Reluctant Warriors (23 page)

Rodgers sagged back against the stretcher.
Mackson
had left port with a crew of 256.

Some bluejackets carried him into the captain's cabin, and the ship's doctor began
attending to his leg, muttering about it looking bad. Rodgers was too exhausted and
numb to care. He stared blankly up at the ceiling until the man finished his first
aid.

Once the doctor had left and the cabin was empty, Rodgers lifted up his head and
looked around the room.
No men in agony here
, he thought.

He had never felt so tired. He remembered Admiral Wells' orders to either succeed
or come back on his shield.

Come back on my shield? I wonder if it's close enough to come back flat on my back?
he thought.
My first command, only seventy-two hours, and sixty-two of the lives
entrusted to me, I got killed off. That's almost one man per hour. May the Creator,
in His infinite wisdom, have mercy on those men's families.
He looked up at the ceiling,
wondering if the Navy would think he had done well by them.

Deep in thought, Rodgers did not hear the pharmacist's mate enter the room. He was
a little startled when he heard the man's voice.

“Sir, I'm going to give you this sedative. It will knock you out for twenty-four
hours. You need your rest.”

Rodgers silently offered his arm for the injection. Soon afterward, he lapsed into
a deep and tranquil sleep, as though nothing at all had happened to him in the last
three days.

The Broken Leg

Noumeo, New Caledonia, March 4, 1943

N
o one in Halsey's office could recall a battle quite like this one. The two old
warriors, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander South Pacific, and Rear
Admiral Lakeland W. Wells, had been yelling at each other for ten minutes before
things quieted down. Twice, Halsey's chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, walked
toward the door with important papers that needed an immediate signature. Both times
Browning reached for the door handle, thought better of it upon hearing the tumult
inside, went back to his office, and closed the door.

It had started well enough. Halsey ushered Wells into his office, and the two ancient
friends shook hands heartily. Wells accepted a drink, and the two began talking.

“Lake,” Halsey explained, “I've made a deal to send you, along with the heavy cruiser
Grand Rapids
and two destroyers, to [Commander Southwest Pacific] MacArthur. He and
[Vice Admiral] Kincaid have convinced Washington that they cannot do what they need
to do without another squadron. All they have is the Brit—Admiral Crutchley—and his
cruisers. I had to agree, since I can't drive up the Central Pacific with that area
lagging behind on my flank. You are to stay on for the entire run up the New Guinea
coast.”

“Yes, sir, I know that, and that's fine,” Wells replied.

“How did you hear that?” Halsey asked, surprised.

Wells laughed a little. “Even my driver coming over here knew that.” He took another
sip of his whiskey.

“Okay,” Halsey agreed. “Is
Grand Rapids
ready to go?”

“Yes, sir!”

Halsey took a deep breath. “I'll have to take Commander Rodgers from you too. Did
you hear about that?”

Wells sat bolt upright, his drink sloshing. “No, I did not hear that! Whose stupid
idea was that?”

Halsey leaned forward. “This is not my idea. It's Navy regulations. I was told that
Rodgers' leg injury from the
Mackson
sinking still isn't fully healed.”

“You heard wrong! Rodgers' leg is fine,” Wells said, insulted.

“I am sending him stateside,” Halsey said. He fumbled for the lighter on his desk
and lit a cigarette. “He'll get promoted and get some nice job in procurement or
some damn place. A good record.”

Wells raised his voice. “You are
not
. You are
not
going to do that to him with his
record. You are not going to do that to me either. This guy is a backstop type!”

“It's out of my hands, Lake,” Halsey said flatly. He spewed thin blue smoke into
the air as he talked.

“I don't care!” Wells shouted.

“I can't buck the inspector general on this,” Halsey insisted, his voice louder.
“You know what trouble he could give me.”

“I don't care.
You
are going to fix this!”

“Now, how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Of all the goddamn assholes and shit-headed desk jockeys we've battled over the
years,
you're
the last person I would expect to be part of such crap,” Wells snarled.
“On a man who has won two Navy Crosses! You're going to put him on the beach? So
he's not good enough to fight for you?”

“No one's saying that, Lake! But the man's not fit. Besides the leg, I hear he has
shrapnel wounds all over.”

Wells was ready. “How is this different from when you were in the hospital after
Pearl Harbor for all of those weeks?”

“I don't have a health problem,” Halsey demurred.

“Oh sure! If his leg isn't one hundred percent, it will be all right soon.
But you
will still be itching and scratching yourself from head to toe the next time I have
the misfortune to come to this goddamn office!”

The determination went out of Halsey's face. He lowered his voice. “I can't do it.”

Sagging in his chair, he could not look at Wells.

Wells spoke calmly. “You
cannot
do this to this man. I am not going to let your name
be associated with such trash. He is the very type of man we have all been crying
for from the beginning of the war. Look at that job he did for us with
Mackson
. Some
goddamn Jap might be sitting here in your seat were it not for him. He's good under
pressure,” he said, nodding his head. “We cannot do without him on the road to Tokyo!”

Halsey looked at Wells and thought for a moment. “Okay, Lake, I'll talk it over with
Washington and ask for him on a highest priority basis.”

“No! No!”
Wells shouted. “That is
not
good enough! You and I both know exactly what
they're going to say. I hate to do this to you.”

Wells put down his drink, some of which had sloshed on the floor in his gesturing.
He stared hard at his boss. “Bill, I am going to ask you as my friend of forty years.”

Halsey stared back, dismayed. “Don't do that to me. Of all the men on this Earth,
I never expected to hear that from you!”

“I
am
asking! I am asking you to promise me to do this for
me
. I want you to look
me in the eye and promise me you will do it.”

Wells leaned over the desk and spoke so that no one else could possibly hear.

“I'm through, Bill.” His face looked lost and soured. “I'm not standing up to this
so well. That Aleutian campaign did me in. I passed out in my cabin. The doc told
me this is it. I asked him to give me six months.”

“What doc?” Halsey asked, taken aback.

“Yours.”

“Your heart?”

Wells nodded. “Bill, I'm supposing you're good for the whole run, till we defeat
Japan. But this New Guinea thing will have to be my last go. I'll head home to my
Polly, watch from the beach.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Halsey asked, his words slowing with shock. “How could
I have faced Polly if you had keeled over in my office?”

“I knew you wouldn't give easy. That Aleutian thing is a blot on my record.”

“Everyone knows that wasn't your fault!” Halsey said understandingly. “But I can
see how you feel, know how it looks.” He paused, frowning. “I'm sorry, Lake. I was
hoping you'd be with us.”

Wells brought his fist down slowly onto the desk.

“Let me go out on top,” he begged. “Not have my record splotched up at the end. I'll
take my chances with one more shot. But I
must
have someone I trust. I have to have
Rodgers. It can't be any other man. It's too late for me to break in anyone else,
trust anyone else. As it is, and I am only telling
you
this, I will have to give
him the command. I have to lay off. I've promised Polly for thirty years that there'd
be time for us. I don't want to break that trust. I
must
have a man who can command
a task force.”

In an instant, Halsey saw the big picture. An old friend for whom he would give his
life stood before him, a hard campaigner who had never spared himself any hardship.
It was legend throughout the service that Wells had never asked for a favor from
anyone
.

“Okay, Lake. You have him!” Halsey looked Wells in the eyes and shook his hand.

Wells added casually, “And I want you to get him back on the promotion list.”

“You know I can't do that one.”

“I know you can,” Wells stated flatly. “I know you're flying out of here to D.C.
on Tuesday.”

“How did you hear that?”

“The same way you knew we were sending you to MacArthur. I want you to go to Admiral
King on this one. As chief of staff, he can do practically anything he wants. Ask
him. He'll give it to you, because he needs you more than you need him.”

Halsey put his hand on his old friend's shoulder as they headed
for the door. “Okay,
okay. He hates me, but I'll push it over on the old creep.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

“The orders will be cut today. You take care of yourself, Lake.” He smiled, the two
clasping their hands in a tight grip. “I wish I could have you for the six months.”

Halsey's tone was strong now. Wells knew what he wished would be done. He regretted
that he had had to put it that way to an old friend. But he was not sorry. He was
prepared to do whatever it took. The two men walked out into the adjoining office,
smiled to everyone, and Wells left.

Halsey went back into his office, closed the door, and sat down on the corner of
his desk. He did not intend to reflect for a long time, but he did. The last of the
sun filtered into the room through the dusty blinds. Shadows began to lengthen and
the room began to darken. His usual cigarette was absent.

He sat motionless.

“Lake can't make it,” he muttered. “There will be more like him who we use up in
the long years and hard campaigns that are bound to come before we win this thing.
Many a good man will be sacrificed to the needs of the nation before this is all
over.”

A hard and vicious look came over Halsey's face. As usual, this meant very bad things
for the Empire of Japan. He had a terrible and seething hatred toward them, ever
so much more terrible than that they were merely the enemy of his country.

“If it takes the last drop of my blood, I will grind them into dust along with their
entire civilization. I will bring the vast power of our country into this. I promise
to use whatever resources I can get. No mercy will be shown. Even their women and
children I will savage, if that's what it takes to win this hideous struggle.”

The sentimentality that was so much a part of him, and was an even match for his
terrible hatred of the enemy, flooded into his mind. “I have committed an unforgivable
sin to have made Lake beg like that. God forgive
me.” He mopped his left hand over
his face, tears stinging his eyes. “I should
not
have done that.”

A verse he'd memorized years ago, something by Rudyard Kipling, came into his head:

God of out fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine;
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

That one had been very popular among his class at the Academy. Back then, of course,
he hadn't felt the truth of it, not the way he did now.

“Damn it, who is the enemy here?” he lamented. “Lake! I'll make it up to you if it
takes everything I've got!”

He thought of Rodgers, the man who had caused all of this fuss. Halsey remembered
him from the ceremony the last December when he'd pinned the Navy Cross on the man's
chest. He'd only ever seen Rodgers that one time, hobbled on crutches with the broken
leg.

“So, that's the guy Lake thinks so much of, eh.” Halsey nodded slowly, steely-eyed.

Staring ahead, he made a sacred promise to himself that he never shared. “If Lake
likes him, then I like him. Rodgers will be my man. I'll let him go to Kincaid. I'll
let him make his own way, and follow the pathways the war makes for him. But I'll
be there, watching to see that nothing bad happens to him, that he doesn't go down
between the cracks, torpedoed by someone.”

In the years that followed on the long road to Tokyo, Halsey never had a reason to
regret his vow.

Preface to “Battle for Huon Gulf”

Ship Types

In World War II, there were three types of surface warships: battleships, cruisers
(heavy and light), and destroyers. The general rule was that the bigger the ship,
the bigger the guns and the slower the speed. If a ship had armor, as battleships
and most cruisers did, it did not cover the entire ship. It was placed in “belts,”
on turret faces, and to protect the bridge and deck. The rule of armored protection
was that a ship should have enough armor to have some protection against a ship of
equal power.

There were great differences between the ship types. Cruisers could speed away from
most battleships, but could not catch a destroyer. A heavy cruiser's guns had about
one-eighth the power of a battleship's, but six times that of a destroyer. Both Japanese
and US cruisers fired a 256-pound shell that was eight inches wide. A light cruiser's
guns had a third of the power of a heavy cruiser's. For light cruisers, one-hundred-pound
shells were standard in both navies. Heavy cruisers had armor protection that was
two to five inches thick.

Names in the Story

All geographical names used are real. Admiral Crutchley was a real admiral who commanded
cruisers in the southwest Pacific. The names of the two Japanese cruisers were names
that appeared in the 1940 edition of
Jane's Fighting Ships
(which is still in publication
as the most authoritative such book in the world). These were ships the Japanese
were actually planning to
build, though in the end they did not. All other names,
ships or otherwise, are made up.

A word about US prewar heavy cruisers, to which I dedicate this story: There were
seventeen of them. They were all made to international treaty limitations of ten
thousand tons, to which the United States subscribed until 1941. Meanwhile, the Japanese
violated their treaty obligations and made the large Myoko class. These cruisers
were faster and bigger in size, going about 13,500 tons. Even so, the prewar American
heavies had the same gun power as their competitors. In a real sense, they were actually
harder to hit, because the Japanese ships were so much longer (seventy feet).

Despite their lack of size, US prewar heavies generally gave a good account of themselves
during the war. Some achieved lasting fame:
Salt Lake City
at the Kormandorski Island
battle;
San Francisco
and “Sweet P,” the
Portland
, both at the Battle of Guadalcanal;
and
Houston
. Others, such as
Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, Louisville,
and
Augusta
, had
solid careers. Some were lost, but not due to not being pugnacious.
Chicago
was sunk
by a very skillful Japanese night aircraft attack at the Battle of Rennell Island.
Astoria, Quincy,
and
Vincennes
were the victims of poor leadership and unbelievably
bad luck.

Only
Indianapolis
, which carried the A-bombs to Tinian (where they were loaded on
to B-29s and flown to Japan to be dropped), had a bad career so far as I know. She
was said to be a bad roller even in moderate seas, and of course was sunk under still-controversial
circumstances. Eight hundred and eighty men, the majority of the crew, were eaten
by great white sharks as they languished on rafts for days awaiting rescue.