It was a great day for weather and a mixed day for my personal interaction with the First Amendment. We had low eighties and sun in Arlington, and people were literally floating along the sidewalks with goofy grins, welcoming the coming warmth.

I had to take the Bluesmobile to the repair shop yesterday to have the air conditioning fixed- again. I have run the numbers, and recent winter voyage repairs have run into a few thousand dollars- or the equivalent of a fairly hefty new car payment.

We may be on a tipping point, automotively speaking, and I thought about it on the hike from garage up and over the hill to the West Falls Church Metro stop. It was a pure delight to be on foot in the sunshine, and though I had left my smokes on the driver’s seat of the police cruiser, otherwise it was hard to feature a better day.

As I walked through the Kiss N’ Ride lot I was ambushed and interviewed by a crew from a Polish TV network. They asked me about Goldman-Sachs and the dramatic resignation of that 33-year-old broker.

I said: “Those assholes were criminals and they should have been lynched. I said that long before the Occupy Crowd did.” Then I waved and walked away.

Later, back at the office, I was listening to the noted scientist Michael Mann, the guy who devised the “Hockey Stick” depiction of climate doom. He was so sanctimonious that I actually called my local NPR outlet.

I told the screener I just wanted to talk to the self-righteous jerk on the air. They hung up on me.

A mixed day for free speech, I thought, but so far we can say what we want at the Willow Bar.

Mac agreed to come out and enjoy the weather, and he was seated near the apex of the Amen Corner as I finished the dodge-em run crossing Fairfax Drive at rush hour.

“It was Nard Jones,” said Mac triumphantly. “LTJG Nard Jones.”

“Who was?” I said, hanging my briefcase by the handle from one of the little hooks positioned under the bar.

“The PAO who I worked for at the 13th Naval District. He was the spokesman for the commander, RADM Charles Freeman.”

“Oh, right,” I said, fishing out my pen and notebook. I flipped to the page where our last conversation had petered out.

“I lost a bet to Nard. I bet that Singapore would never fall to the Japs.”

“Did Nard ever collect?” I asked.

“No, the Gibraltar of the East did not surrender until the middle of February, 1942. I was already on the way to Pearl Harbor then. Nard was the son of the publisher of the Oregonian, so I doubt if he needed the money.”

“OK,” I said. “Let me warm up by going through your tours and see if we stumble across anything new.”

“Fine by me,” said Mac. “The surrender of Singapore was a stunner. We assumed that when the war came we would have a cake-walk over the Imperial forces. We significantly underestimated them. We talked about that at Elliott Carlson’s lecture about his book at the National Archives this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “How was it?”

“There were more than a hundred people there to listen and ask questions about Joe Rochefort, our Boss at Station HYPO.”

“That is a great turn-out,” I said. “Wish I had been able to make it.”
“Afterwards there was a book signing. Elliot and I both signed copies for people who bought the book.”

“Oh, yeah, you wrote the introduction, didn’t you?” Mac nodded. “The fall of Singapore was the largest capitulation in British history- 80,000 surrendered in the city after a battle that went on for just seven days.”

(Surrender at Singapore, 15 February 1942. Photo Imperial War Museum.)

“Damn,” I said.

“They joined 50,000 who had already surrendered in Malaysia. It was incredible.”
“How many survived the war?” I asked.

“They say the ones from Changi Jail did better than most. Overall, about 27% of Allied POWS died.”

I wrinkled my forehead, trying to do the math. “That amounts to something like 37,000 dead. Might have been better to fight it out.”
“Maybe. But like I said, we underestimated the Japanese. That did not last long.”
“I don’t imagine anyone asked the troops about it, did they?”
Mac shrugged. “There was not a great deal of freedom of speech in the ranks, and then, after the surrender there was none at all.”

I nodded in agreement and smiled at Liz-with-an-S and pointed in the general direction of my tulip glass as she passed, bringing Jon-no-H a replacement for his iced-tea and vodka.  “Ok,” I said. Now, let’s start with your tours after the war….
We went a long way down the road that day. Free to talk about whatever we wanted. I will have to catch up with you on the rest tomorrow.

(Jon-no-H’s raspberry vodka iced-tea. Photo Socotra.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com