(Model of an S-Class diesel submarine like Jasper’s)
 
Mac says the S-Class were dank and chilly craft, which exasperated a bad case of osteoarthritis, and LT Holmes found himself medically retired and on the beach in lovely Hawaii. There are worse things in life, and Jasper used his unexpected change of career to reinvent himself. He wrote, beautifully, as it turned out, and out of deference to his day job at the University of Hawaii, wrote under a pen name he dreamed up.
 
“Alec Hudson” was what he chose, and as you might imagine, a naval officer with a bogus identity is something that resonates closely here at Refuge Farm. He wrote compelling accounts of  life in the Submarine Force. He was published in the Saturday Evening Post, among other less prestigious places, and he was read avidly by those later caught up in the terror and excitement of the war.
 
His best known works of fiction are compilations of his shorter works “Up Periscope!” and “Battle Stations.”
 
A casual reading will betray the fact that they directly inspired the young Gene Roddenbery. The charismatic Scotsman of Star Trek (“I dinna can change the laws of Fizziks, Captain!”) and Jasper’s Captain Jaimeson and Roddenberry’s Captain Kirk are unmistakeable.
 
Jasper was recalled to active duty in mid-1941 with the anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific. His original duties were shore-based at the headquarters of the 14th Naval District. He essentially assigned himself with the tracking of merchant vessels in the Pacific. In peacetime, it is simple enough to use ship’s weather reports to provide locational data, and this association brought him closer and closer to the Spooks.
 
The Big Surprise on December 7th was naturally a shock. Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lt. General Short were fingered for the blame, and relieved for cause. Chief Naval Personnel Chester Nimitz was tagged to command the battered Pacfic Fleet over dozens of officers more senior.
 
Washington would not admit that it was bitter rivalries between Army and Navy, and within the Navy itself that exacerbated the blind spot that permitted the Japanese to land a knock-out blow on the Pacific Fleet.
 
Jasper was propelled into the maelstrom of the response in the Combat Intelligence Unit- Station HYPO. While not initially allowed access to the sensitive COMINT mission, he swiftly became integral to it and was one of the handful of people indoctrinated into the ULTRA program.
 
Because he had no direct cryptographic or Japanese language experience, CDR Joe Rochefort decided Jasper’s experience as a submarine officer would best be harnessed in assessing various sources of intelligence to determine the strength, composition and movements of various Japanese military units . LT Holmes became chief of the Information Section of the CIU- later known as the Estimates Branch.
 
That is where Ensign Mac met the man who was going to save his life. He had copies of the books that Jasper wrote, both inscribed to him, but they are long gone in the constant shuffle of belongings in a Navy life.

Edward “Ned” Beach, was a Naval Academy midshipman who went on to command submarines and have a distinguished writing career (“Run Silent, Run Deep!) of his own. He recognized “Alec Hudson” as the pen name of a naval officer, and made a point of finding out who he was. He wrote about Jasper many years later, saying:
 
    …[he] had become an intelligence officer at Pearl Harbor and, after the attack on the Day of Infamy, had taken on himself the particular and personal dedication to see the destruction of every ship that had participated in it. During the war, from time to time, commanders of submarines would receive by messenger, without explanation, a bottle of fine whiskey. Little by little the word got around that one of the Japanese ships sunk on a recent patrol had carried special significance for someone. In this way Jasper Holmes never left out submarines. It was through him that we would receive orders to be somewhere at a certain time – and on occasion there was a bottle of booze at the end of the trail.”
 
That is what Jasper was up to, and with Mac and his two Petty Officers, he was going to do it with complete success.
 
Oh, yeah, I could tell you the story about how Jasper foxed the Japanese at Midway, and got several of the bastards, but you could always just look it up.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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