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"He, Jimmy, and Canidy were in boarding school together. St. Mark's," Donovan said.
"We used Canidy to get to him in the Grunier operation, but that burned Canidy out for Fulmar after we decided to leave Fulmar in Morocco although we'd promised to take him out. If we go ahead with the idea of stirring up the Berbers, we'll need another contact. Among the names that the researchers came up with, absolutely independently, was James M. B. Whittaker." Roosevelt didn't reply for a moment. Finally he asked, "Again, Bill, exactly what is it you want me to do? " "Turn Jimmy over to me," Donovan said.
"I'll guarantee his silence. "I'll discuss it with George," Roosevelt said. "We both know what he'll say," Donovan protested. "As I've told you, George doesn't always get what George wants," the President said.
"But under the circumstances, I think I should ask him what he thinks."
Donovan just looked at him.
"And under the circumstances, I think you should relay my gratitude to Barbara for her hospitality to the admiral. You may tell her that I said I have every hope that she will soon be able to see Jimmy."
I V [ ONE I San Francisco, California June 15, 1942
Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Bitter returned to the United States aboard the Swedish passenger liner Kungsholm. The Kungsholm was then engaged in returning diplomatic and civilian personnel of the various belligerent powers to their homelands. Its last voyage in this capacity had been to Japan, carrying among others a hundred Japanese of American citizenship who preferred Japan to detention in the camps established for them in Arizona and elsewhere.
The Swedish ambassador to the Empire of Japan then received Japanese permission to charter the vessel to the United States for service as a hospital ship. On instructions from Berlin, the German ambassador supported the Swedish request. The German Foreign Ministry believed that Germany might require similar services at some time in the future.
The German request overcame reluctance from some quarters in the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
The Kungsholm-floodlights illuminating the huge red crosses painted on its white hull-steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge and docked at the Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco Bay. Most of the Navy and Marine Corps personnel aboard were transferred immediately to a hospital train for transportation to the Navy hospital in San Diego.
But since Lieutenant Commander Bitter was ambulatory he required a cane-he was driven to the Alameda Naval Air Station in a Navy station wagon. After a complete physical examination he was given an interim classification of "convalescent" and a partial pay, then ordered to report to the Great Lakes Naval Station. He was told he would be given a fourteen-day convalescent leave to his home of record, and that a reservation priority had been authorized for a roomette aboard a train to Chicago the next day. Bitter arrived in the United States wearing Army-issue khakis with an Army major's golden oak leaf on each collar point. There had been no Navy-size (smaller) rank insignia available in Calcutta. As soon as he could, he went to the officers' sales store and outfitted himself with uniforms off the rack. These would do for the time being.
When he left for the Orient a year before, he had sent most of his Navy uniforms from Pensacola Naval Air Station, where he had been stationed with Dick Canidy, to his parents' home in Chicago. He bought two sets of khaki tunics, trousers, and shirts; two sets of khaki shoulder boards (two white, two blue); and the appropriate metal insignia of rank. He purchased golden Naval Aviator's wings to replace the set he had taken to China. They had been either misplaced or stolen. The clerk had never heard of the Order of the Cloud Banner, so he could not buy a ribbon to represent that. And he was further disappointed when he realized that since he'd gotten his wound while he was in Chinese service, it did not qualify him for the Purple Heart medal. The clerk told him, however, that anybody with ninety days' service in the Pacific was entitled to a Pacific Theater ribbon, but Bitter decided he wasn't entitled to that either, since he did not have ninety days' U.S. Navy service in the Far East. He also did not choose to wear the single ribbon everyone in the service was entitled to, the American Defense Service Medal. Finally, he pinned his American Volunteer Group wings above the right breast pocket and his Navy wings above the left, where regulations prescribed they should be worn. When he examined himself in the mirror, he was pleased with what he saw. It was good to be back in a Navy uniform, and he thought that the AVG wings would more than make up to anyone who knew what they were-and he didn't really care about anyone who didn't-for the lack of campaign ribbons on his left breast.
In the men's room of the officers' club that night, he ran into a non flying rear admiral who did not know what the AVG wings were and was drunk enough to inquire. "Commander," the admiral asked, "what the hell is that pinned to your jacket?"
"They're AVG wings, Sir," Ed replied, properly modest. "What say?"
"AVG wings, Sir," Ed repeated, and when there was no glint of understanding in the admiral's eyes, he explained: "The American Volunteer Group, Sir. In China."
"Chinaman's wings?"
"Americans flying for China, Sir."
"I would suggest, Commander," the admiral said nastily, "that you remove those immediately from the uniform of the U.S. Navy. Chinaman's wings!
Good Christ! On a naval officer! The admiral stormed out of the head.
Fuck the old fart! Bitter thought angrily. Dumb chair-warming shore sailor didn't even know what the AVG is! I earned those wings, and I'll god damned well wear them! In ninety seconds he was calmed down enough to realize that he was reacting like Dick Canidy, who questioned every order he was ever given, and not like an Annapolis graduate and lieutenant commander in the Regular Navy. He wondered again what had become of Canidy. He had thought often of writing to him after Canidy had been sent home in disgrace, but had never done so. He really hadn't known what to say. It was uncomfortable to say anything at all to a man who had shown the white feather in combat, even though he himself now understood with insight born of his own combat experiences how close anyone could come to that. But as he stepped to the men's room mirror to comply with the admiral's order, he realized that his feelings really had nothing to do with Canidy. He had earned the wings as a Flying Tiger, and so far as he was concerned, AVG wings lent distinction to the Navy uniform rather than shaming it. He didn't take the wings Off, then, and he was wearing them the next morning when he went by the transportation office and picked up his tickets for the trip to Chicago.
The first couple of days at home were a euphoric emotional bath. Al on S though he professed to be embarrassed, he was really pleased to see the letters from the Chinese Embassy attesting to his all-around heroism expensively framed and hanging on the dining-room wall. When he went with his father to the Commercial Club for lunch, a half-dozen of his father's friends came by the table to warmly shake his hand and to tell him how proud his father-and for that matter, everybody who knew him-was of him. The same thing happened when he went with both his parents to the Lake Shore Club for dinner, and there, if it hadn't been for his mother hovering around him, he felt sure that he could have made a date with at least one-and probably two-of the young women who followed their parents to the Bitter table. On the third day, there was a telephone call for him. One of the maids came out on the patio. She was carrying a telephone on a long extension cord, and wordlessly she handed it to him. "Hello," he said. "Commander Bitter, please," a crisp military voice demanded. "This is Commander Bitter," Ed said. He was stiff not used to his new rank, and rather liked the way that phrase sounded. "Hold on, Commander, please, for Admiral Hawley," the crisp voice said. Faintly he heard, "I have Commander Bitter for you, Admiral," and then another voice came on the line, deeper, older.
"Commander Bitter?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Admiral Hawley, Commander," the admiral said.
"I'm Chief, Aviation Allocation, BUAIR. "Yes, Sir?"
"First, let me welcome you home, both to the States and the Navy."
"Thank you very much, Sir." Who the hell is he? I know the name from someplace. What does he want with me? "Commander, I need an aide-de-camp, preferably someone like yourself, Annapolis, who has been in harm's way, and one who is not at the moment on flight status. What he'll be doing, rather than passing hors "U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. d'oeuvres, is helping me distribute our assets where they will do the most good. Unless you have objections to the assignment, BUPERS2 says I can have you. Interested?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Now, I don't want you rushing down here to Washington, Son. You take your leave. From what I hear, you damned well have earned it. The reason I called now is so that we can get the paperwork moving."
