(Military Doctrine of “Shit Happens” from Joint Pub 1)   Preparations for offensive operations against Japan had been in place since the days of Plan Orange; there is nothing our military has learned how to do better than plan. Mac was part of all that, of course, and I have a couple of stories that […]

(Then Captain Edward Layton. Official navy Picture)   Eddie Layton was there. He said “Kimmel stood by the windows of his office at the submarine base… a spent .50 caliber machine gun bullet crashed through the glass.” It cut the front of his white blouse and bruised him on the chest. Layton reported the Pacific […]

(CAPT Joe Rocheford. Official US Navy Picture).   Washington had been predicting that the attack could happen in the middle of June, and fall upon either Alaska, or perhaps to the south. Had anyone in the Pacific paid attention to their better-resourced predictions, the Japanese would have been using the Fleet Post Office code they […]

(Traitor John Walker) “It is just good that we did not have to go to war with the Russians. But John Walker started supplying code material to them in 1967, and there is evidence that the Pueblo incident was a result of them wanting the machine enciphering equipment to run the keying material. The North […]

(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 […]

(Willow Restaurant and Bar, Arlington, VA.) Mac was intent about the Winds messages. I had not meant to get into it, since it was an intellectual fight of long standing for a lot of people who are no longer alive, It was always in the background during the war, part of the long battle between […]

(USS Nevada entering dry dock, 18 Feb 1942 near the 14th Naval District HQ and CIU/Station HYPO. Official Navy Photo.)   My ears perked up. “So you went to work for him?” I made a note on the napkin in front of me, nearly knocking over the wineglass, which was wedged against the plates and […]

(Back of Mac’s first Navy ID card, Iowa City, Pay Entry Base Date 15 Aug 1940. Photo at Willow, Socotra) The wine was chill in the dimness of the Willow Bar. They turn the lights down at 5:15 each afternoon to encourage the enthusiasm of the regulars. The pork spring rolls from the neighborhood restaurant […]

The amount of classified information released over the last week by the helpful people at Wikileaks is breathtaking. In fact, the whole thing laves me breathless.   Three days ago, the website posted over 91,000 reports written by soldiers and intelligence officers describing what the site calls “lethal actions” involving US Forces in Afghanistan between […]

(Lieutenant Thomas Wheat Swearing in some New Fish. Photo courtesy t3.gstatic.com)   I recall the day with a sort of vague cotton wool memory. It was in Detroit, at the Military Entrance Processing Center, and a disengaged Petty Officer handled me after the young Lieutenant had me raise my right hand and recite some words. […]