Rising Sun

CHAPTER 9

THREE AMERICAN PLANES HAD GONE DOWN IN THE ATTACK ON the Japanese facilities at Anchorage. The first had crashed near the city in a blaze of flames and the explosion of a bomb that hadn’t been released, which told Ruby and the others that finding survivors was highly unlikely.

The second one landed in the water a mile down Cook Inlet and was quickly surrounded by Japanese soldiers in small boats. As they watched from a prudent distance, the surviving crewmembers were becoming prisoners whose fate was grim. They were punched and shoved as they were thrown into the Japanese boats, heedless of any possible injuries they might have had. The enemy was furious at the attack that had left a number of Japanese soldiers dead and wounded, along with a score of small fires where the bombs had landed in their tent city. Helping the downed airmen was impossible. Their fate was in the hands of merciless Japanese.

The third PBY had gone down a couple of miles south of Anchorage and in dense woods. The plane was burning when they got there, but the wind was blowing a smoke plume low and away from the town. Ruby hoped the Japs couldn’t see it, at least not for a while.

When Ruby and the others arrived at the scene after some hard hiking, the Japanese hadn’t yet shown up. The plane, however, was a charred and smoldering skeleton, and the stench of burning flesh was heavy in the air. The surrounding trees had been scorched, but it had rained heavily recently, and a forest fire had not developed.

Two living crewmen had been pulled out by other quickly arriving civilians and were stretched out on the ground. Each appeared to have multiple fractures and cuts. Caring for them would be well beyond their capabilities, which didn’t go much past first aid. People were very self-sufficient in Alaska, but they couldn’t perform major surgery. Broken arms and legs would be splinted and cuts stitched, but anything more serious would be beyond them.

Ruby decided they would pack the two men onto makeshift litters and take them to the small fishing village of Valdez, a hundred miles south on Prince William Sound. From there, maybe they could find a boat that could take them south to Juneau, or perhaps even a plane could land on the small strip that served Valdez. Taking the road from Anchorage inland to the larger city of Fairbanks was doubtless a bad idea. The Japanese had likely already cut it.

She had a thought. If the Japs had the road, would they move inland to Fairbanks? It was less than three hundred miles between the two cities. After this raid, she didn’t think they’d sit still and wait to be clobbered again. The Japs didn’t look like they were ready to move out just yet, but that could change at any time.

The two wounded men were secured onto the litters and a small group of local men and women said they’d transport the men to Valdez. It would be a rough trip and the men would have to be carried. They were unconscious and she hoped they’d stay that way. She wondered if they’d survive.

After the bearers left, Ruby’s group returned to a lookout point from which they could see into Anchorage. A large number of Japanese soldiers was milling around an undamaged school building. She surmised that the American prisoners were being held inside and being interrogated. Having seen what the Japanese did to other prisoners, she pitied them. She wasn’t a particularly religious person, but this time she prayed for them. If nothing else, she wanted them to have a quick and merciful death, even though she didn’t think it would happen.

The Japanese would want revenge for the surprise bombing attack. What looked like a couple of hundred heavily guarded American civilians were also gathered to see Japanese justice. Closer inspection showed that the men in the crowd had been beaten and many of the women’s clothing had been ripped and torn leaving them in a state of semi-nudity. It was an obvious indication that they’d been sexually assaulted. Once again, Ruby was thankful that she’d decided to flee rather than run the risk of being a prisoner of the Japanese.

After about an hour, the door opened and a half dozen Americans were dragged outside and forced to kneel while an officer seemed to be screaming at them.

“He really looks pissed,” Perkins said.

“Shut up and keep taking pictures.”

Perkins was using a telescopic lens and Ruby was watching through a fine set of German binoculars her uncle had brought back as a souvenir of World War I. Ruby had the terrible feeling that she was going to regret that the picture they provided was so clear and so vivid.

The Japanese officer finished his harangue. She thought he might be the commander of all the Japanese forces from the way others deferred to him, but she had no way of being certain. She groaned when he unsheathed the long curved sword that officers carried. He waved it around in the air and his men cheered him, the sound carrying up to them.

The officer waved it a couple more times and then sent it slashing down on the neck of a kneeling American. The prisoner’s head was sent flying and blood gushed from the man’s trunk. His body continued to kneel for a second and then toppled slowly forward while the soldiers laughed and the civilians moaned.

“Fuckers,” Perkins said.

Ruby forced herself to be calm even though she wanted to both kill and vomit. “Pictures, keep taking the damned pictures.”

The Japanese officer walked slowly down the short line of kneeling men and repeated the process five more times, each to the loud cheers of the gathered soldiers and the further groans of the civilians. When they were done, the heads and bodies were tossed into the inlet.

“Ruby, you think they know we’re up here?”

“They’ve got to know somebody’s likely watching them from the trees and they don’t care. That was a lesson. Now the Japs’ll use the civilians as hostages and probably have them working for them, repairing roads and maybe building an airstrip.”

“So what do we do now?”

Damn good question, she thought. “First, we get to the radio and tell them all about these latest bullshit murders. Then we head inland to Fairbanks. Three hundred miles is a long ways to walk, but maybe we can commandeer a car. I’ve got a feeling that Fairbanks is where all the action is going to be. Hopefully, we can find an airplane there and get your pictures south to somebody who’ll publish them and let the world know what first-class pricks the Japanese are.”

“Ruby?”

“Yes?”

“Is commandeering the same as stealing?”

On his return to San Diego, Dane was informed that the brass wanted his opinion of the PBY raid. He’d been deposited at Vancouver by Tuller and stuffed into the back seat of a Douglas Dauntless scout plane. They took off immediately and, after refueling at San Francisco, arrived at the base. Dane was so exhausted and drained that he’d managed to fall asleep in the Dauntless.

“Once again, I don’t get a chance to clean up,” Dane lamented jokingly.

Merchant laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “I believe the admirals think you dress like a slob all the time. By the way, once again Nimitz is going to be there as well. We’ve issued a press release telling the world how the navy has struck back at the Japs who dared to invade Alaska. All the boys on those planes are heroes. Now all we have to do is figure out what they accomplished.”

Before Tim could make the scathing comment that was on the tip of his tongue, he was ushered into a conference room where Nimitz and Spruance were holding a meeting with others who wore stars on their shoulders. “Congratulations on making it back safely,” said Nimitz. “Spruance says you have a habit of doing that.”

“A damn good habit, if you ask me,” added Spruance. “Now, what can you tell us about the raid? And don’t pull punches.”

Dane turned to Nimitz. He was the senior man in the room. “Sir, if you wanted a public relations coup, you got one. We came in low and they didn’t notice us until we were just about on top of them. We dropped our bombs and started to fly away. At that point, things began to fall apart. We were so low that we began to take a lot of small-arms fire, and the Catalina is far from bulletproof. Three of our planes went down for certain, and we have to assume that the crews are all dead or captured.”

“But what damage did we do to them?” asked Spruance.

“Sir, we bombed a field full of tents. I saw a lot of Japs running, and bombs exploding, but I doubt very much if we did any substantial damage. We didn’t have all that many bombs and they were small ones anyway. That, and I’ve been told that bombing a field doesn’t cause all that much damage.”

Merchant interrupted. “Spotters on the ground say that at least twenty Japs were killed. They determined that by counting graves dug the next day, and they don’t know how many were wounded. They also say that at least six crewmen were captured, and beheaded by this Colonel Yamasaki, or some other Jap officer.”

Nimitz’s face turned red. Normally mild mannered, the admiral was outraged. “That bastard’s going to burn in hell.”

Dane continued. “We sent in twelve planes and three were shot down. Every other plane was damaged in some manner, and there were wounded on several others. The PBY I was flying was fortunate. We only had two men lightly wounded, although I did count at least thirty bullet holes in the fuselage.”

Spruance shook his head. “So we just about traded casualties with the Japs, but we lost three valuable planes destroyed and nine others damaged. If we put the raid in that context, we lost.”

“However,” said Nimitz, “morale has jumped with the announcement. Just like Doolittle’s bombing of Tokyo, the price was high, but we showed the Japs that we could and would strike back. Dane, what’s your opinion of using the PBYs for a repeat raid, and be blunt.”

Dane was not in the mood for candy-coating a report for admirals under any circumstances. “It’d be a disaster. The Japs will be ready next time and they will have some kind of an early warning system in place. Our planes would be cut to pieces. The PBY is simply not a fighter or bomber. A regular bomber could hit them from higher up, fly faster and hit them with more bombs, and make them squeal. In my opinion, it’d be murder to send PBYs again. Like it or not, we should wait until the field at Vancouver is ready.”

“Even then we’d need an interim field for them to refuel,” said Nimitz. “We’re developing runways at Juneau and Fairbanks. When those are ready, the army’ll hit the Japs hard from the air. In the meantime, you’re right. No more PBY raids.”

With that, Dane and Merchant were dismissed. Dane went to his desk and sat down wearily. His body still ached from all the hours in the PBY and then in the cramped Dauntless. At least he could move around a little in the Catalina. Even the kid lieutenant who’d flown him in the Dauntless teased him about being too big for a fighter cockpit. Maybe he should go to the gym and work out, maybe get some kinks out of his body. Maybe he should have a couple of drinks and take a nap. That sounded like a much better idea. On leaving the meeting, Merchant had as much as told him that the war would get along fine without him until the next morning.

A young sailor Dane recognized as being from the mail room walked up with a puzzled look on his face and a letter in his hand. “Sir, this has been kicking around a bit, but we think it’s for you since there aren’t that many Danes around. Whoever wrote it didn’t know your correct address here and had your rank wrong.”

Puzzled, Dane thanked the kid and took the envelope. Whoever it was indeed had the right name but had his rank wrong. It was amazing that the navy figured out that it might be for him. He opened it and gasped in shock and pleasure. It was from Amanda.

Dear Tim,

Obviously we arrived safely in California and I’d love to fill you in on the details, but I can’t at this time. I’ll explain later, I hope. “We” consists of two other nurses named Sandy and Grace along with yours truly. Let it suffice that we are all weary, hungry, sunburned, and know a lot more about the ocean and ourselves than we ever thought possible. Or ever even cared to know. Otherwise, we are fine and nothing that a few good meals and a little rest won’t cure. For a variety of reasons, my hair is cut shorter than the average marine’s and I’m even thinner than I was before. I didn’t put a return address on the envelope because we are going to be moving soon and I don’t know exactly where we’ll wind up. I just hope this letter finds you and that you too are well. A very nice marine captain and his wife helped track you down. I hope.

We are planning on picking up the pieces of our nursing careers and have collectively decided that San Diego would be a good place to be, what with all those good-looking sailors hanging around in seedy bars. I hope that meets with your approval. Because of paperwork, it could be a couple of weeks before we get there. We have some money, so we’ve been able to get some new clothing and I’ve even bought some new glasses. Mine were lost in the journey.

I just realized I’m being presumptuous in assuming that you even want to see me at all. I thought we started something very interesting and special back in Honolulu a thousand years ago, and I hope you would like to continue it as well. If not, I’ll understand.

In the meantime, like it or not and ready or not, I’m coming down, and I’m bringing the other two musketeers with me. Know any other good-looking sailors?

Love and aloha,

Amanda

Tim put down the letter. His hands shook and he felt emotions he hadn’t felt since he was a kid. He felt his eyes start to moisten. Amanda was safe.

Merchant stepped by and looked down. “What’s the problem, Tim?”

He took a deep breath and regained control. He remembered a rule that said “thou shalt not cry in front of a senior officer.” “No problem, sir, far from it. Remember the young lady I told you about? The one I met in Honolulu? Well, she somehow made it to San Francisco.”

Merchant laughed and slapped him on the back. “Fantastic. You’ve been moping like a lost dog since you got here what with your worrying about her.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“Worse. Now, fill me in.”

Tim did, at least as much as he knew. “She’s going to be coming here and it’s such a big location, I don’t know how we’ll find each other when she does.”

“You’re an intelligence officer, right? Well, just use your damn intelligence, and figure it out. Or, hell, if she could make it across the Pacific, I’m reasonably certain she could find you in San Diego.”

Wilhelm Braun was frustrated and angry. He had made a mistake. In fact, he had made several of them and he was not used to that. It did not behoove a field-grade officer in the SS to make so many errors. At least, he thought ruefully, there was no one senior to him around to notice.

First, he had underestimated the complexity of the situation confronting him. The American buildup around San Diego was truly massive and security was surprisingly tight the closer to the more tempting targets. It rapidly became evident that he was not going to be able to blow up ammunition depots, fuel storage facilities, or ships. Nor would he be allowed to get close to senior military and civilian personnel in the area without committing suicide, and that still was not on his agenda. He was willing to die for the Reich, but not in a futile gesture.

He laughed harshly. Let their little Jap allies do that.

Doing it all alone was also no longer practicable, if it ever had been. He would need help. He sent a signal to Gunther Krause, the embassy aide he’d thought could come north and meet him should the need arise. Krause was a senior sergeant who’d been masquerading as a low-level clerk in the embassy, and would be an invaluable help. He would also provide muscle and was more than willing to kill for the Reich. Braun was as well, but two men with guns were much better than one.

When Krause arrived at the bus station in San Diego after crossing without incident from Tijuana, he was dressed in a combination of clothes that made him look like a refugee. At least his hair was long enough to not look military. Even to Braun it was clear that Krause would need help in becoming inconspicuous.

“My dear Sergeant, I am delighted to see you,” Braun said as they drove away, “but there are a number of changes that we will have to make.”

“I understand, sir.”

Braun wondered if he did. Braun knew that Krause wasn’t well educated formally, but he was surprisingly intelligent and, somehow, had become fluent in English along with Spanish. Apparently the man had a feel for languages.

“First, Sergeant, we will get you some American clothes. You stand out in what you are wearing. All of your clothing, including underwear and socks, will be of American make.”

Krause nodded. It made good sense.

“Second, you and I will speak only English, and that includes when the two of us believe we are alone. Anyone speaking a foreign tongue will attract attention, and that is something we don’t need. I’m sure we’ll both make slips and people will surely notice your accent, but we must fight against them. The accent can be explained because your identification says that you are Swedish, which practically nobody speaks, while German is a fairly common language.

“Further, you and I will not speak loudly as that, obviously, will attract unwanted attention. Nor will we whisper as that will make people lean forward to try and eavesdrop. Human nature, I’m afraid.”

Krause laughed. “People are nosy and gossipy, sir. May I ask how you will explain me?”

“Good question. Quite simply, you are my assistant in my engineering business. May I assume you know nothing about engineering?”

“I know how to blow up a bridge, but not build one. Does that count?”

“Actually, it does. However, if anyone asks, and I doubt that they will, you are my wife’s nephew and I had to take you despite your shortcomings. You are my clerk and assistant and you are definitely not an engineer. I’m not either, but I believe I can fool people for long enough to get out of trouble.”

“Understood, Colonel. Is that it? I would like to go shopping and get out of these rags.”

“Not quite. I want you to never refer to me as sir or colonel again and I will never call you sergeant. We are civilians in the United States, and we must act and speak like they do, however uncomfortable that might make us at first. Therefore, you will refer to me as Bill, and not sir or colonel, and I will call you Gunther. I used the name of Brown when I crossed the border, which turned out to be unnecessary, but now I’m using Swenson as my last name. Americans are far less formal than we are, and civilians almost uniformly, and despite differences in their hierarchy, refer to each other by their first names. It would be especially so for two people working together. Such social intimacies would be normal.”

“I understand, sir.”

“What?”

Krause laughed. “I understand, Bill.”

Some things had gone well. The two-story rental property he’d arranged through the shell company provided a shop and a place to store the truck, while the second floor above the shop included a comfortable apartment that would house both men. It amused Braun that his landlord was an annoying Jew lawyer named Zuckerman. When the time came, perhaps he would kill Zuckerman the Jew just for pleasure.

The freshly painted sign on the front of the building proclaimed it as the home of Swenson Engineering, which matched the Swedish passport he would use for identification if anybody asked. So far, nobody had, which also amused him. Once again, he concluded that Americans were gullible fools. Gunther Krause had become Gunther Swenson.

In Germany, Gestapo informants would be watching his every move and reporting everything he did. But not here. Apparently the Americans thought that nobody would use false identification or that Germany would be even slightly interested in America’s war against Japan.

The staff he’d left behind in Mexico had also given him some marvelously created fictitious contracts between the United States government and Swenson Engineering, including phony purchase orders, which enabled him to get rationed food and gasoline. Since his papers said he was a defense contractor for the government, he was eligible for more gasoline then he’d ever use.

The truck he’d driven across the border was a ruin, and he’d decided to drive it only in an emergency. Instead, he bought a 1937 Ford station wagon from a lady whose husband was in the service. It had wood paneling on the side and was commonly referred to as a “woody.” He made a removable sign identifying it as belonging to Swenson Engineering, along with several other business signs which he kept out of sight. This evening, however, there were no signs on the Ford.

It was getting dark by the time he and Krause had driven the station wagon out toward the small town of Lakeside, north and east of San Diego. A rail line ran through it and it was time for the two of them to earn their pay. He’d planned to do it alone, but it would be so much easier with Krause’s help. Braun thought a couple of sticks of dynamite and an impact detonator would do the job and Krause concurred.

Braun parked the Ford among some trees a few hundred yards away from the railroad track and walked slowly toward it with Krause a few paces behind. He found a place where the rail bed was built up and crawled onto it, after first looking around to see if anyone was in view. The dynamite went under the rails and the detonator, built to act like a land mine, went on top. When the train’s wheels ran over it, a spark should be created which would cause the dynamite to explode. The track would be shattered and the train would be sent hurtling down the embankment.

It was easy, almost too easy. The tracks were normally deserted. He’d checked it out before and seen no signs of activity, not even kids or bums or patrols checking for sabotage. Well, he said with a laugh, all that might change after tonight.

They looked around. There were people who spent a lot of time doing nothing more than train watching. However, he did not think he’d run into them as the late afternoon sky darkened. If the trains in California ran on anything resembling a schedule, the freight train they were waiting for should be along within an hour.

Even though it was dangerous, Braun felt compelled to stay and see the results of their handiwork. They drove to a spot where they could look down on the tracks and still remain out of sight. The place where he’d placed the dynamite was a good mile away and he hoped an innocuous Ford station wagon would go unnoticed.

He pulled out a cheese sandwich and ate slowly. He offered half to Krause, who said he wasn’t hungry. After what seemed an eternity, they heard a train whistle in the distance. Braun tried to will it to come closer, sooner, but when it finally appeared, it was a very long one and moving slowly. Braun was delighted.

Two steam engines sending clouds of white smoke into the sky were locked in an almost sexual embrace and pulling a line of freight cars and flatcars that stretched to the horizon. It was the type of train that blocked roads and drove drivers to distraction. Braun thought that blocked roads would be the least of people’s worries in a little while.

Braun smiled as he saw that the flatcars carried a number of M3 Stuart light tanks. They were the best the Americans had at this time, but were pieces of shit in comparison with German armor. He was confident the German Panzer III and the new Panzer IV would destroy them with ease. What disconcerted him was the fact that the tanks would be replaced by the Americans who turned them out like Ford used to make cars.

He wondered what the dirty little Japs had in the way of tanks and decided he really didn’t care. He just wanted this train to crash.

The whistle sounded again, loud and strident. Here I come, it seemed to proclaim. Not for long, Braun laughed, and Krause sighed.

He held his breath as the first locomotive passed over where he’d placed the charge. It drove on and, for a second, Braun thought he’d failed and set the detonator improperly. Then a white flash suddenly appeared underneath the second engine and was followed by an explosion. The train shuddered like a drunk trying to keep his balance. But it couldn’t. The rails had been destroyed. The train lurched and stumbled, and slowly turned to its left and began to careen off the tracks and down the embankment. The sound of metal crashing and tearing ripped through the sky. Car after car played the game of follow the leader and ran down onto the field to their destruction.

The sound of metal and wood colliding and ripping became deafening. Some train cars fell on their sides while others stayed upright and a few actually turned turtle. The despised Stuart tanks ripped free of their shackles and fell onto the field. In a couple of cases, the turrets came loose and rolled around. Braun was mildly disappointed that their crews hadn’t been traveling with them.

Smoke clouds began to obscure the site. The boilers on the locomotives exploded, sending shock waves across the wreckage and white clouds of steam roaring upward.

Braun and Krause exulted as scores of freight cars kept falling to their destruction, screeching as more metal ripped apart, taking large sections of the track with them. When it seemed it couldn’t get any better, something in one of the cars exploded and started a chain reaction. Moments later, a score of freight cars was burning and others threatened to catch fire.

Curiously, they could hear no sounds of screams although a couple of figures could be seen running around in apparent shock and panic. Doubtless what was left of the crew, Braun thought. Too bad it wasn’t a passenger train. Perhaps the next one would be.

As he pulled the station wagon onto the road and drove away, he could see emergency vehicles heading toward the crash site. He turned to Krause and laughed. It was a good start.

Harry Hopkins was a confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had advised him on many important and delicate issues. He’d traveled on his president’s behalf to Moscow and London and was noted for his bluntness when dealing with foreign leaders. He was so valued by FDR that he now lived in the White House. However, the chain-smoking Harry Hopkins was dying of a stomach cancer, and he looked far older than his fifty-two years.

Hopkins looked at Admiral Nimitz and Lieutenant General John Lesesne DeWitt. Even though he was gaunt, disheveled, and dressed in an ill-fitting suit, Hopkins was clearly in charge. He was also a little annoyed that he’d been sent west to negotiate what amounted to a truce between the army and the navy and the nation’s overall war goals. At least, he thought wryly, he didn’t have to deal with the arrogant General Douglas MacArthur, who was busy trying desperately to hold onto Australia.

Hopkins coughed and began. “Gentlemen, enough is enough. We are now certain that the Japanese will not invade California or anyplace else on the West Coast. Therefore, we have to make some changes consistent with plans for coming events. In short, we now have more than a million American soldiers sitting on their thumbs, waiting in trenches and pillboxes along the Pacific coast for an enemy who isn’t going to come.”

“Is your intelligence that good?” DeWitt asked with a trace of sulkiness.

As a three-star, DeWitt was junior to Nimitz and strongly suspected that he wasn’t getting all the information the higher-ranking admiral was. He was also getting a lot of flack for interning Japanese civilians even though he was convinced that the actions were necessary and his efforts were supported by FDR. DeWitt was painfully conscious that most of his experience in the army was as a quartermaster and not as a combat officer. He now commanded the sprawling Fourth Army area, which also included Alaska, and was being heavily criticized for the ease with which the Japanese had taken Anchorage.

The internment of Japanese civilians and American citizens was another major problem. The short-tempered DeWitt had been infuriated by the lack of preparedness and common sense shown by civilian authorities. This included failure to black out cities and several absurd false alarms when people thought the Japanese fleet was approaching. The sixty-two-year-old DeWitt felt all of those years.

“Our intelligence is excellent,” answered Hopkins as Nimitz looked down at his hands. The admiral was among a chosen few who knew the United States had broken at least some of the Japanese codes. DeWitt was not.

Hopkins continued. “I assume everyone has heard the rumors that we are going to invade North Africa. Well, the rumors are true and, in order to do that, we are going to need an army. Specifically, General DeWitt, we are going to need many of those several hundreds of thousands of troops who were sent here after the Midway battle to protect against what we now know is a nonexistent invasion, and to forestall the hysteria among the civilian population that was assuming epic proportions. Gentlemen, there never was any threat of an invasion. The Japs can and will continue to raid, but they will not invade. Therefore, we need significant components of the Fourth Army sent back east pronto so they can be prepared to land in North Africa in November.”

DeWitt was angry. He’d been an officer in the army for more than forty years and didn’t like the bullshit that was being shoveled in his direction.

“And just how the hell am I supposed to forestall raids without an army? And how also am I supposed to recover Alaska, or do we let the Japs keep on beheading people?”

Hopkins glared at him. He wasn’t used to people arguing with him. “General, it has been noted over and over again that your Fourth Army cannot ever be large enough to defend literally thousands of miles of coastline. We have to depend on air and naval patrols along with coastal radar to identify the Jap fleet’s location and plan accordingly. Yes, I understand that the enemy can cruise up and down the coast causing the army to run up and down as well. Nor can we stop the Japs from shelling small towns like they’ve been doing with impunity since we don’t yet have enough ships to stop them. It can’t be helped. The president is under extreme pressure from the Russians to open up a second front against the Nazis and support Stalin.”

DeWitt was not impressed. “The Russians are a long ways away, while the Japs are here on our soil. Even worse, the shelling of small towns has resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees heading inland. We can’t handle all that. We need more help here and to hell with the Russians.”

Hopkins seethed. He felt his stomach aching, but he chose to continue, ignoring DeWitt’s outburst. “It is also imperative that we prevent Rommel from defeating the British in North Africa. If that happens, fascist Spain is likely to decide that allying with Nazi Germany is the better good bet and scrap its neutrality. Don’t forget that Hitler supported Franco in Spain’s civil war and has been pushing for that debt to be repaid. We believe Spain is wavering and, if the British are defeated by Rommel, they will either attack Gibraltar directly or permit German troops to cross Spain and take it. If Gibraltar falls, the Mediterranean almost automatically becomes a German lake, which could cost us a fortune in blood to retrieve. Therefore, the forces arrayed against Japan must be reduced.”

“What do you suggest I do about the Japs?” DeWitt snarled.

“You can do whatever the hell you want, General,” Hopkins snapped back. “I’m not going to strip your cupboard bare. You’ll still have more than a half million soldiers and Marines along with more than a thousand planes. I expect you’ll move your troops in detachments large enough to defend the major cities from an attack that isn’t going to come in the first place. The Japs simply do not have an army tagging along with their fleet and they don’t have the ability to bring one across the Pacific and supply it. And as to the shelling of our cities, until and if we get radar all up and down the coast, they will have to be endured.”

“What do I tell Governor Olson?” DeWitt asked. Culbert Olson was the Democratic governor of California and a long time supporter of Franklin Roosevelt. It was a clear implication that Olson would complain to the president, who might then change his mind.

Hopkins smiled. “Tell Olson he’s fucked up so badly he’s going to lose to the Republican candidate, Earl Warren, in November. Olson once described hell as being governor of California. He’ll be glad to be able to blame someone else for his screwups.”

Nimitz leaned forward to Hopkins. “In all fairness to the general and me, we still don’t have a radar wall in place and the Japs will be able to strike heavily at certain points without our knowing it until the last minute. You’re right, though. We could have millions more men and there would still be gaps in the coverage. When will the North African invasion take place?”

“Mid-November is the target,” Hopkins said and fished in his jacket pocket for a cigarette. People with stomach cancer weren’t supposed to smoke, but he didn’t care.

“Which is why we have to move as many troops as we can back to the East Coast as soon as possible. And when we do win in Africa, don’t expect the troops to return. North Africa will be only the first step in the reconquest of Europe.”

“Do you have any good news for us poor souls in the Pacific?” Nimitz asked.

“Yes. The Panama Canal will be back in business very shortly and we’ll be sending some new submarines out to you.”

“What about carriers?” Nimitz asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer.

“None until we have enough on line to make a difference, and that includes the merchant ships we are converting to smaller carriers,” Hopkins responded. “The same holds with your getting new battleships, although additional cruisers and destroyers can be expected. Until then, the Saratoga will have to cruise alone. By the way, where the devil is the carrier?”

Nimitz smiled. “Truthfully, I don’t know.”