The Colonels, page 49
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
There were (someone had made a list) seventy-odd “airlines” operating in the area, most of them one or two-plane operations. Of course, there was no Trans-Caribbean, but an “airline” by that name flying an old DC-3 would not cause undue attention. Lowell had devised the basic flight plans he himself was using on this flight.
The R4Ds took off from Rucker or Bragg bound for Nicaragua on visual flight rules. Once airborne, they contacted either Atlanta or Valdosta area control, identifying themselves as Trans-Caribbean aircraft, and filed an instrument flight plan to Miami. One more unpainted DC-3 cargo plane at Miami raised no eyebrows. At Miami the planes cleared U.S. Customs. And then they left Miami on IFR flight plans to anywhere: the Bahamas, or Haiti, or the British West Indies. Later they closed out the flight plans in the air, and flew on to Nicaragua, homing in first on a radio station in Bluefields, and when close, on an omni set up at the jungle field.
On the return, the second leg was from Great Inagua to Miami, a 550-mile leg. The third leg was from Miami to Rucker (or from Miami to Bragg, with a fuel stop in Savannah). Somewhere over Florida, “Trans-Carribbean” closed out its IFR flight plan, and the R4D became an army aircraft flying on visual flight rules again.
It had been a long flight, the Gooney-bird cruising along at no more than 190 knots, and Lowell was glad to see Dothan, Alabama, under his wing.
“Laird, Army Four Oh, five miles southeast for landing.”
He made a very shallow approach over Clayhatchee; and as he turned on final, he saw two ambulances with red lights flashing coming down the road from the post to Laird Field. As he touched down, he could see out of the corner of his eye two ambulances and two staff cars parked on the ramp at the Board area.
They were probably prepared to conduct emergency surgery on the spot, he thought somewhat nastily, and what they were going to get was an epidemic of loose bowels.
As he taxied up to the Board area, he saw that another two ambulances had arrived, and that one of the staff cars had a Collins antenna mounted on its roof. The antenna, even more than the red plate with two stars, identified it as Paul Jiggs’s staff car. That made him feel bad. Jiggs, a commander who could not sit at a desk when there were “injured troops,” really had no cause to be here.
Lowell turned the Gooney-bird into line, killed the engines, and stuck his head out the window.
“We need only one stretcher,” he called out to the sixteen medics and that many nurses and doctors waiting to attend the “injured” and carry them off the plane to the ambulances.
And then he chuckled as he thought that no stretchers were needed. The Beret the Cubano had stabbed was so embarrassed that he would have walked off the airplane on his hands before they carried him on a stretcher.
Lowell sat in the pilot’s seat and did the paperwork, then walked down the sloping cabin floor as ground crewmen began to unlash the cargo. When he got off the airplane, Major General Paul T. Jiggs was standing there.
Lowell saluted.
“I’m sorry you had to come out here, sir,” he said. “But I didn’t think I should go on the air with the announcement that the walking wounded were suffering from the GIs.”
“It’s all right,” Jiggs said. “I wanted to see you, anyway.”
From the tone of his voice, it was clear that his visit was official. Lowell wondered then—for the first time—if Sandy had been so angry that he’d gotten in touch with Jiggs.
Jiggs handed him a TWX:
HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY
WASH DC 1456 ZULU 13 OCTOBER 1960
TO COMMANDING GENERAL FT RUCKER ALA
FOR PRES USA AVIATION BOARD
1. THIS TWX CONFIRMS TELECON 1800 ZULU 12 OCT 60 BETWEEN BRIG GEN BELLMON DCSOPS AND MAJ GEN JIGGS.
2. COMGEN FT RUCKER IS AUTH AND DIRECTED TO ISSUE LETTER ORDERS ASAP PLACING MAJ LOWELL, CRAIG W 0-366901 ARMOR USE AVN BOARD ON TEMP DY WITH HQ US ARMY PACIFIC, HONOLULU HAWAII, FOR A PERIOD OF 180 DAYS UNLESS SOONER RELEASED BY CINCPAC.
3. OFF IS AUTH TVL BY MIL OR CIV AIR TRANS TO HAWAII. THIS TWX CONSTITUTES AUTHORITY FOR AAA PRIORITY IN EVENT MIL AIR TRANS IS UTILIZED.
4. OFF IS NOT AUTH TRANS OF PRIVATE VEHICLE, HOUSEHOLD, OR PROFESSIONAL BOOKS AND PAPERS. OFF IS AUTH 250 POUNDS EXCESS BAGGAGE ALLOW.
5. OFF WILL BE EXPECTED TO HAVE SUITABLE CIVILIAN CLOTHING IN ADDITION TO COMPLETE SET TROPICAL CLIMATE MIL UNIFORMS. THIS TWX CONSTITUTES AUTH FOR PAYMENT OF $300 SPECIAL ALLOWANCE FOR PURCHASE OF SUITABLE CIV CLOTHING AND PAYMENT OF $225 FOR PURCHASE OF DRESS WHITE UNIFORM.
6. IF OFF UNABLE COMMENCE TRAVEL BY 16 OCTOBER ADVISE THIS OFFICE AND CINCPAC BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS, INCLUDING TELEPHONE.
BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
STEPHEN L. MORGAN
BRIG GEN
DEPUTY, THE ADJ GEN
“Jesus, he was mad, wasn’t he?” Lowell said.
“I beg your pardon?” Major General Jiggs asked.
“I suppose, sir, that I may infer from your presence here that I cannot promise to sin no more, and ask you to get me out of this?”
“I don’t have anything to do with it, Craig,” Jiggs said. “I just came to ask you myself if there is any bona fide reason you can’t go.”
“No, sir,” Lowell said. “I really can’t think of one.”
“When can you leave?”
“I’ll need two hours to pack my bags,” Lowell said. Then, bitterly, “That little sonofabitch! I never thought he’d do this to me.”
“Felter, you mean?” Jiggs asked. “Is he behind this?”
The question made it clear that Jiggs didn’t know.
“Yes, sir, I think he is.”
“All Bellmon told me was that it came from high up,” Jiggs said, and then he changed the subject. “Don’t go overboard, Craig. You must be tired. Why don’t you get a good night’s sleep and leave in the morning?”
“I can sleep on the plane, sir,” Lowell said. “As I recall, it’s a rather long flight to Hawaii.”
(Three)
Atlanta International Airport
1730 Hours, 14 October 1960
When the Aero Commander taxied up to Southern Airways gate number 7, the Atlanta station manager of Delta Airlines, accompanied by two baggage handlers, came through the glass door and stood waiting until the plane’s door opened.
“Major Lowell?” he asked, smiling and offering his hand to the tall, mustachioed man in civilian clothing who came out of the airplane. He had been told an hour before by the executive vice president, finance, to “make every effort to smooth things” for Major Lowell.
“Right,” Lowell said.
“My name is Dietrich, Major. I’m the Eastern station manager here.”
“How do you do?”
“We have you on Flight 330, which will board in forty-five minutes, nonstop to San Francisco, and connecting with Northwest Orient Flight 203 to Honolulu. First class, of course.”
“I thought maybe,” Lowell said dryly, “that if you looked hard, you could find me a seat.”
Dietrich handed over the tickets.
“We’ll see your baggage is loaded, Major Lowell,” Dietrich said. “And you can wait in the Club.”
“Thank you very much,” Lowell said.
Bill Franklin handed three pieces of luggage through the door. Two of them were brand new Mark Cross leather suitcases (bought by Major Lowell in anticipation of his honeymoon) and the third was an ancient and battered canvas Valvpak on which was stenciled Lowell’s name, rank, and serial number. He had had it since he was a lieutenant. LT and CAPT had been successively painted over, so MAJ was now two lines above the line with his name and serial number.
“Send a postcard,” Bill Franklin said.
“You may use my car to dazzle the local ladies,” Lowell said, shaking his hand, “providing you don’t drive it over thirty-five or get heel prints on the headliner.”
Franklin chuckled, and then he saluted.
“Take care, Major,” he said.
“If you go south, watch your ass,” Lowell said.
“I’m very good at that,” Franklin said.
Lowell punched him affectionately on the arm, and then followed Mr. Dietrich into the terminal building. Franklin waited until Lowell was out of sight before he got back in the Commander and fired it up.
He felt sorry for Lowell—for being taken out of the action—and doubly sorry that his buddy Felter had done it to him. But still, the bottom line was that he shouldn’t have flown to Nicaragua when he had been told not to.
In the Club, Mr. Dietrich installed Major Lowell in a leather armchair. A hostess appeared immediately with a tray holding nuts, cigarettes, and cigars and asked if she could bring him something to drink and/or something to read.
“Bring me two double scotches, please,” Major Lowell said. “I always require a little liquid courage before getting on an airplane.”
A second hostess appeared, bearing a telephone on a long cord and a pad of telegraph blanks.
Lowell took one of the cigars and accepted Mr. Dietrich’s quickly offered match.
“It was important that I get to Honolulu as quickly as possible,” Lowell said. “Someone used a little clout to get that done. But I’m not a VIP, Mr. Dietrich, and I’m sure you have more important things to do than sit here and hold my hand until the plane leaves.”
Dietrich took the army officer at his word. They shook hands and Dietrich left.
Twenty minutes later he was back with a teletype message:
FROM STATION MANAGER NORTHWEST ORIENT HONOLULU
TO NWO STATION MANAGER SF
EASTERN STATION MANAGER ATL
FOR C. W. LOWELL PASSENGER ENROUTE HON VIA EASTERN ATLSF, NWO SF-HON
ROYAL HAWAIIAN HOTEL CONFIRMS PENTHOUSE SUITE B. ROYAL HAWAIIAN REPRESENTATIVE WILL MEET YOUR FLIGHT WITH LIMOUSINE. AIRCREW AUTHORIZED INFLIGHT RELAY ANY FURTHER REQUIREMENTS.
CHARLES D. STEVENS
STATION MANAGER
NORTHWEST ORIENT AIRLINES
HONOLULU
By that time, Lowell, who was obviously more of a VIP than he said he was, had downed the first two double scotches and was working on a third. Dietrich had no way of knowing, of course, that Lowell had flown from Nicaragua that day—on a diet of sandwiches and two hamburgers in Miami. All he could see was that Lowell was a little bit tipsy.
“I think I’ll send a telegram of my own, if I may,” Major Lowell said.
“Certainly,” Mr. Dietrich said.
Lowell, grinning with pleasure, wrote out a brief message and handed it to Mr. Dietrich. For one thing, it proved that he was a VIP, and for another, that he was tipsy.
“Can you say that?” Mr. Dietrich asked.
“I don’t think,” Lowell said, smugly, “that many Western Union operators in Atlanta are going to speak Yiddish. If one says something, tell her it’s code.”
“I’ll get it right off, Major,” Mr. Dietrich said.
Fifty minutes later, as Major Lowell was wolfing down a filet mignon in the first-class cabin of Eastern Flight 330, ATLSF, a somewhat strange telegram came off a Western Union printer on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
ATLANTA OCT 14 555P
SANFORD T. FELTER
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON DC
I AM GOING TO NAIL YOUR SCHWANZ TO THE WALL FOR DOING THIS TO ME. YOUR EX PAL DUKE.
After some discussion, it was decided between the Communications Center duty officer and his counterpart at the Defense Communications Agency that there was more than likely a hidden message within the clear text. It was therefore encrypted as Top Secret-Gardenia No. 60—56003 and relayed by radio to Nicaragua.
(Four)
Penthouse B
The Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Honolulu, Hawaii
0700 Hours, 15 October 1960
A long shower and two pots of coffee did nothing to shake loose what felt like a terrible hangover, but which was more fatigue and jet lag than the product of all the brandy he had consumed between Atlanta and Hawaii.
As he examined his image in the mirrored walls of the bathroom, he saw that his eyes were both sunken and bloodshot, and that his face looked white and drawn. He looked hung over, which would probably not at all surprise CSP-CINCPAC—whoever the hell that was. CSP-CINCPAC, to whom he was ordered to report, had certainly been advised that he was getting a fuck-up to be kept on ice and would not be surprised when said fuck-up showed up looking as if he had just come off a two-week drunk.
He looked so bad that he seriously considered taking off his tropical worsted uniform and going back to bed for several hours. He would then seek out a Turkish bath, have a long steam and a massage, and spend the rest of the day on the beach trying to get a little color back in his face and some of the blood out of his eyes. When he reported the following morning, he would look less like death warmed over.
Which would, he decided, accomplish exactly nothing. A healthy looking fuck-up sent to Hawaii to be kept on ice would be treated the same as one that looked like he had just crawled out of a bottle.
He left the suite and went to the desk, where he was given the keys to a Hertz convertible Lincoln and a map marked with a Magic Marker giving the route to Headquarters, U.S. Army Pacific, where he would report to CSP-CINCPAC for duty.
CSP-CINCPAC turned out to be full bull artillery colonel, a tall, heavyset, deeply tanned middle-aged man with the look of someone who spent a lot of time keeping in shape.
“Sir,” Lowell said, “Major Lowell reporting in compliance with orders.”
“You can stand at ease, Major,” CSP-CINCPAC said. “We didn’t expect you until tomorrow or the next day.”
“Would the colonel like to see my orders?”
“Give them to my sergeant on your way out,” CSP-CINCPAC said. He looked at Lowell appraisingly, and then dialed his telephone.
“Sir,” he said a moment later, “Major Lowell just walked into my office.” Whoever he was talking to said something, to which the colonel replied: “Right away, sir.”
CSP/CINCPAC stood up and motioned for Lowell to follow him out of the office. He stopped before the master sergeant in the outer office.
“You know what to do for Major Lowell, Sergeant,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” the master sergeant said.
Lowell handed him his letter orders.
“Thank you, sir,” the master sergeant said. “Welcome to Hawaii, Major.”
“Thank you.”
He followed CSP-CINCPAC out into the corridor. Toward the end of it, Lowell noticed a plastic sign on a door: 106 CINCPAC ENTER THROUGH 110.
CSP-CINCPAC pushed open the door to 110.
There was a familiar face in that office, a very large, very black master sergeant. Master Sergeant Wesley, General E. Z. Black’s longtime orderly.
“Hello, Wesley,” Lowell said.
“Hello, Major Lowell,” Wesley said, offering his massive hand. To CSP-CINCPAC, Wesley said, “The boss expects you, go right on in, Colonel.”
They walked into CINCPAC’s office and CSP-CINCPAC said, “Good morning, General.”
Major Lowell saluted.
General E. Z. Black returned the salute, looked at Lowell thoughtfully, and said, “Lowell, you look like bell.”
Lowell was not surprised at the comment. It was apparently Step One in the speech he was going to get. At first he had been surprised to be sent to face E. Z. Black himself. But now that he thought about it, it fit in with the pattern. He was going to be (a) told that he had failed the trust General Black had placed in him when he had not thrown him out of the army, (b) advised in some detail of his current status, and probably (c) advised of what would happen to him if he talked at all about what he had been doing before Felter had arranged for him to be sent halfway around the world to keep him out of the way.
There was a knock, a quick rap of knuckles, at another door to General E. Z. Black’s office, and a major general came through it immediately without waiting for permission to enter.
“This is Major Lowell, Pete,” General Black said. “Two days sooner than we expected.”
The major general smiled, and said something astonishing as he offered his hand: “And not a second too early. How do you do, Major? I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Wes,” General Black said, raising his voice. “Coffee, please, and then see we’re not disturbed.”
M/Sgt Wesley had anticipated the command. He came through the door almost immediately, pushing a cart on which sat a coffee thermos, cups, saucers, and a plate of doughnuts.
“The last I heard,” General Black said to Lowell, “you were on a trip, and no one knew when you’d be back.”
“I returned day before yesterday, sir,” Lowell said.
“And came over here right away?” Black asked. “No wonder you look terrible. Well, this won’t take long. I wanted General Day to meet you, and to give you a quick picture of what’s going on. Then you can go to bed. Maybe a steam bath would help.”
It didn’t seem like the opening remark in an ass chewing.
“Your being here,” CSP-CINCPAC said, “eliminates a lot of problems. I’ve been trying to arrange for you to catch up with us, and I’ve learned it’s not easy to get from here to there. Now you can go with us.”
“We’re going to Saigon the day after tomorrow, Lowell,” General Black said. “They did tell you to bring civvies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It looks,” General Black said, “as if we’re going to have to greatly augment our force of advisors in Indochina—which, by the way, we now refer to as South Vietnam. I asked DCSOPS to send me an expert, somebody familiar with the aviation companies we’ve been forming, and someone who knew something about the airmobile division we’re forming. Your name came up, of course, but you were otherwise occupied. But then Bellmon decided you were just about finished with what you were doing and could be spared.”
