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Allied Expeditionary Force
Grosvenor Square, London
1115 Hours 9 January 1943
The Packard rolled grandly up Grosvenor Square, and Sergeant Agnes Draper signaled her intention to turn into the curb before the main entrance to the redbrick building. An English policeman, his gas mask slung over his shoulder, took a quick look and decided that a Packard with a WRAC sergeant at the wheel was entitled to use the front entrance. He signaled for her to turn.
There was not much room in front of the building. People had to be gotten out of and into their staff cars quickly or there would be a traffic jam. Only Eisenhower’s Packard Clipper was given a parking space (on the sidewalk) in front of the place. Everybody else’s car had to be parked either across the street or in a basement parking lot.
An American MP, tall and natty, wearing white gloves and leggings and a white crown on his brimmed cap, walked quickly and militarily across the sidewalk to open the door. When he had it open, he saluted crisply as Bitter got out.
Bitter returned the salute and walked toward the door. His second visit to SHAEF in less than twenty-four hours was more than a little different from his first. The first time he had arrived by bus at the back door, staggering under the weight of his luggage.
Inside the building, a WAC receptionist called Admiral Foster’s office and then reported that the admiral’s aide would come to get him.
The aide, a lieutenant, startled him by calling him by his first name. It took a moment to recall his face from Annapolis.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” the aide said as he led him down long corridors to Admiral Foster’s office. “I’d planned to pick you up at Croydon and get you through initial processing without the standard lectures. But we never got confirmation of your ETA.”
“No problem,” Bitter said. He thought: Canidy knew what plane I would be on.
Admiral Foster, who had an office overlooking the snow-covered park, greeted him warmly, and a sailor quickly produced coffee.
“So far the schedule’s fine,” the admiral said. “Ken Lorimer can’t see us until half past three or four, so we’ll have time for a quick tour of this place, a little lunch, and for the trip to High Wycombe.”
“Yes, sir,” Bitter said. “Admiral, I’m brand-new. I’m concerned about my driver getting her lunch.”
“Her lunch?”
“Yes, sir. She’s a British Army sergeant.”
“You and Eisenhower,” Admiral Foster said.
“Sir?”
“General Eisenhower also has an English female sergeant for a driver,” Foster said. “Damned good-looking woman.”
“So is this one,” Bitter said.
Foster told his aide to “make sure Commander Bitter’s driver gets her lunch,” and then he gave Bitter a tour of the Naval Element, SHAEF, introducing him to senior officers as “the man DCNO has sent off to represent the Navy in that ‘delicate project.’”
It was clear that in his eyes Bitter was the round peg in the round hole, someone who not only had a “distinguished combat record” but was also a career naval officer who “understood the situation” better than someone else might. Bitter was no fool: He realized he was being given the treatment.
After lunch, when Sergeant Agnes Draper brought the Packard to the door, Admiral Foster suggested they take it to High Wycombe. His aide followed them in his car.
As soon as they were out of London, Foster asked if the divider could be raised, then got down to business.
“Damned good luck that you and this Canidy fellow are old friends, Bitter, ” the admiral said.
“Admiral,” Bitter said, “when I reported into Berkeley Square, Colonel Stevens made a point of telling me that Canidy is under orders to send me home the minute he suspects I’m reporting to the Navy.”
“You don’t think your friend Canidy’d really do that to you, do you?”
“Yes, sir, I think—I know—he would.”
“What the Navy expects you to do, Commander, is to do what you can to make sure the Navy comes out of this—by this I mean all operations in the European Theater, not just the submarine pen project—looking neither foolish nor like poor relations. And what you can do is let me know what the Army is up to that they’ve chosen not to tell the Navy about. From everything I’ve heard, the OSS has its nose in everybody’s tent.”
I’ll be damned, Bitter thought. Canidy was right.
