(You want history? Here is some of it in person. At left is Virginia “Jinny” Martin, widow of the Director of the
Navy’s Criminal Investigation Service. We were working on a cook book of her favorite recipes to whip up if husband Barnie called from work in Istanbul to say he was having a delegation of influential spies from other nations over to the house for snacks. Center is her later life partner VADM Earl “Rex” Rectanus, senior intelligence officer of the nation’s oldest intel organization. At right is our pal, RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, one of the best pals it is possible to have had in any life you might choose. They told the Old Salts- young then- not what the history was, but what it was like to live it. Photo Socotra, circa 2011).
We have some lucky folks here at the Writer’s Section of the Fire Ring at Refuge Farm in Virginia’s lovely Piedmont territory. We are free to talk about any darn thing we please, and the Chairman, depending on his mood, can publish what he pleases so long as the Constitution we swore to serve remains in effect.
That was the subject of some extended conversation yesterday, since the voters of Chile had a chance to register their opinion of a proposed new document to govern their affairs. It had all sorts of things included as provisions of their new social order, including dispensation for “Free Time” and a multitude of other rights and privileges. They rejected it, thankfully. No citizen should have to wade through 170 pages of legal complexities to determine if they can consider their political opponents idiots.
We agree ours is better because it is simpler. That simplicity allows us to say what we think, agree or disagree with the opinions expressed and move on with the day. We are also in regular contact with networks of other Old Salts who have seen some remarkable things. One of them has been reporting on travels and car shows in a state far away, and his writing and images are stunning. Others contribute unique perspectives on the narrative stream and we are lucky to have access to the stream.
We contribute as well to the stream of words, and have our own unique little gems. Our pal Admiral Mac Showers gave us some items we will talk about until we are in the ground. One afternoon we were having our weekly session with him at The Willow bar. It was always a fun time, and we happened to be talking about a world historical event in which he had participated. Part of it was a bold plan to trick the Imperial Japanese Navy into revealing the target of their next major fleet action at the beginning of the Pacific War. It was intended to sever control of the Pacific Ocean and establish the Emperor’s dominion across the vastness of the waves.
The trick has become something of a legend for the Old Salts who specialized in the intelligence side of the business. In that version of history, a handful of people came up with the idea of floating a false story about the failure of a water distillation system on an island. The Japanese copied the transmissions about it, and linked it to the objective for the attack.
It was an important component of establishing the decision of Admiral Chester Nimitz to fight at Midway, and a legend for those of us in the business. Splash wasn’t as interested in that part, since as a former Naval Flight Officer he understood that it was the young people who launched from Midway Atoll and the carriers that Admiral Nimitz dispatched against the Japanese Fleet who determined the result of the great victory.
Splash was interested in where in the Station HYPO office the trick had been devised, just to get some perspective. Mac smiled and pointed to the little chart of the desks. It had been discussed and determined at the corner of his desk in the middle of the little office. The Fate of the West had been determined right there, literally feet from his coffee mug.
Those sorts of questions were part of the excitement in talking to him. What the commute from Arlington, VA, to Fort Meade had been like when the National Security Agency was being built. And the matter of what it was like to be working the Estimates Section at the forward Headquarters on Guam and telling Admiral Nimitz what the numbers of dead and wounded Americans and Japanese were likely to be if an invasion of the Home Islands were to be conducted.
Sharing a glass of white wine with him about the decision making that contributed to the decision to support dropping the “Gadgets” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was electrifying, and one of the reasons that each week with Mac told us something fundamental about the way our profession operated under unimaginable stress.
There was an article in the Naval War College Review that brought it all back. We all felt a certain companionship to Admiral Nimitz, via Mac. A reminder that we knew only a part of the story is contained in the Spring 2022 issue. Title of the article? “What WAS Nimitz Thinking?”
The author of the piece is Jonathan B. Parshall, a professor at The U.S. Naval War College, and he contributes a more complete analysis of what contributed to the greatest triumph of naval warfare since Trafalgar. It is available for free with a quick search on the web, and is highly recommended.
As with many of our discussions with Mac about his long and illustrious career, it is about aspects of the official record not mentioned in the scholarly approach.
We will leave that to the professionals. We prefer the recollections of those who were actually there in those moments. How their khakis fit and felt. And moments like those Mac remembered about the battle itself, in which he sat in a darkened room waiting for the rattle of a message tube bearing reports of a battle in progress. He said he was surprised at how long he sat there, alone.
Apparently the people doing the fighting were a bit busy at the time.
Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com