was on the ships. MacArthur had rightly convinced Marshall that he didn't have the resources to supply the Commonwealth troops with their own ammunition, food, and weapons. Therefore, the three Commonwealth divisions had to change to American tactics and equipment if they were to join the battle.

With neither the time nor the resources to do this, the British had backed off, although they were beginning to switch over to American gear in anticipation of the second phase of the battle for Japan— Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu. This MacArthur could accept. When Coronet occurred, there would be supply depots on Kyushu, and the logistical problem would be over.

As to minority soldiers, MacArthur simply didn't think they would fight well. Roosevelt, doubtless egged on by his aggravating wife, Eleanor, had felt they should be incorporated into the army as fighting men, instead of supply soldiers and laborers, which was their normal use. Truman now supported this incredible idea as well, to MacArthur's astonishment. MacArthur felt that he could understand the political logic and the urgency to widen the population base from which the soldiers were drawn, but he could not permit this to happen to the detriment of his army. Negroes, while fine fellows in their own way, were simply not cut out to be warriors. He had put his foot down before and would do it again. There would be no Negroes in the front lines in the invasion of Japan.

Of course, and MacArthur smiled at the thought, if Eisenhower wanted them in Europe and if that freed up white soldiers to fight in Japan, well, that was fine by him. MacArthur recalled Ike as being a fine chief of staff for him, but he now was one of Marshall's boys and, therefore, part of the cabal against him.

It further pleased MacArthur that he had kept the despised Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, out of his area of operations. He'd heard that they'd done well in Europe, but doubted it. He despised amateurs and that's all they were. Imagine, they'd wanted to use some of his several hundred nisei translators as espionage agents and spies to be inserted into Japan. No, he'd answered. Once there, it was too likely they'd go over to the Japanese side. Let his nisei stay in Australia where they could be watched.

If the OSS, through the navy, wished to send in Japanese Americans, then let them find their own qualified people and run the risk of losing them. He would not help the navy. MacArthur had heard reports that the OSS had managed to land one man, who had done some good, and were following up with others, but they would not use his tame Japanese in the ensuing battles.

Douglas MacArthur was not afraid of the outcome of combat. He accepted that he was far braver than most men. It was not that he was without fear; indeed, he knew it and despised what it could do to a man. But he was able to control it, even conquer it.

Bravery was something that came quite naturally to MacArthur. He'd first seen combat during the 1914 punitive expedition to Vera Cruz, Mexico, where he'd pistoled at least a half dozen Mexican soldiers. He'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, but denied it because his one-man patrol hadn't been authorized. It had been the first in a long line of personal affronts against him by bureaucrats in Washington. Later, he'd been decorated in World War I and had, of course, been unperturbable under fire several times during the current conflict. Thus, it galled him mightily when people cast doubts on his manhood and courage. He'd thought of personally berating the sailor, but decided it would be useless. Let them judge him on the basis of the victory that would surely come.

MacArthur looked out on one of the several destroyers escorting the
Augusta
. The heavy cruiser was the center of its own small task force, and his presence on her caused four additional warships to be detailed to protect both him and the
Augusta
. Someday soon, one of his political enemies would make comments about that, but American ships no longer traveled alone. The catastrophic sinking of the
Indianapolis
was too fresh on everyone's mind. Even if he hadn't been on board the cruiser, she would not be alone.

MacArthur had heard muted criticism regarding his choosing the
Augusta
in the first place. The whispers said that he wanted the
Augusta
because two presidents had sailed on her. What foolishness! He'd selected the
Augusta
because it had been configured to handle an admiral's staff, which meant it could house his. Admiral Nimitz had suggested they share the resources of Nimitz's command ship, the
Wasatch
. MacArthur, while appreciating the gesture, had demurred. He'd feared that his presence on the
Wasatch
would look as if he were under Nimitz's command when the command was actually shared by the two men.

On the other hand, there was no reason for the
Augusta
to be so far from Japan. They were a full hundred miles behind the fleet, which itself stretched for scores of miles, and this was not what he'd had in mind when he'd voiced the wish to be closer to the battlefields. He would tell Admiral Nimitz it was essential that the
Augusta
move much closer to Japan.

MacArthur thought and smiled. He would direct that the
Augusta
be stationed off Ariake Bay; thus, when circumstances permitted, he would be ready to go ashore on Japanese soil at the first opportunity. Wouldn't Gen. George Catlett Marshall like that!