1942 A. D.
Jonas Gumby, recently promoted to Chief Petty Officer, spent the trip back from Guadalcanal as jubilant as a man who'd survived a heart attack.
It had been rough. His vessel, Subchaser #307, had been used as a landing craft to get supplies and reinforcements ashore. The ensuring fighting had been desperate, even before the final sudden assault of dive bombers had forced them to abandon ship.
Fortunately, those dive bombers had been out of ammunition, just making dry run attacks to harass the sub chaser. Jonas and the others had reboarded the vessel and set to repairing its damage.
Much of it had been patched up and they were just now finishing limping back to Australia, where full repairs would have to be done.
Many of the men, including Jonas, were imagining what to do with the leave their skipper had promised them. Some talked about peace and quiet, contemplative reading, and a chance to see a film. Others of course talked about booze and beautiful Australian gals.
From a discipline standpoint all of that talk was okay. Not okay was a newspaper someone had been mailed. A page was being passed around.
In the photos the idle millionaire, Thurston Howell III, wore fancy golf clothes and practiced putting, at the side of his lovely wife. Her outfit included a hat that cost more then an average man's wages for a year. Howell's putter looked functional enough, but even in the black and white of the photo there was something too classy about his monogrammed golf bag and his overly shiny ball. Around the photos was an interview of him discussing how he was putting the companies in his financial empire on war time footing. He said all the right things about the war effort, but to one question he said the wrong thing, namely "To use money to make money you have to adapt to the conditions. In the boom times of the 1920s fancy cufflinks were a good seller. During the depression, the cheapest canned goods sold enough in volume to make up for their small profit margin. Now the government's buying up all the aircraft engines and shell casings we can build."
The men began a little grumbling, them fighting off Guadalcanal while Mr. Moneybags with his fancy lifestyle was making money off the war, and you could bet he wouldn't be joining the service anytime soon.
Jonas blocked the problem from getting worse. "That mans probably never done a days work in his life. Do you really want him to enlist, and be assigned to this vessel? He'd probably be all "I say, we've been on watch almost two whole hours. When is the cocktail hour? And can the ship's bartender make a decent martini. And who do I talk to about upgrading to a first class cabin, don't worry I can pay.""
The men began to chuckle. He continued "With his education and connections he'd probably be an officer. Do you want Ensign Howell as officer of the deck? All "I say, I need to practice my putting so turn down those engines to one third, the noise is too distracting at this speed. And you boatswain's mate, there's only room on the deck to practice putting, but having a caddy gets me in the golfing mood so walk behind me and carry the full set of clubs. And you, gunner's mate, ask the cook if we can use the good china for lunch today.""
The men smiled, morale crisis was averted, everyone was glad Howell was in his civilian home where he belonged, and not in the Pacific.
He did check the story on the other side of that sheet of paper, to see if that could lead to a morale problem. It was about a science fair for high school students. As he looked at the one photo of the many lads and few lasses, he decided that the men would recognize the idea of their kid brothers training to be the future scientists, inventors and professors of America, as what they were fighting for, not a bunch of slackers goofing off.
After they parked the vessel in drydock, the men were all given passes and let into town. Jonas lingered, and heard two of the lower ranking men on the drydock crew talking about how the pumping can be a lot of work, so hoped this repair job could be done without pumping the dock dry.
At that stupidity, Jonas felt a wave of anger surge through him. He knew the officers would order the pumping, but he needed to let the wave wash against someone. So he went over and asked, in a voice that showed controlled anger "Did you see the damage report on my ship?"
"Yes." Came the reply.
"What's damaged?"
"One of the screws."
"And what part of the ship is the screw?"
"The propeller shaft."
"Right. And do you have gills to breath water like a fish?"
"No." Came the puzzled reply.
Now was the time to discharge his anger. He yelled "Then how are you going to repair that without pumping the dock dry!"
The poor sailor got as far as "Um" when he was interrupted by applause. Jonas turned, and then saluted a short sandy haired man with the insignia of a full commander.
The officer returned his salute. "I'm Teasdale, Naval Intelligence. Tell me, do your duties include being on the radio? Would the Japs know your voice?"
"No, Sir." He replied.
"Good, good. I need a man with a voice like yours for an operation we're about to launch."
Next thing Jonas knew, his leave was canceled. He and the commander were on a cruiser returning to the Guadalcanal area. The force included cruisers, destroyers and fast transport ships. He didn't have any duties, which was restful for the first day, then just got boring.
The last morning, when they were a few hours out from Guadalcanal, the Teasdale took him aside and explained the plan.
Pointing at a map, he said "Our marines hold this part of the island, the rest is Japanese. While the transports do a quick unloading, the cruisers provide artillery support for our boys to attack."
"Also, we're going to divide the Japanese effort by tricking them into thinking we're landing more troops behind their lines at this beach here." His fingers danced as he pointed to different spots. "We will do this by firing some shells into this area here and by me and you doing a little show on this little radio I brought with." He got out some brief scripts, and handed one to Jonas. "Let's practice our lines."
On the first run through, Jonas read his lines with military correctness, a career naval man reporting to a superior officer. Teasdale made a sad face.
"Anyone can read like you are reading. But the Japanese are a well ordered society dedicated to group effort. Deep down they think Americans are individualists, like the lone riders in Westerns. If we conform to that stereotype, they'll instinctively believe our feint. So I need you to be the voice of anger. Do you understand?"
"Sir you're reading calmly." Jonas pointed out.
"My part does not call for anger. Your part does."
After another failed read through, he asked "What happened to the angry voice who chewed out that idiot at the drydock?"
"You're not that idiot, Sir."
"I am in the script. Besides, I had your shore leave canceled. Australia."
"It was for the good of the service, Commander."
"What if I accidentally stepped on your feet?"
"What if you what—"
With no pretense of it being an accident, Teasdale stomped his foot on Jonas's. Jonas stood at attention to his superior, his face boiling.
"Chief, I order you to tell me what you think."
It wasn't an order that should be obeyed for discipline, but Jonas knew that more provocation would be coming until it was so he let loose. "Idiot louse ridden know nothing intelligence officers! I think, SIR that you should leave the Pacific and go back to the stateside job you're best suited for, that of Soda Jerk! Sir."
The officer reached into his supply box and pulled out a towel. Holding it before Jonas, he said "Now punch the towel seven or eight times."
Jonas worked through a little of his anger, but not much. The officer pointed to the script and said "Now use that anger when it's called for."
Later they stood on the ships deck and watched the gun crews shelling the enemy. At the key moment, they broke out Teasdale's radio and began their conversation. (They only needed one radio, as the script was written so only one would talk at a time. Also, their real position and pretend position were at the same angle from the suspected enemy Radio Direction Finding equiptment.)
Jonas, in a controlled voice that hinted at excitement read the first line. "Ram command calling Bedouin."
"Bedouin here." The commander calmly replied.
"Beach is clear. Expedite landing-all Ram forces to hit beach A-S-A-P."
"What Unit is this?"
Showing controlled exasperation, Jonas stated "This is Ram command."
The commander calmly responded "Bedouin to unknown unit. Be advised I do not recognize your call sign."
Still showing barely controlled exasperation "Bedouin did you or did you not get the call signs for this operation."
After a pause, the reply came. "We did both the original and the revised."
"The Revised?! [Brief pause] Can you check both copies to find my call sign?"
"Negative. Our SOP is to burn the outdated call signs to prevent confusion."
He gave vent to his anger "What the SAM HILL! Do I need to identify my unit or beach on an open frequency!?" (He was smiling. Yelling was fun.)
"Can you use semaphore?"
"Navy, my men aren't trained in semaphore!" He paused, before committing the horrible but necessary security breach. "This is the CO of the 177th infantry! I've personally landed with my reconnaissance platoon to check out the situation. Beachhead is clear! Land my regiment immediately!"
After a few hours, the firing slacked. A radioman from the bridge came over. "Hello commander, [they exchanged quick salutes] chief, [they exchanged polite nods.] did you get any coffee? We have extra on the bridge."
"They gave us some." Jonas replied.
"I know you Intelligence guys can't talk about your secret mission, but I hear this one's a real doozy."
No real surprise there. Everyone knew rumors spread like wildfire on a ship like this.
"We're looking forward to logging your signals as soon as we hear you send them." He chuckled.
WHAT? Jonas and Teasdale looked at each other.
After checking what frequencies the bridge monitored, Teasdale asked for technicians to inspect his portable radio. They found his batteries were defective. There was no point in broadcasting now; the day's push had ended as had the shelling that was supposed to "cover" their nonexistent landing.
Later one of the cruiser's motorboats was sent ashore to drop off some extra medical supplies they'd been carrying for the marines. Complaining of boredom gave Jonas a chance to ride along and actually do something. As their Cruiser's sickbay was barely in use, they took the opportunity to pick up a few of the wounded for transport back to Australia.
Riding back to in the truck with men so totally relieved to be leaving the island; he was infected by their view of what a danger zone Guadalcanal was. Nervously, he begin imagining a surprise Japanese attack that had sliced through the lines, imagining Jap soldiers around the next turn. But it was silly, and he carefully did his best not to let it show. Later he forgave himself, remembering that he was only use to facing danger on a ship, never on land.
Sailing back to Australia, Teasdale had him sign a document swearing to keep this operation secret until it was declassified. Considering that declassifying it would tip their hand if they tried it again and more importantly the embarrassment to the Navy if it got out, he doubted it would ever be declassified.
He got back to Australia just as the rest of the crew of Subchaser #307 got back from leave. The men were swapping tales of what happened on their leave. He didn't join in.
As they sailed out, a gunner's mate accidentally dropped a belt of ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns. As the deck rolled with the motion of the waves the belt rolled and Jonas yelled at the man till he recovered it.
Later off watch, he began self-analyzing in his bunk.
He did enjoy yelling at clumsiness. Yelling seemed the natural punishment for that. Also for stupidity, Teasdale had recognized that in him. But some problems weren't caused by those things. The complaints about Howell had been quite reasonable. Neither that nor the storms at sea he often faced inspired him to yell.
He decided he liked to yell when people were overly incapable at things they were supposed to accomplish. He'd wanted to yell at Teasdale's stupidity in not checking his radio equipment before the operation that had caused him to loose shore leave for nothing. But he couldn't yell at Teasdale, Teasdale was an officer.
He recognized that no matter what, some things will always go wrong. Like one of his schoolteachers, Mrs. Kath, used to say "On everyone's walk home, some rain must fall."
Before he fell asleep he began to wish that all the things that went wrong would be caused by gross incapability of a subordinate. Then it would be okay to yell and it would be SO SATISFYING.
By the end of the week, he'd forgotten this idea, at least consciously. But years later, for his own boat, he hired Gilligan.
Author's note-I recently viewed season #1. Almost all references to the skipper's veteran status identify him as a Navy man, including "Goodnight Sweet Skipper" where he seems to have been a petty officer on Subchaser # 307 (also described as a landing craft) near Guadalcanal. The one exception is the episode "Forget Me Not" when the combination of his amnesia and the professor's hypnotism causes him to think he's back on Guadalcanal, he tries to radio "This is the CO of the 177th infantry, I've been separated from my platoon." As if someone could identify him from that. Although the simplest explanation is inconsistency due to error, I prefer my explanation. Feel free to review