The Galloping Ghost (31 page)

A small Scout sitting next to the six-foot Navy captain could stand it no longer. “Sir, aren't you a bit old to be a Boy Scout?” Fluckey was at a loss for words at first, but then replied, “Son, once a Boy Scout always a Boy Scout. It just takes some of us a little longer.”

When he got his turn before the examiners, the sub captain nailed the requirements for two Merit Badges and was inducted as an Eagle Scout. In the years to come he would become a sought-after speaker at Scouting events throughout the nation as an ardent foe of communism.

Commander Fluckey's first responsibility remained the submarine
Halfbeak
. But he would not be skipper for long. By May 1948 he moved up to assistant reserve coordinator in nearby New London, where he honed his considerable speech-making skills. One year later he was promoted to flag secretary on the staff of Rear Adm. James Fife, commander of the Atlantic submarine fleet during a time of rising enmity between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Soviets, flexing their military muscle, had tested their first atomic bomb in 1949 and had imposed an overland blockade on routes leading to Berlin, requiring the United States to airlift materiel to a city deep inside Russian-controlled East Germany and divided into Russian, British, French, and American sectors. A mutual defense pact signed by communist leaders of China and the Soviet Union exacerbated international tensions. An invasion of democratic South Korea by the communist regime of North Korea also ushered in the Korean War.

Meanwhile, a cat-and-mouse competition was under way between the Soviet Union and the United States under the seas. The U.S. Navy bubbled with all kinds of radical new ideas under a $4.4 billion budget for submarine warfare. Being studied were boats several times larger than the standard Fleet-style submarine with an ability to carry jet-propelled planes and a Marine landing force . . . attack submarines capable of launching guided missiles that the
Barb
had pioneered . . . undersea cargo ships for supplying overseas bases in the eventuality of an atomic war . . . small submersibles for reconnaissance of rivers and harbors, or planting atomic explosives in an enemy port.

During his time as Admiral Fife's flag secretary, his leadership and concern for personnel was brought into sharp focus with the loss in 1949 of the USS
Cochino
(SS-345). In a strong gale off the coast of Norway, her snorkel got carried away, resulting in flooding, electrical fires, and the explosion of the boat's batteries. The USS
Tusk
(SS-426), sent to rescue the crew, lashed itself to the side of the sinking sub and saved all but one of the
Cochino
crewmen at the cost of six of its own. A naval court of inquiry recommended letters of censure and disqualification for
Cochino
officers and crewmen. Asked to comment on the findings by the commander of the Atlantic Submarine Force, Fluckey disagreed with the court. In a four-page appraisal of the testimony, the captain pointed out that there was no clear way to handle the multiple calamities aboard. He recommended that no one be disqualified and that no letters of censure be issued. Ultimately the Navy agreed with him and no punitive actions were taken.

In 1950 Gene Fluckey began a three-year stint as naval attaché at the American Embassy in Lisbon. There, life slowed down for the family.

Gene was no longer on extended missions at sea. He, his wife, and their daughter found more time to be together, enjoying the sights of Europe and getting to know the ancient and beautiful capital of Portugal. “My memories go by the school I was in and where we lived,” recalled his daughter Barbara of the many relocations in her early childhood. “Dad just came and went until the war was over and we finally settled down for three years in Portugal. He was a bit of an influential mist until then. Portugal was the time that I really fell into step with Dad.”

Gene and Barbara, entering her teen years, ate breakfast together nearly every weekday and he normally drove her to school rather than make her take the train. “So for three-plus years we had time to talk. He was interested in educating me as his parents did him. Discussions of important current events at dinner or touring factories. He molded me into a news ‘junkie' forever and factory tour-taker ever since.”

The family owned a 1948 Buick convertible, which they much enjoyed on vacation in Spain, Southern France, and Switzerland after securing an international drivers license and gasoline coupon books issued by the Embassy. The Fluckeys immersed themselves in Portuguese society and customs, learning to speak the native language as well as French. They often entertained visiting VIPs, who marveled at the couple's energy, enthusiasm, and attention to making those around them comfortable. The Fluckeys' fun-loving nature in Lisbon attracted lots of friends and acquaintances in a city they called “heavenly.”

But within a short time, Commander Fluckey became acutely aware of the politics of Lisbon in regards to foreigners. “There is a continual flood of deliberate wafting of Spanish-Portuguese friendship. However actually it is a cold, stilted, kid-gloved friendship with the Spanish looking down on the Portuguese and extremely so vice-versa,” Fluckey wrote in a letter to Rear Adm. R. F. Stout, assistant director of Naval Intelligence in Washington. The captain warned of the difficulty the Navy might face in choosing future naval attachés: “As a test, I asked a reliable Portuguese naval officer friend what his feeling would be if an officer of Spanish, Portuguese or Italian extraction was the new naval attaché. His reply was, ‘If Spanish, many people would feel that the U.S. considers us a part of Spain. If Portuguese, he thought it would be acceptable. If Italian, he more or less threw up his hands then said, ‘Why don't they send an American.' I carefully explained that America is a melting pot of all nations and races and that we were all
Americans. He agreed but added that basically Americans were considered to be of British or German extraction.”

Four or five times a year the Fleet would pay a courtesy call on Lisbon. Fluckey was counted on to make all the arrangements, including hotel and restaurant accommodations for officers and frequently their wives. A Fleet visit produced a carnival-like atmosphere throughout the city. In August 1952 Battleship Division Two commanded by Rear Admiral H. R. Thurber from his flagship, the USS
New Jersey
(BB-62), anchored in Lisbon. A month beforehand, Fluckey sent a letter to the admiral to inform him of differences in protocol in Portugal, while assuring him of adequate police protection and that 27,000 naval personnel visited the previous year without incident. The attaché asked that the admiral do one thing before the Fleet arrived, however: “I would appreciate your putting out an order that no cushions or other missiles be thrown into the bull ring during, or at the end, of the bull fight. We had this happen once last year, which to the Portuguese was a sign of extreme disapproval. Actually it was skylarking, in very poor taste, and was finally explained to the Portuguese that it was an approving type of rowdyism occasionally seen at baseball games in which the Brooklyn Dodgers were involved.”

Occasionally officers brought their own automobiles aboard ship so they could tour the countryside. Fluckey provided information about planned itineraries—as well as warnings. When Capt. F. D. McCorkle, of the
New Jersey
, announced that he planned to drive around Europe in his English Austin, the attaché cautioned him regarding bandits in the mountains and driving at night.

The Fluckeys returned to the United States in 1953, relocating to San Diego, where Gene assumed command of Submarine Division 52. The boats operated between San Diego and Hawaii, where they successfully developed countermeasures to acoustic torpedoes by deploying an electronic beacon on a tow line 450 feet astern of a submarine (Project Jimgene). In March 1955 Captain Fluckey became skipper of the sub tender
Sperry
. Five months later he was promoted to commander of Submarine Squadron Five, consisting of more than eighteen boats based in the Western Pacific. The commodore's first action was to tour submarine bases in the Western Pacific to resolve minor command problems at the behest of ComSubPac. Along the way he cautioned officers to step up security to thwart illegal currency transactions, black marketing, and the narcotics trade. Of particular concern was a visit he and his wife made to a Japanese orphanage in the port city of Yokosuka that ComSubPac supported with cash donations.

Missionaries affiliated with the American Soul Clinic in Los Angeles operated the home. Submariners raised two hundred dollars a month to support the children and paid for a new wing to house a total of twenty orphans. Medical treatment and food were provided by the Japanese government. Realizing that previous visits, made with advance notice and fanfare, painted a rosy picture, the Fluckeys decided on a surprise inspection. “It was a horrible shock,” he wrote in his report. “The children were unkempt, in rags, the yard was strewn with broken glass and absolutely filthy as was the interior.”

Fluckey ordered an audit and reorganized the management and care of the children with input from Marjorie. He also recommended strenuous efforts to find adoptive families for the children—“2 imbeciles, 10 Negro-Japanese, 4 Jap Japs and 19 Caucasian-Japs.” As a result of the visit, staffing of the orphanage was increased to eleven workers, conditions were much improved, and an adequate, balanced diet for the orphans was established.

Captain Fluckey had hoped—without success—that he would be tapped to become the skipper of the nation's first nuclear-powered submarine after its launch in 1954 but that went to a younger man. Nevertheless, Fluckey spoke enthusiastically of the
Nautilus
as a Jules Verne vision come to life. “At last every submariner's dream is fulfilled,” he told a television audience. “We have in the
Nautilus
the first true submarine. A submersible that can stay submerged for weeks at a time and circle the world at thirty miles per hour without refueling or surfacing. What a political muscle she is! Imagine a combatant ship that can roam the seas at will probably undetected. Imagine the threat of her lurking in the untrod silence of the prehistoric abysmal depths beneath the polar ice cap from which she could dart out on her savage forays. A ship that may pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the North Pole. Can one deny the vast possibilities?”

Asked how long the
Nautilus
could stay submerged, Fluckey beamed. “Well, I understand they intend to bring her up to the surface every four years so the men can reenlist.”

Fluckey predicted that submarines like the
Nautilus
would in the near future be equipped to launch guided missiles long advocated by the captain. In a message to Cdr. C. D. Nace of ComSubPac in Pearl Harbor in 1956, he noted, “The guided missile business seems to involve at least 75 percent of my time catching up with the reams of material that have been written, visiting missile shootings and conferences, both in and out of town.” Fluckey was present during test flights in the Hawaiian archipelago of the Navy's
Regulus II
missile launched by Submarine Squadron Five. Under development since 1947, the missile was based on captured German V1 missile
designs with a swept wing design and could deliver a three thousand-pound warhead to a target five hundred miles away. It was the forerunner of the
Polaris, Poseidon,
and
Trident
ballistic missiles as well as the Navy's
Tomahawk
cruise missile.

When there seemed to be resistance in some quarters of the Navy to embrace the future of missile-carrying submarines, Fluckey voiced concern to Secretary of the Navy Charles S. Thomas, who was visiting the
Tunny
(SSG-282) to see its missile-launching capability in April 1956. Fluckey arranged for a short presentation on plans for a submerged launch missile. Thomas was astounded, unaware of such possibilities. In a note to a confidant, Fluckey later summarized his private meeting with the secretary:

Captain Fluckey had long believed the American public was underestimating the subversive threat of communism to democratic institutions. “We allow Reds to convert ‘free speech' into weapons sure to be used against us,” he often told an audience. “Living with Commies in our free democracy is like hiring a kidnapper to baby-sit. We must outlaw communism.” To Fluckey, the threat was pervasive.

A visit to Santa Monica gave Fluckey a chance to discuss with a movie mogul something that had been gnawing at him for some time—the frequent
use in movies of the line, “Don't act like a Boy Scout, don't be a sissy!” The line, according to the movie industry, was to gain a few laughs. “At lunch with Gene Zukor, the Crown Prince of Paramount [movie studio], I broached the problem,” Fluckey recalled later. “He informed me that they had a watch dog committee to pull this line out of films. They were cognizant of the Scout problem. Scripts passed through many hands. Infrequently even when they had yanked the line out, movies would be distributed and the line had reappeared. Everyone disclaimed the line.”