A Mighty Endeavor (68 page)

“Very well. I have a task for you.” The Ambassador eyed the Captain thoughtfully. He’d fought back when attacked; that meant he could be the sort of young, intelligent officer she sought out. Let’s give him a job to find out.

“You are charged with interviewing all the survivors of the action and making out a list of lessons learned and actions recommended. If our naval policies are wrong, say so. If our present ships are useless, say that too.”

Her voice softened. “There is no shame in losing a battle, Captain. That can happen to anybody. There is much shame in not finding out why the battle was lost and failing to correct those errors. Report back to me with the reasons why Koh Chang did not go as we desired and solutions for the problems so revealed. And remember. If anybody tries to prevent you from giving me your honest opinions, place them firmly out of your way. I have no wish to be told what I want to hear. Nobody has ever suffered at my hands for telling me the truth.” Chuan glanced around and noted that several of the Army officers were nodding absent-mindedly.

A communications officer rushed in waving a message. “Highness, a message from the Foreign Ministry in Bangkok. The Japanese Ambassador has delivered a note to ourselves, and apparently to the French, offering to mediate an end to this war. The terms they dictate are attached.”

“And what is the reaction in the Government so far?” The Ambassador spoke reflectively while she read the terms of the Japanese ultimatum. They were better-suited to her purpose than she could dream possible.

“Marshal Plaek wants to throw the Japanese Ambassador down a well and asks your permission to do it.”

The Ambassador snorted. “This is not Sparta. I will compose a suitable reply for the Japanese Ambassador to send back to Tokyo. However, advise my old friend to pick out a suitable well; just in case.”

Room 208, Munitions Building, Washington, DC, USA

“So, the conclusion so far is that the industrial infrastructure of Germany is such that there are no singularities that we can take out. We define a singularity as a point of failure, the destruction of which will bring war-making capability to a halt and which cannot easily be repaired or replaced. This means that any strategic bombing campaign is going to have to hit a large number of targets to induce the kind of failure we are seeking. The ballbearing industry is a good example, as you will see from Chapter Twenty-Seven of our preliminary report. There are only four ball bearing plants in Germany and their destruction would bring ball bearing production to a halt. In theory, that will destroy German war production. In reality, they can replace ball bearings by roller bearings for many applications and roller bearings can be made anywhere. They can also replace internal production with ball bearings imported from, say, Sweden or Switzerland. Then, of course, there is the question of repairing the factories and there we move into unknown territory.

“The truth is that neither we nor anybody else have any idea what it actually takes to destroy a factory. The British believed that it would take four 250-pound bomb hits to destroy an average factory. Already, the experience available to date shows that this estimate was ludicrously wrong. Probably wrong by several orders of magnitude. We’ve already determined one problem; that is that all the bombs we were planning to use have impact fuzes. They explode immediately on impact and the factories have roofs.”

“Oh?” Secretary Stimson sounded confused; suddenly, realization dawned on him. “Ohhh. The bombs hit the roof and wreck it, but the inside remains undamaged?”

“Exactly. We need to fit our bombs with delayed action fuzes. It sounds simple, but it appears nobody thought of that. A dead space between the roof and the ceiling of the factory floor is excellent protection. The roof sets the fuze off and the ceiling catches the debris. Reinforcing building roofs is also a simple defense. Anyway, we’re going to have to do a lot of research on what it takes to blow a factory up before we can take a target list and estimate the force we need to destroy it. We’ll probably need to take a real factory and bomb it just to see what happens. One thing I will say now, the 250-pounder won’t hack it. We’re looking at 500-or 1000-pounders, at least, to get real effects. Possibly much larger. We could be dropping 4000-pounders by the time this war is over. We’ll have to bear that in mind when designing the bomb bays for our aircraft.”

“Thank you, Phillip. I suggest you find a disused factory we can employ for that purpose. Now, I assume everybody has heard that the Japanese have offered to ‘mediate’ a negotiated peace between French Indochina and Thailand?” Cordell Hull looked around the table. More heads shook than nodded. “Mediated is a very polite way of putting it. Dictated terms that suit themselves would be closer. I have those terms here. Essentially they are that Thailand gets a small strip of land along the border. Quite a bit less than they have occupied over the last few days. Japan gets full basing rights and essentially complete political control over the rest of French Indochina, along with free access rights to Indochinese and Thai territory ‘to monitor the ceasefire’. Oh, and the French authorities plus the Thai government will be expected to pay significant amounts to Japan to compensate them for their efforts.”

“That’s not a mediated ceasefire; that’s a power grab.” Stimson frowned. “Are the Thais complicit in this? In league with the Japanese?”

“Given the nature of their reply, I hardly think so.” Hull looked around, his opinions conflicted. On one hand, he was delighted at what he had read; on the other, perturbed that his original judgment had been so mistaken. Driven by his instinctive prejudices against military governments, he had nearly made a catastrophic mistake by alienating a valuable ally. “To quote the Thai Foreign Ministry, ‘Since the Empire of Japan has no legitimate presence, position or interest in the Indochina region, the Kingdom of Thailand firmly and unequivocally rejects the ultimatum masquerading as a mediated settlement to the current hostilities between the Kingdom and the French Indochina authorities. These hostilities are a matter between the participants and will be resolved on a bilateral basis between them. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Thailand advises the Empire of Japan that it will not be allowed access rights to Thai territory and any attempt to secure such rights will be resisted by all the force at the Kingdom’s disposal.’ In non-dipiomatic language that reads ‘mind your own business and drop dead in the process.’ It’s about the most emphatic rejection of a diplomatic approach I have seen in forty years of public service. The French Indochina authorities have accepted the Japanese proposals. I would say that the two reactions have drawn the lines of political alignments quite definitively.”

Suriyothai, honey, when you nail your colors to the mast, you sure use the largest nails you can find.
Stuyvesant restrained himself from grinning at the thought. He was forestalled from saying anything by Henry Morgenthau’s worried comment.

“Aren’t the French doing quite well? The Thai advance seems limited and the French are claiming a major naval victory. They’re saying they’ve sunk a third of the Thai Navy including both their largest battleships and three destroyers.”

Stimson shook his head. “Not according to our military attache there. One of the ships the French claim to have sunk is in Sattahip. She’s not just undamaged; she wasn’t even in the battle. The other one was towed into Bangkok the day after the battle. She’s badly shot up but afloat. They’re coast defense ships, by the way, not battleships. The Thais say they’ve lost two torpedo boats; that’s all. We do know they drove off the French squadron. It’s in Saigon right now, with their cruiser and at least one sloop damaged. On land, the French are facing an imminent disaster. Their counter-attack was a complete failure and it seems like their army has been surrounded at Battambang. That’s probably why they accepted the Japanese proposal. It’s the only chance they have of stopping the situation unravelling completely.”

“I think it is fairly obvious that reversing our position on arms supplies was a major factor in Thailand adopting its anti-Japanese alignment.” Cordell Hull sounded almost sanctimoniously pleased with himself.

Given a week, you’ll have convinced yourself that this was what you had planned all along.
Stuyvesant contented himself with nodding thoughtfully at Hull’s statement. Hull’s next words caught him by surprise.

“Since they are obviously aligned with our interests, perhaps we should make our support clearer? Unfortunately, we appear to have run out of British and French aircraft to give away.”

A ripple of laughter ran around the room. The truth was that the vast stockpile of undelivered French and British aircraft had been put to a far better use than its original owners could ever have thought possible. The political and strategic gains from their distribution far exceeded their actual military value.

Stimson raised a hand in a munificent gesture. “Actually, I might be able to help there. I was speaking with General Marshall this morning. Apparently, the British bought 100 M2A4 light tanks, which remain undelivered. They were scheduled for our own use, but we have a new model, the M3, being introduced. Their loss will not be significant. Perhaps, if we were to offer them to the Thais, the reinforcement would make their rejection of the Japanese all the more emphatic?”

“They belong to the Commonwealth of Nations as the legitimate successor to the British government.” Cordell Hull was firm on that. The proprieties had to be observed. “Of course, if the Indians, Australians, Canadians and South Africans don’t mind, the transfer would be possible.”

“The South Africans want armored cars. The Canadians are building Valentines. It’s just the Indians and Australians who matter and I think we know where the Indians stand on this. They won’t object.”

Cordell Hull acknowledged Stimson’s assessment with a nod. “Phillip, you look like you have a thought on this?”

“It seems to me that a longer-term commitment is necessary. Speaking as a businessman, I’d want to know that the current relationship is stable before investing. After all, we have reversed course on Thailand twice now.”

“Perhaps a long-term financial commitment?” Henry Morgenthau spoke diffidently. He’d seen the intricate detail of the studies on German industry and didn’t like what he was seeing. The sheer complexity and number of variables in the picture that had been presented made him question the plausibility of theories based around central economic planning. That ran against the beliefs of a lifetime and made him pleased to get back to simpler and less disturbing ground. “Extend a substantial credit line, repayable over a long period at a low rate of interest? That would be a sign that the relationship now being established is an enduring one.”

“And what they do with the money would also be useful information on their real policies and intents.” Hull nodded approvingly. “An excellent suggestion, Henry. Has anybody anything else to add?”

There was a generalized murmur of denial and Hull looked around happily. “Very well then; I will present these opinions to the next meeting of the cabinet. Phillip, I will let you know when that will be. I understand that your team has finished the first draft of Air War Plan Directive One. Please hold yourself ready to attend the appropriate part of that meeting. I fear nobody else can present the information you have gathered in a way that will do it justice. On that note, I move this meeting be closed.”