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Operation Blind Spot (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 4)
Operation Blind Spot (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 4) Read online
Operation
Blind Spot
A Jock Miles WW2 Adventure
By
William Peter Grasso
Novels by William Peter Grasso:
Moon Above, Moon Below
A Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure
Operation Fishwrapper
Book 5 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Blind Spot
Book 4 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Easy Street
Book 3 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Operation Long Jump:
Book 2 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Long Walk To The Sun:
Book 1 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series
Also available in audiobook format
Unpunished
East Wind Returns
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 William Peter Grasso
All Rights Reserved
***
Book design by Alyson Aversa
Cover photo courtesy of United States National Archives
Map data: Google
Kindle Edition License Notes
Operation Blind Spot is a work of alternative historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is purely coincidental. Time lines of actual events depicted may be modified. Events that are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point in time or may not occur at all.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Novels by William Peter Grasso
Copyright
Author’s Note
Dedication
Map—Southwest Pacific
Map—Manus Island
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
About the Author
More Novels by William Peter Grasso
Author’s Note
This is a work of alternative historical fiction. In actual events, the seizing of Manus Island (and the neighboring island of Los Negros) from the Japanese by the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division played a significant role in safeguarding MacArthur’s quest for the Philippines and beyond. The storyline of this novel explores a very different method for eliminating the threat those islands presented to the Allies in early 1944.
Two fictional Nisei GIs play pivotal roles in the story you are about to read. It is a common misconception that Nisei soldiers—Japanese-American volunteers—in the US Army did not serve in the Pacific Theater during WW2. In fact, over 6,000 did. Their exploits are little known, since they were not organized into a homogenous unit as were the Nisei serving in the European Theater. Google Nisei in the Pacific Theater to find a number of books and online narratives discussing the topic.
The designation of military units may be actual or fictitious.
In no way are the fictional accounts intended to denigrate the hardships, suffering, and courage of those who served.
Contact the Author Online:
Email: William Peter Grasso
Connect with the Author on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso
Dedication
To the reluctant warriors…
Who fight not because they want to
But because they have to
Chapter One
He was starting to remember things…like the airplane’s call sign: Nightingale 12. That’s the plane that was flying us GIs to the big hospital at Port Moresby.
I guess we didn’t make it.
Remembering his name was easy. All he had to do was read it off the dog tags around his neck: MILES MAYNARD J…but everyone calls me Jock, I think.
Native women fluttered around his low-slung hammock, their bare, dark breasts swaying like pendulums with every movement. They seemed surprised he was awake—or maybe surprised he was still alive. They were jabbering a mile a minute. It sounded like pidgin, but it was spoken so rapidly he couldn’t follow it. The women wore shiny olive drab skirts that must have been made of parachute cloth. Somewhere on each skirt was a block-letter “US” printed in black.
The hammock looked like it was made from parachute cloth, too, strung between poles in this open-sided hut. Outside, he could see a few other huts clustered together, all with thatched roofs and built on stilts to keep them level on the steeply sloped terrain.
We’re in a mountain village. In a rainforest. Somewhere.
He could’ve seen more of his surroundings if he’d been able to sit up. But he was too weak…
And every part of me hurts. Did we crash? I don’t remember.
The native women stood aside as a man’s voice boomed from the hut’s entryway, speaking a language Jock Miles could understand. “Well, laddie,” the voice said, “I hardly recognized you with all that hair on your face. Did you Yanks forget how to shave?”
Jock could see the man now. He recognized him: the old Australian coast watcher who’d been his guide, his advisor, and his friend since he first set foot in Papua. But try as he might, he couldn’t remember the man’s name. A thin, embarrassed smile was all he could offer.
A spry, middle-aged white woman joined the old Aussie inside the hut. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Jock my boy,” he said. “Ginny and I will have you back where you belong in no time. Your Army might not give a bloody damn what happened to you—but we certainly do.”
Ginny…that key unlocked a flood of names in Jock’s memory. The man standing over him was Commander Trevor Shaw. Ginny was Ginny Beech, Shaw’s right-hand woman. But there was one name floating above the rest, riding the last crests of his consciousness. His voice frail, Jock asked, “Jillian…is she…?”
He could tell by the looks on their faces. They might have found him, but Jillian was still gone. One last, painful memory came alive, the note that said the woman he loved was missing…presumed drowned.
Presumed…
And then he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Jock awoke to the drumming of rain against the tarp suspended over his stretcher by wet and glistening native porters. His rescue party had stopped its descent on the mountain trail to wait out the torrential downpour. The tarp was barely large enough to shelter the stretcher. A thoroughly soaked T
revor Shaw stuck his head beneath it and said, “Ahh, good, laddie…you’re awake. It’s time for your medicine.”
“What…what medicine, sir?”
Reaching into his rucksack, Shaw uncapped a brown bottle, its label in Japanese. “The quinine, Jock, for your malaria,” he replied, offering a rather large pill like a priest giving Holy Communion. “Courtesy of the Nips. It seems your native friends came into a rather large stash those yellow bastards left behind.”
He slid the bitter pill into Jock’s mouth, and then held a canteen to his lips to help get it down. “Without it, you’d have been dead a while ago, buried up on that mountain with the rest of the poor souls on that plane.”
“We…crashed?”
“Yes, Jock, you crashed.”
“How long?”
“About three months ago, in January. It’s April 1943 now. And the war’s not near over yet.”
“Where…where are we?”
“About a two-day walk from the south coast road. From there, we’ll hitch a ride with your military back to Port Moresby.”
“How…did you…find me?”
“It’s simple, laddie,” Shaw replied. “Unlike your Army, we pay attention to what the locals have to say.” He paused, and then added, “Still, once your Air Force stopped looking for the crash site, it took us a month to figure out where you were.”
The rain’s ferocity began to ease. Shaw patted Jock on the shoulder and said, “Now don’t you worry about a thing, Major Miles. We’ll be moving again in short order.”
As Trevor Shaw hurried his party back to the trail, he said to Ginny Beech, “The lad’s in worse shape than we reckoned, girl. Pray he doesn’t die on us.”
Chapter Two
September 1943—Camp Cable, Queensland, Australia
The young Army doctor was having a rough time understanding his patient’s attitude. Usually, when you told a soldier he was being sent home, the man showed delight to the full limits of his physical capabilities. But this major sitting on the bed before him was anything but pleased by the news.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jock Miles said, “I’m perfectly fine now.”
The doctor shook his head. “The decision of the review board is unanimous, Major. True, the gunshot wound in your shoulder has healed nicely and your malaria seems to be well under control, but you suffered severe head trauma in that plane crash—”
“Come on, Doc. I haven’t had so much as a headache in weeks.”
“Regardless, Major, you’ve been classified as no longer fit for combat duty. The only reason you’ve been in this hospital as long as you have is you weren’t deemed fit to travel. But now you are. The ship leaves in two days. You’ll be transported to Brisbane Harbor tomorrow.”
Jock smirked and slumped back against the pillows. “Sure, Doc,” he said, “whatever you say.” The words weren’t an expression of defeat, just his way of indicating the conversation was over.
Once the doctor had finished his rounds in the ward tent, Jock hopped out of bed and approached the duty nurse, a harried young second lieutenant fresh from the States. She looked up from the paperwork on her desk and, sounding not terribly sure of herself, said, “Major Miles, you know you’re not supposed to be out of bed.”
“Sorry to bother you, Lieutenant, but I need to borrow your phone for a minute.”
“But sir, this phone is for hospital business only. I could get in a lot of trouble if—”
“I’m sure General MacArthur will consider it hospital business, Lieutenant,” he said, trying to sound as officious as possible standing there in baby blue pajamas.
She looked like she was about to cry. “You can’t call back home on this line, you know,” she said. “Guys ask me that all the time.”
“I don’t need to call home, Lieutenant…just the other side of camp.”
“Well….maybe just this once, sir.” She slid the phone across the desk and added, “Try not to let anyone else see you, okay?” before scurrying off.
From his ward tent, Jock watched as Captain Theo Papadakis parked the jeep on the far side of the ramshackle hut housing the officers’ latrine. Carrying a large paper sack, the Mad Greek went inside. Jock, still in hospital pajamas, made the short walk and joined him.
“Here we go, sir,” Papadakis said, pulling clothes and shoes from the bag. “A fresh set of khakis and low quarters for you. Got all your decorations up to date, too.”
Shucking the baby blue pajamas, Jock replied, “Good work, Theo. Just in time, too.”
The Mad Greek looked concerned, though. “You really think we’ll be able to pull this off, sir? I mean, you’ve got orders back to the States and all.”
“Just get me out of this damn hospital, Theo, and let me worry about the rest.”
“You know, sir, a whole bunch of us back in Papua tried to go looking for you with Commander Shaw and Miss Ginny…but Division put the screws to it. Said if we missed the movement to Australia, we’d be considered deserters.”
“That sounds just like something Division would say. But I appreciate the thought, Theo. I really do.”
As he watched Jock stuff the pajamas and hospital slippers into the paper sack, Papadakis asked, “Whaddya gonna do with the baby blues, sir?”
“Burn them.”
“Roger, sir,” Papadakis said, and then peeked outside the latrine tent. “Coast is clear. Let’s make tracks.”
They drove up to a little wooden sign that said HQ, 81st Infantry. Theo Papadakis brought the jeep to a halt and told Jock, “Welcome home, sir. Colonel Molloy is expecting you.”
In the regimental HQ tent, Dick Molloy began with a simple question: “Are you sure you’re up to returning to duty, Jock?”
“I’m sure, sir, despite all those doctors trying to convince me otherwise.”
“Well, fortunately for you—and me, Jock—it’s really not up to the doctors. They can’t ground an infantryman who wants to fight. But I’m curious…why do you want to stay? Nobody would think the less of you taking the free ride home. Not after what you’ve been through.”
“That just wouldn’t work for me, sir. I owe too much to too many people.”
“If you’re talking about Commander Shaw and Missus Beech…hell, after the effort they put into bringing you back from the dead, they’d be grateful if you tried staying alive for a change.”
Jock shook his head. “It’s not just them, sir…”
Molloy nodded. He knew who Jock was referring to: Jillian Forbes. But there was no need to say it out loud. The look on Jock Miles’ face—that look of pain, like a dagger had been plunged into his soul—said it all. There was no point making that pain worse by uttering her name.
“If it wasn’t for her,” Jock said, “my men and I would’ve died at Buna…”
Molloy finished the sentence in his head: But she died instead. Tough break, fella…real tough break.
It was Jock who broke the uncomfortable silence that ensued, asking, “So I can have my battalion back, sir?”
“It’s yours if you want it.”
“I do, sir.”
“Then it’s done, Jock. Major Meriweather is a good staff officer…but as a C.O., he’s just not cutting the mustard. I’ll be glad to get him out of that job before your Sergeant Major Patchett arranges some accident to happen to him.”
Molloy led him to a large scale map of New Guinea and asked, “How much do you know about the eight months since we seized Buna?”
“I know the Aussies have pushed the Japs back through the jungle beyond Lae and the Huon Peninsula,” Jock said, tracing that advance on the map. “I heard they had some help from our Forty-First Division…and we even dropped in paratroopers to take an airfield”—he searched the map for the location—“ahh, here it is…at this place called Nadzab. I’m assuming MacArthur wants to keep pushing westward along the northern coast.”
“You assume right, Jock.”
“Is our division ready to get back in the fight, sir?”
/> “Not quite yet. The Thirty-Second was decimated at Buna…but I certainly don’t need to tell you that. We’ve trained our replacement troops as much as we can here in Queensland. In a few weeks we’ll be returning to Papua for three months of jungle training.” Molloy swept his hand along the map, tracing the entire expanse of New Guinea’s northern coast. “And where we go after that is anyone’s guess.”
Chapter Three
February 1944—Goodenough Island, Papua New Guinea
The little island off Papua’s eastern tip was an excellent training ground. Jock Miles and his veterans of Port Moresby and Buna were using it to great advantage. The rookies they trained were receiving an excellent education in how to fight and survive in the jungle. This morning’s exercise was a perfect example: the companies of Jock’s 1st Battalion slipped through the dense jungle without bunching up or straggling, adjusting the artillery fire clearing the path before them by the sound of its unseen impacts alone. When they reached the base of the hill crowned with their objective, the infantry’s advance up its slope was perfectly coordinated with the lifting of the artillery fire. The hypothetical defenders of that hilltop—if they survived the barrage—would’ve had but seconds to lift their heads before the attacking GIs were upon them, dispatching them with bullets and bayonets.
“Excellent attack,” Jock Miles said. Melvin Patchett, his battalion sergeant major, couldn’t have agreed more.
Patchett said, “It seems like yesterday…hell, it damn near was yesterday…they wanted us to do this without any artillery support at all.”
“And like idiots, we tried to do it, too, Top,” Jock replied.