Shadows In the Jungle (7 page)

But this victory did not satisfy MacArthur, who was still sixteen hundred miles from the Philippines and twenty-one hundred miles from Manila. MacArthur blamed his lack of progress on his superiors, writing to an admirer, “Probably no commander in American history has been so poorly supported,” and calling it “a national shame.”

He disliked the Joint Chiefs of Staff intensely, and they returned the sentiment, especially the volatile Adm. Ernest J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations. King was so forceful in his condemnation of MacArthur at one meeting that the mild-mannered chief of staff, George C. Marshall, uncharacteristically slammed his fist on the table and said, “I will not have any meetings carried on with this hatred.”

This mutual dislike and distrust between MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs spilled over to the battlefield. In planning his eventual return to the Philippines, MacArthur first had to retake New Guinea, as well as the Admiralties, Bismarcks, and lesser island groups, and neutralize the Japanese naval base at Rabaul on New Britain. To ensure success in these movements, MacArthur understood that he needed accurate and dependable intelligence concerning enemy troop strengths, defenses, and morale, as well as beach conditions, waves, tides, and underwater obstacles. But where commanders in other theaters of operation used the highly skilled men of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, the forerunner of today's CIA, MacArthur refused, suspicious of its ties to the Pentagon.

Instead, to collect his needed information, MacArthur relied on a hodgepodge of sources, such as the Australian Coast Watcher Service, the Allied Intelligence Bureau, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, the Allied Geographical Section, and the navy's underwater demolition teams.

However, since these services fell under different commanders in both the army and navy, and interservice suspicion and rivalries ran rampant throughout the officer corps, it proved difficult for MacArthur to get accurate and timely intelligence. Commanders, both American and Allied, were reluctant to share their data.

In the fall of 1943, as plans were being made for the seizure of western New Britain, code-named Operation Dexterity, a group called the 7th Amphibious Force Special Service Unit #1 was formed, under the command of Lt. William B. Coultas.

Nicknamed the “Amphibious Scouts,” the small ad hoc force was a joint navy-army operation that would combine the army skills of long-range ground reconnaissance with the navy skills of beach markings, demolition, and hydrologic studies, into a potent intelligence-gathering force.

The Amphibious Scouts were a combined effort between Adm. Daniel E. Barbey and one of MacArthur's top ground commanders, Maj. Gen. Walter E. Krueger, commander of the sixty thousand men who comprised the 6th Army.

A gruff, wiry Texan, Krueger had been selected to spearhead Operation Dexterity. Krueger, whose father, Julius, had fought under Otto von Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War, was just eight years old when he came to America with his mother in 1889, four years after his father's death. Krueger joined the army in 1898 and served as a private with the 2nd U.S. Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War. His volunteer enlistment ended after four months, and he reenlisted in the regular army, being assigned to the 12th Infantry. He saw action in the Philippines during the Philippine Insurrection, where he was elevated to sergeant. His actions in the taking of the barrio of San Juan de Guimba led to a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant, and he was assigned to the 30th Infantry.

During the First World War, Krueger held a staff position and by 1919 was a lieutenant colonel. Marshall promoted him to brigadier general in 1941 and assigned him to the 3rd Army, which, by the time of its activation in January 1942, had been redesignated the 6th Army. Krueger, who had settled in San Antonio, Texas, dubbed his command with the code name the Alamo Force, in honor of the old Spanish mission in his adopted hometown.

The Alamo Force, comprised of about sixty thousand men, reached Australia in February 1943, and the general was put at the head of the Papua phase of MacArthur's New Guinea operations.

Krueger's hope that the Amphibious Scouts would be the answer to MacArthur's prayers for reliable intelligence was dashed on the group's first mission. The assignment was a ten-day reconnaissance, October 6 to 16, of the Gasmata area near Cape Gloucester in New Britain.

Before the unit's departure, Krueger briefed mission leader Lt. Milton Beckworth of his intelligence, or G2, section, on what to look for, and to report directly back to him upon their return. The information would then be shared with the navy.

The ten-day mission went smoothly, but a communications glitch on the last day meant the PT boats assigned to recover the team failed to arrive. With no way back, the Amphibious Scouts were stranded behind enemy lines. Their rations depleted, and forced to eat what they could scrounge from the jungle, the half-starved men were finally picked up and returned to their base on October 27, eleven days after their initial pickup date.

There was still more disturbing news, especially for Krueger. Beckworth, who was to report to his general as soon as he returned, was instead shanghaied by the navy and taken to Milne Bay at the eastern tip of New Guinea. There, over his protestations, he was held in seclusion and questioned about the mission by Naval Intelligence officers. After the debriefing, he was forced to remain, a virtual prisoner, on a boat anchored offshore. Four days into his ordeal, Beckworth managed to get topside, dove into the water, and swam to shore. Wet and angry, he worked his way back to Krueger's headquarters.

As Krueger listened to Beckworth's story, his face reddened in anger from the neck up, like a rising thermometer.

“To hell with this,” Krueger raged. “I'll form my own intelligence unit.”

Turning to an aide, he said, “Have Colonel Bradshaw report to my headquarters as soon as possible.”

In that moment of anger, the 6th U.S. Army Special Reconnaissance Unit, which would become known as the Alamo Scouts, was born. The unit would play a key role in bringing the campaign in the southwest Pacific to a successful conclusion, and prove itself one of the most potent weapons in American intelligence-gathering history.

CHAPTER 3

 

 

 

 

S
eated at his desk at 6th Army G2, Lt. Col. Frederick W. Bradshaw studied the orders he had just received from General Krueger. Dated November 21, 1943, the order read:

 

As directed by Krueger, Bradshaw was to set up a rigorous, innovative program gleaned from the training manuals of other elite units, such as Carlson's Raiders, Merrill's Marauders, the Amphibious Scouts, the Devil's Brigade, and Darby's Rangers, with a focus on intelligence gathering, jungle survival, and fighting skills. The new outfit was to be called the 6th U.S. Army Special Reconnaissance Unit, or Alamo Scouts, in deference to its parent organization, the 6th Army “Alamo Force.”

Bradshaw was then to put out a call throughout the 6th Army for volunteers who wished to perform hazardous duty and develop them into a reconnaissance force capable of infiltrating enemy lines, gathering needed information, and getting out, preferably undetected. He had the pick of almost any man he wanted under Krueger's command and free rein to equip them with the best weapons and materials the U.S. Army could provide. The training camp would also be the unit's base of operations and could be wherever Bradshaw wanted, provided it was within easy reach of Krueger, for the general considered this unit his personal reconnaissance force, and their use in the field was solely at his discretion.

Bradshaw had served as G2 intelligence officer for the 31st Division until he had been plucked from there by Krueger to serve on his staff in January 1943. The general liked Bradshaw's clear-sighted intelligence and his quiet but firm leadership abilities.

An attorney from Jackson, Mississippi, prior to the war Bradshaw had political ambitions on the state level, including an eye on the governor's office.

Bradshaw had joined the Mississippi National Guard in 1931, serving as a private in Company C of the 155th Infantry. Shortly thereafter, with his background and abilities, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and began to climb the command ladder. In October 1940, Bradshaw joined the 31st Division as assistant judge advocate and within four months was promoted to major and assigned to the general staff as assistant chief of staff for the division. Sent to general staff school, he graduated on December 6, 1941, just as Japan's Pearl Harbor strike force was closing on Oahu.

Now Bradshaw had been assigned to recruit and train an elite, tough team of jungle specialists, and for that he knew he needed an equally elite and tough staff of instructors.

His first selection as executive officer was Maj. John F. Polk, formerly of the 1st Cavalry Division, but he soon lost Polk to 6th Army HQ, where he was made liaison officer.

Bradshaw next turned to Capt. Homer A. Williams as his XO and chief training officer. The Philadelphia native joined the army in 1927 and rose through the ranks, where he developed a widespread reputation as a stern disciplinarian. With a shock of fire-engine-red hair—he was one of several men among the Scouts to be dubbed “Red”—and a gruff demeanor, he was a man to be obeyed. No soldier who served under Williams wanted to be called into his office for a dressing-down, for he handed out punishments long to be remembered.

Williams's job would be to help Bradshaw recruit and interview candidates, implement the training program, and select the men who would eventually comprise the Scout teams.

For his supply officer, Bradshaw needed someone resourceful, so he turned to 1st Lt. Mayo S. Stuntz. Hailing from Vienna, Virginia, Stuntz was a former member of the Naval Amphibious Scouts. Bradshaw met Stuntz while the two worked together for 6th Army G2 and knew the man was a superior scrounger.

Bradshaw called on Stuntz and told him about the Scouts and what he wanted Stuntz to do.

“I want these men to have the best of everything, weapons, food, accommodations, you name it,” Bradshaw told Stuntz. “Think you can handle it?”

Stuntz nodded.

“Provided you don't care about where or how I get the stuff,” he said.

Bradshaw smiled.

“No questions asked,” he replied with a wink.

Capt. Richard “Doc” Canfield of Pittsburgh had seen duty as a frontline medical officer on Guadalcanal and was working with the 52nd Evacuation Hospital in New Caledonia when Bradshaw approached him. Canfield agreed to serve as medical officer, as well as to oversee camp and mess hall cleanliness. He would also be tasked with teaching the Scout candidates advanced jungle first aid. Typical of the tropics, Canfield would also spend a great deal of time trying to prevent or control malaria, dengue fever, dysentery, and the other myriad of afflictions that could knock a man out of action as effectively as a Japanese bullet. Canfield became very popular with the unit as the inventor of “torpedo juice,” a concoction of fruit juice and torpedo propellant, guaranteed to loosen the tongues of even the most tight-lipped of men during the debriefing after a mission.

Assisting Canfield would be his team of medics, men like Dominick Cicippio, a Norristown, Pennsylvania, boy who transferred to the Scouts from the 24th Division. Cicippio and the other medics would not accompany Scouts on missions. Instead, they remained in camp, helping tend those who returned injured or were down with illness. They also implemented Canfield's program of camp sanitation and safety, a job that included, Cicippio recalled, inspecting the area each morning for any of the island's ninety varieties of snakes, especially the lethal taipan and the death adder, who might decide to take up residence in the camp overnight.

The post of adjutant was vacant until April 1944, when Bradshaw tapped Lt. Lewis B. Hochstrasser, who had just graduated from the training program and had impressed Bradshaw. A Billings, Montana, native, Hochstrasser had joined the Montana National Guard in 1932 and enlisted in the regular army on January 8, 1941. As adjutant, his duties included payroll and censoring mail, as well as instructing the volunteers in message writing and how to use the army's Intelligence Handbook.

Except for Hochstrasser, Bradshaw's staff was assembled by Thanksgiving 1943. His next task was selecting instructors. For these jobs, Bradshaw turned to former members of the recently disbanded Naval Amphibious Scouts, men who had already mastered such skills as rubber boat handling, infiltrating enemy lines, scouting and patrolling, and communications and intelligence gathering. These were all talents his candidates would need. Only the best instructors would do.

One of Bradshaw's first choices was Lieutenant Beckworth, the young Naval Amphibious Scout officer who had led the mission to Gasmata in October and had been kidnapped by the navy on his team's return.