The Conquering Tide (19 page)

Having heard descriptions of Churchill's fine “map room,” located in the prime minister's underground bunker in London, Roosevelt decided that the White House ought to have a similar command center. A large room on the ground floor was vacated for the purpose, and a navy lieutenant commander, John L. McCrea, was placed in charge.
¹⁵
Large maps of Europe and the Pacific were mounted on opposite walls. Smaller maps of Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, and North Africa were mounted between them. All were positioned low enough that the president could scrutinize them without rising from his wheelchair. Flags and multicolored pins marked the known locations of Allied and Axis naval, ground, and air forces. The current locations of the “big three” (Churchill, Stalin, and FDR himself) were indicated by special pins—a cigar for Churchill, a briar pipe for Stalin, and a cigarette holder for FDR. Updates were relayed hourly from the navy and war departments by secure dedicated telephone lines.

The Map Room was staffed twenty-four hours a day, eventually by six navy and six army officers. An armed guard stood watch at all times, and only half-a-dozen members of the White House staff were cleared for access. (After learning that her son's location was updated daily, Eleanor Roosevelt dropped in whenever she pleased; the guards did not have the courage to stop her.) Roosevelt appeared each afternoon after his daily sinus treatment with Dr. McIntire, whose office was next door. Leahy and Hopkins often accompanied the president. When he was in town, Churchill haunted the place at all hours. It became, for all purposes, the brain center of the Allied war effort. “McCrea,” Leahy said, “I think there is more information about the war concentrated in your Map Room than there is in any other one place in Washington.”
¹⁶

R
OOSEVELT HAD PLEDGED TO RENDER
no military decision for the sake of domestic politics. But he was beset on all sides by amateur “typewriter strategists” who aired their unsolicited advice in public, and he repeatedly warned that the war could not be waged by referendum. Even after the Battle of Midway, a vociferous segment of public opinion wanted to intensify the campaign against Japan. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers demanded a rebalancing of American military power from Europe to the Pacific, for “the war in the Pacific is the World War, the War of Oriental races against Occidental races for the domination of the world.”
¹⁷
The congressional delegations of Washington and Oregon were distressed by the presence of some 10,000 Japanese troops on two outer islands of the Aleutian archipelago. The Japanese must be driven off the islands at once, they warned, lest they storm into Alaska and imperil the entire West Coast. (Professional strategists knew the scenario was impossible, given Japan's military and shipping limitations, but they could not say so in public without tipping off the enemy to their indifference.) Others looked toward Europe, especially to southern Russia, where the Red Army was fighting a desperate stand against the
Wehrmacht
on the outskirts of Stalingrad. The Allies had agreed to a “Europe-first” policy, but the United States had not yet directly engaged the forces of the Third Reich. Wendell Willkie clamored for a second front against Hitler to relieve the pressure on Russia. In a single week Willkie called for an urgent increase in military aid to Russia
and
China. Eyes rolled in the White House—did Willkie suppose ships and armaments grew on trees?

Nevertheless, the Russian apprehensions were well founded. A collapse of the Red Army would be an unmitigated disaster. Stalin had demanded a second front in France, and the Allies had thus far failed to supply one. Twenty-five years earlier, the Bolsheviks had sued for peace with Germany. A similar armistice in 1942 would permit Hitler to redeploy more than a hundred divisions to Western Europe. “The biggest question mark in the latter half of 1942,” Leahy wrote, “was can the Russians stop the Germans, and when?”
¹⁸
In the White House Map Room, small black pins edged left to right across the huge wall-mounted map of the Atlantic. The pins, whose locations were updated hour by hour, marked the locations of the all-important Allied convoys to Murmansk as they ran the gauntlet of Germany's submarine wolf packs. Harry Hopkins often ducked into the room to observe their progress, and McCrea later recalled that the president's gaunt
consigliere
always seemed to know exactly what armaments each ship carried in its hold. The hopes of the Red Army, and by association the entire Allied cause, seemed to depend on the convoys' getting through to Murmansk.

With circumstances in Europe pressing so heavily on their minds, it is remarkable that Roosevelt and his advisers had not only agreed to
WATCHTOWER
in the first place, but also continued to send reinforcements to the South Pacific in the critical months of August and September 1942. Since Pearl Harbor, the Allied high command had found itself sharply divided over the question of how and when to come to grips with Germany. The Americans had committed to a massive buildup of ground and air forces in Britain (Operation
BOLERO
). In negotiations that spring, the American chiefs had pressured Churchill to agree to a direct assault across the English Channel by mid-1943 (
ROUNDUP
). Marshall had further proposed an emergency contingency if the Soviet Union seemed on the verge of collapse—a landing of six divisions (mostly British) on the French coast in September 1942, code-named
SLEDGEHAMMER
.

The British had first agreed to
ROUNDUP
and paid lip service to
SLEDGEHAMMER
, but with no intention of supporting it. At successive Allied conferences (Washington in June, London in July) the British had stiffened in their opposition to
SLEDGEHAMMER
and voiced increasing skepticism about
ROUNDUP
. General Sir Alan Brooke, the acerbic chief of the British Imperial General Staff, left some choice observations in his diary on the subject. Even if an Allied expeditionary force could get ashore safely, he had asked
Marshall on April 15, what would they do? “Whether we are to play baccarat or chemin de fer at La Touquet, or possibly bathe at Paris Plage is not stipulated! I asked him this afternoon—do we go east, south or west after landing? He had not begun to think of it!”
¹⁹
The expedition was almost certainly doomed to fail, and a failed invasion could do nothing to help the Russians. Why rush into a campaign that entailed such grave risks, when the
Wehrmacht
was being bled white on the eastern front and the American war mobilization had not yet reached its high tide? “Marshall had a long time to go at that time before realizing what we were faced with,” Brooke later commented.
²⁰

On July 8, Churchill cabled Roosevelt with definitive notice that the British would not consent to a landing in France that year: “No responsible British general, admiral, or air marshal is prepared to recommend
SLEDGEHAMMER
as a practicable operation in 1942.”
²¹

SLEDGEHAMMER
was always a chimera, and British arguments effectively demolished the American position on the merits. But Marshall, backed zealously by King and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, held out for the implausible operation even to the point of threatening to abrogate the American commitment to “Europe-first.” In what must be reckoned as one of the most peculiar episodes of the war, Marshall and King sent a joint memorandum to Roosevelt on July 10, 1942:

If the United States is to engage in any other operation than forceful, unswerving adherence to full
BOLERO
plans, we are definitely of the opinion that we should turn to the Pacific and strike decisively against Japan. In other words, assume a defensive attitude against Germany, except for air operations; and use all available means in the Pacific. Such action would not only be definite and decisive against one of our principal enemies, but would bring concrete aid to the Russians in case Japan attacked them. It is most important that the final decision in this matter be made at the earliest possible moment.
²²

Roosevelt was not interested in reorienting the global war toward the Pacific, however, and slapped the suggestion down: “It is of utmost importance that we appreciate that defeat of Japan does not defeat Germany and that American concentration against Japan this year or in 1943 increases the chance of complete German domination of Europe and Africa.”
²³

In fumbling toward some sort of plan to attack German forces, the Americans had been pitted against the British, the Army Air Forces against the army ground forces, and MacArthur against everyone who did not share his view that he should immediately receive more ships, troops, and planes regardless of what was happening elsewhere. Admiral King, while pressing his plans for
WATCHTOWER
, had loyally backed Marshall's determination to invade Europe.

Out of these astringent deliberations came Operation
TORCH
, the invasion of North Africa. The proposal originated with Churchill, who was well aware that his American allies were determined to come to grips with Germany in 1942 and must have an option to do so. British fortunes in North Africa had been battered by General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps throughout the spring and early summer, culminating with the surrender of 33,000 troops at Tobruk on June 21. Churchill now argued that the Allies had much to lose in the theater unless the rampaging German armies could be stopped. Roosevelt listened. The president had decreed that his forces must clash with Germany, somewhere, in 1942. The British had ruled out a landing in France. North Africa was the only operation under discussion that fulfilled both conditions. After registering Marshall's opposition, Roosevelt agreed to it. The first landings would occur on November 8.

Plans proceeded in the strictest secrecy. While the president's domestic critics clamored for action, none could be told (even in a whisper) of the planned invasion. November 8 happened to fall five days after the midterm elections. The American people would not learn of this first major counterthrust against the Third Reich until they had already visited the polls (and delivered a sweeping Republican victory).

For the moment, in that political season of 1942, Guadalcanal was the only place in the world where major American ground forces were engaged against the Axis. The island and the 1st Marine Division inevitably loomed large in the American imagination. The campaign received fulsome press coverage, thanks to the presence on the island of more than half-a-dozen gifted military and civilian correspondents. Dick Tregaskis, whose lucidly detailed stories were published by the International News Service, would win fame with the publication of his bestselling
Guadalcanal Diary
in 1943. Hanson Baldwin, a navy correspondent, filed stories for the
New York Times
. Tom Yarbrough wrote for the Associated Press, Bob Miller for the United Press, John Hersey for
Time
and
Life
, Ira Wolfert
for the North American Newspaper Alliance, Sergeant James Hurlbut for the Marine Corps, and Mack Morriss for
Yank
magazine. Vandegrift published no communiqués, but he encouraged the reporters to go wherever they liked and write whatever they wished. Lieutenant Herbert L. Merillat, the 1st Division public relations officer, provided able service to that pack of willful newshounds while also submitting stories of his own—many of which appeared, unbeknownst to him, under banner headlines in newspapers across the United States.

“Solomons Action Develops into Battle for South Pacific” was the front-page, above-the-fold headline in the
New York Times
on September 27, 1942. In a 5,000-word story, Baldwin reported that the “toughened, sunburned marines—veterans of innumerable jungle skirmishes, several large actions, and continuous bombing and shelling—still clung tenaciously to the beachhead on Guadalcanal that they seized six weeks ago.”
²⁴
When hopes of holding the island seemed dubious, Baldwin asked General Vandegrift point blank, “Are you going to hold this beachhead?” Vandegrift replied, “Hell yes, why not?”
²⁵
The exchange, as reported by Baldwin, fired American spirits. The “toughened, sunburned” marines would not know it until months later, but Guadalcanal was a household name across the United States, and the people at home were fervently wishing and praying for the survival and triumph of the beleaguered 1st Marine Division.

T
O BE AT
H
ENDERSON
F
IELD IN THE FALL OF
1942 was to live life constantly under fire. Japanese infantry units were concealed in the hills and forests, some as close as 300 yards to the western end of the strip. Snipers crept in close to the perimeter and shot at men who stuck their heads up. Japanese artillery pieces lobbed 75mm shells into the bivouac and aircraft parking areas. “Every now and then you hear a dull ‘ka-boom' off in the distance,” a torpedo plane pilot recalled, “and then would come a little screaming and ripping noise, and a shell would explode in the field. It didn't make anybody very happy.”
²⁶
Flights of G4M bombers arrived from Rabaul nearly every day at about noon and dropped their sticks of bombs across the heart of the marine perimeter. Very often, at night, Japanese destroyers or submarines lobbed shells into the field from Ironbottom Sound. No one got enough sleep; the enemy made sure of that. The Japanese cruiser floatplane they called “Washing Machine Charlie” circled overhead most nights after
midnight. The plane's single rattling engine awakened the marines and kept them awake. “Charlie” usually dropped only one or two small bombs, which rarely took any lives or did any noteworthy damage, but he kept the Americans on edge and deprived them of rest. As soon as the engine was heard each night, each man awoke, took his rifle, and descended into his shelter or foxhole. “You never knew where Charlie would drop a bomb,” said the soldier Robert Ballantine. “Sometimes you could hear the bomb-bay door kind of click open. You sure could hear the bombs coming down. If it makes a kind of swooshing, whirling noise the bomb is by you and will miss. If it's hissing it's going to be close, and you might have to change your underwear.”
²⁷