Once they could be trained in a number of skills, including parachuting, it was planned that an initial reinforcement detachment would be sent to the Gobi Desert. In their number would be radio operators, meteorologists, cryptogra-phers, and other technicians.
Their ability to collect, encrypt, and transmit weather data from the Gobi would be tested, as would the efficacy of predicting weather from the data fur-nished.
Inasmuch as the personnel in the Gobi were predominantly Marines, and the Marines were part of the Navy, the Navy had been given overall command of the operation. The meteorologists, cryptographers, and communications personnel would be sailors. But the Secretary of the Navy, with the concur-rence of the President's Chief of Staff, had given the Marine Corps Office of Management Analysis responsibility for staging the operation.
The Deputy Chief of Management Analysis had in turn named Major Ed-ward Banning as Officer in Charge, with Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy as his deputy. Nothing had been said to McCoy, but he knew that Banning held a MAGIC clearance, and thus could not be put in risk of capture, so Banning would not make the mission. He also felt quite sure that he himself would not become Officer in Charge by default; command of the mission would not be entrusted to a lowly lieutenant. Consequently, sometime between now and the time the mission left the United States, a field-grade officer would be assigned.
But between now and then, he knew he would be in charge, turning to Banning only when he ran into a problem he could not handle himself. It would give him, as he had told Ernie and her father, four to six months in the States. And he was sure he could arrange his schedule to spend a good deal of time with her.
Starting, he thought, almost immediately. He was about to go through the Marine Corps Parachutist's School at Lakehurst, New Jersey. While he was there, he could go into New York City every night and every weekend. But he would also have to periodically return to Lakehurst to check on the progress of the others learning how to parachute themselves and their equipment from air-planes.
The thought of parachuting into Mongolia was a little unnerving, but he told himself it was probably a good deal safer than being a platoon leader on Guadalcanal. The real problem with the Mongolian Operation was that once he went in, it would be a long time before he could even think of getting out, perhaps not until the end of the war. But there was nothing he could do about that.
[THREE]
The Congressional Country Club
Fairfax County, Virginia
1 November 1942
Technically, the status of Major James C. Brownlee III, USMCR, at the Office of Strategic Services Reception and Training Station-the pressed-into-service Congressional Country Club-was "Agent, awaiting assignment."
That meant he had successfully completed the training program and passed the "Final Board"-a group of five senior OSS officers who had con-sidered his military background, the comments of his training officers at the Country Club, and then called him in for an hour-long session to finally make the determination whether or not he was the sort of man who could success-fully function behind the enemy's lines.
Jim Brownlee, a tall, blond, slender, twenty-seven-year-old who wore spectacles, had always wanted to be a Marine. While at Princeton, he par-ticipated in the Marine Corps Platoon Leader's Program, which was rather like the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. During the academic year, it ex-posed young men who thought they might like to be officers to courses with a military application. And then, during summer vacations, it gave them six weeks of intensive training in basic military subjects-"The Three M's," marching, marksmanship, and map reading-at USMC Base Quantico, Vir-ginia, and Parris Island Recruit Depot, South Carolina.
Jim Brownlee intended to apply for a commission in the Regular Marine Corps; but his eyes did not meet the Marine Corps' criteria for the regular ser-vice. Instead, on his graduation from Princeton in June 1937, he was commis-sioned as a second lieutenant, USMCR. After that, he went through the Basic Officer Course at Quantico, and was released to inactive duty.
He joined Marine Corps Reserve Battalion 14, based in New Orleans, Lou-isiana, as a platoon leader, even though this meant an overnight train ride-at his own expense-each way once a month from his home in Palm Beach, Florida, for the weekend training program. After two years of service with the battalion, he was promoted first lieutenant.
When he was not training with The Marine Corps, he was Vice President, Domestic Transportation, for the Brownlee Fruit Company (founded by his grandfather, Matthew J. Brownlee). The firm imported bananas-their own production and brokered-from Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, and El Salva-dor. His father was currently President, and his older brother, Matthew J. Brownlee III, was Vice President, Production.
What his title meant was that his father had put him to work under an expe-rienced longtime traffic manager, as a way to learn the business. Bananas were off-loaded from Brownlee ships at Port St. Lucie, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. His job was to ensure the smooth flow of the bananas either to regional distribution centers or to the ultimate retailers.
He liked the challenge of quickly and economically moving vast amounts of bananas-they are, of course, highly perishable-from the off-loading port to their destinations, while keeping them as fresh as possible. At the same time, the intricacies of interstate motor freight laws, tariffs, and the like were rather fascinating.
Since the whole idea was to teach him the business, he also spent a good deal of time in Central America with his brother. Matthew, who was fifteen years older than he was, devoted his attention pretty much equally to showing Jim the plantation operations and trying to prevent him from giving in to what the Episcopal Church terms the sinful lusts of the flesh with dark-skinned na-tive girls.
On 15 October 1940, President Roosevelt ordered the mobilization of Ma-rine Reserve Battalions, which did not surprise Jim Brownlee. On April 9, Ger-many had occupied Denmark and invaded Norway. The next month, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who had promised "Peace In Our Time," resigned 11 May, and Winston S. Churchill took his place.
What was left of the British Army after the German Blitzkrieg across France was evacuated from Dunkirk on 4 June; and just over a week later, the German Wehrmacht goose-stepped down the Champs Ely sees. On 22 June, the French surrendered to the Germans.
In July, a Marine lieutenant colonel who spoke to Jim's reserve battalion in New Orleans brought them up to date on the military picture as the Marine Corps saw it. He mentioned that as of 30 June, the total strength of the USMC was 1,732 Officers and 26,545 Enlisted Men.
He didn't say that the Marine Reserve was about to be mobilized, but he did say that there were obviously not enough Marines in uniform for the pre-sent circumstances.
Jim Brownlee reported for active duty with his reserve battalion to Marine Base Quantico, Virginia on 1 November 1940. Within a week of their arrival, the battalion was broken up, and its members were scattered all over the world, wherever Marines were serving.
A Marine Personnel Officer, a major whom Jim correctly suspected was curious how a twenty-four-year-old had become a vice president of a large cor-poration, questioned him at some length about his duties, and then sent him to see a full colonel, who was the G-4 (Supply) Officer at Quantico.