Waggoners Gap

Prologue-2

“Don’t worry, love,” Kincaid said, trying to mimic Anne’s accent. “I’m a trained soldier. I hit what I aim at.”

Kincaid turned the pistol so that the muzzle faced his chest. With a look of utter hatred on his face, he stared into Anne’s terrified eyes and pulled the trigger.

The pistol’s report was loud and shocking. In the next instant, a .45 caliber bullet entered Kincaid’s chest at 900 feet per second. As the big metal slug pierced his torso, a stream of blood pumped from his wound spraying Anne’s face, neck, and breasts.

The crushing impact of the round picked Kincaid out of the Jeep’s seat and threw him back hard. He bounced violently, dropping the pistol and bucking Anne off his lap. In less than a half-second, the slug obliterated Kevin’s heart.

In June and July of 1942, during the darkest days of World War II, allied armed forces began arriving in Papua New Guinea. Their presence in PNG reflected a frantic attempt to bolster the defense of Northern Australia and to stem the onslaught of the Japanese military juggernaut.

Most of the American fleet lay smoldering at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The island fortress of Corregidor had fallen. The Japanese had conquered the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Every allied soldier knew that he and his comrades were in the Emperor’s crosshairs.

The fate of Australia and the future of the South Pacific depended on the ability of the Australians to maintain their tenuous perimeter around Port Moresby. To counter the Australian tactical move, the Japanese invaded northern New Guinea in force. They threw large numbers of ships, planes, and fighting men into the battle. The three New Guinea territories were controlled by Australia and the Netherlands, and its size supported air, land, and naval bases. Responding to the threat, the Australians rushed reinforcements to southern New Guinea. Later in the year, American soldiers and airmen began to arrive in small numbers.

By the end of 1942, Australian infantrymen supported by the Papuan Infantry Battalion had ended the Japanese threat to Port Moresby along the primitive Kokoda Trail in the Owen Stanley Mountains. By force of will, undeniable courage, and thousands of separate acts of sacrifice, the allies defeated the Japanese land and naval forces in three major engagements. As a consequence, the allies maintained a fragile perimeter around Port Moresby.

In September 1943, in a decisive strategic move, General Douglas MacArthur struck north across the Owen Stanleys. His target was the small port of Lae on the northeastern coast. Operation Postern used combined arms on a scale never before seen in the Pacific.

The Australian 9th Division landed east of Lae in an attempt to encircle the Japanese forces there. Simultaneously, American paratroopers seized Nadzab Airfield to the west to protect the Australian flank.

The Markham Valley operation went off without a serious mishap in the first successful combat jump in the short history of the American use of vertical envelopment. The 503d, suffering very few casualties, seized Nadzab Airfield in a classic coup de main. The paratroopers of the 503d showed that they were equal to any elite military formation on the planet.

Basking in the glow of their unprecedented success, the airborne troopers and their officers should have been elated. Instead, the regiment suffered from a series of ill-considered command decisions.

In early October 1943, the Commanding General of the American Sixth Army ordered his inspector general to investigate the persistent allegations involving the 503d’s commander. After interviewing 100 witnesses, the IG concluded that not one single officer or non-com had any faith in their commander. The IG decided to advise General Krueger that Col. Kincaid should be relieved of command.

At 2300 hours, Major Phillip E. Genero, II, stood in the tent billet of the 503d’s executive officer. Major Reynolds, the obsessive-compulsive motor officer, claimed that Genero had stolen a Jeep, and Lieutenant Colonel Jones—the XO—was mediating the inane dispute.

Earlier in the month, Col. Kincaid had issued an edict precluding majors and light colonels from taking vehicles from the motor pool for their own use, as had been the habit during the months when the unit had been billeted in Gordonvale, Australia. Of course, the order could not apply to the commander himself—evidenced by the fact that another Jeep was missing.

Colonel Kincaid is probably up on the ridgeline again. He must be screwing one of the nurses, Jones reasoned.

LtCol. Jones was a fine officer. He was West Point grad—like Col. Kincaid—but their leadership styles were worlds apart. Jones valued the tight bond he held with the 503d paratroopers. And although he was too professional to show his anger to his men, he quietly bristled at Kincaid’s personal excesses, inconsistencies, and derelictions. It’s hard to do my job when my CO is incoherent, uncommunicative, and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his unit’s morale, Jones thought.

Now, the IG was interrogating everyone above the rank of corporal. Jones hoped that the ordeal would soon be over. There is a war, after all. The regiment has battles to fight, jumps to make, and Japanese to kill.

If the scuttlebutt was to be trusted, Gen. Krueger would soon relieve Kincaid. I don’t care who commands the regiment, as long as he is competent and takes care of the men, Jones reflected. I just want to get back to something resembling normal duty, which—in an airborne unit in a combat zone—is tough enough.

Jones had cemented his relationship with his men on the troopship during the long, difficult sea voyage from California to Australia. Jones had caught several company grade officers drinking contraband booze and breaking restrictions on the ship. As a disciplinary measure, he confined them to their quarters for an entire week. The enlisted men and non-commissioned officers loved Jones for holding the officers to an equitable standard. From that time forward, they affectionately referred to Jones as the Warden.

Maj. Genero—who was new to the regiment—had also developed a deep respect for the XO’s competence during the airborne assault in Markham Valley. In turn, Jones valued Phil’s soldierly bearing and demonstrated expertise.

As a senior officer, Jones had made it a point to learn as much as he could about the new man. Genero’s assignment to the Pacific presented an intriguing enigma. Why would they send a man with his qualifications here? Jones puzzled.

Although he was 25 years old, Genero had accomplished a great deal in his career. He had been a pioneer in the first American airborne battalion, the 501st at Fort Benning. He’d served with distinction with the fledgling 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in several difficult battles in North Africa, for which he had received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Genero had more actual combat experience than any of the regiment’s senior leaders.

Markham Valley had been Genero’s fourth combat jump. He’d been the only paratrooper in the 509th to make all three of their combat jumps in Africa and live to tell about it. Despite the recent operations by the 82nd Airborne Division in Sicily and Italy, at this point in the war, few American paratroopers had Genero’s depth of airborne warfare experience.

Analysis of the North Africa campaign had guided the 503d’s planners in their flawless airborne operation in September. The planners, motivated by MacArthur’s egomaniacal desire to outshine his rivals, had looked for any edge to out-do the campaigns in Europe. In that theater, operational difficulties and high casualty rates put the very concept of employing large formations of paratroopers in jeopardy. The 503d was determined to demonstrate what motivated airborne troops could accomplish.

As LtCol. Jones listened to Maj. Reynolds drone on about the overblown Jeep theft, he analyzed the other side of Genero’s coin. Genero was a linguistic phenomenon. He could speak German, Italian, and French. Why would the Army send a brave, resourceful, and experienced officer with superb language skills away from his unit in Europe to New Guinea? Jones thought. Neither Genero’s record nor any admission shed any light on this mystery.

Then there was the business of a letter of reprimand to Genero from the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division. Jones had seen it.

The letter is caustic, but short of essential details, Jones concluded. Genero must have had gotten into a brawl of some sort in General Ridgway’s mess. If that’s the problem, it’s a pretty silly reason to exile a good officer to an assignment halfway around the world. Yet Genero seems glad to be in the Pacific Theater.

Genero was tight-lipped about his reasons for wanting to be in the 503d. Colonel Kincaid had speculated that Genero must have lost a brother in one of the battles with the Japanese, but Phil’s record showed no sign of a brother in the service.

The motor officer was about to finish his diatribe. He had to stop and take a breath. This gave LtCol. Jones an opportunity to get a word in.

“Major Reynolds, thank you!” Jones said. “Major Genero, what’s your side? Didn’t you read the C.O.’s directive about field grade officers and the regimental motor pool?”

“Yes, sir. I did. I fully understood it. I’ve done everything possible to comply with it,” Phil responded, shifting his six-foot-three-inch frame.

“OK. Where did you take the Jeep, and why didn’t you get Major Reynolds’ permission first?” Jones asked, hoping to finish up and go back to sleep.

“Sir, I received an order to meet with General Moses. The meeting was urgent. I had to be at his quarters in Port Moresby early this evening. I looked around for Major Reynolds, you, or one of the other light colonels. I couldn’t find anyone. Before I left camp, I informed the sergeant major that I was taking the Jeep, where I was going, and on whose authority. Sorry, Colonel, but I did everything that I was supposed to do,” Genero responded.

“You met with General Moses?” Jones asked, surprised at the breach of protocol.

Majors don’t just meet with the special advisor to the theater commander without informing the regimental commanding officer, Jones thought. General Moses should have sent the request for Genero through the adjutant. This would have given Colonel Kincaid the opportunity to get his political house in order, especially during this investigation. Something is up.

“What was the purpose of the meeting?” Jones asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m ordered not to discuss the details with anyone in the 503d,” Genero said.

“Are you telling me that General Moses called you to a meeting this afternoon in Port Moresby, without notifying anyone here, and then directed you not to discuss the matter with either Colonel Kincaid or me? You can’t be serious!”

“I know it’s unusual, sir. By 0900 hours tomorrow, you’ll receive orders detaching me from duty with the regiment for six months. I’ll leave in 48 hours. That’s all I can reveal at this time.”

Colonel Jones was thunderstruck. In all of my years in the Army no senior commander has ever treated the chain of command with such disrespect.

Instantly, the misappropriation of the Jeep was a non-issue. Genero would be gone before anyone would be able to reprimand him. Jones tended to believe Genero’s version of events. It was probable that no violation had occurred in the first place.

Jones was about to dismiss the majors when he heard a ruckus out in the camp. The duty officer, a brand new second lieutenant—just assigned from OCS in Brisbane—came running to the tent.

“Sir…sir! You ain’t gonna believe this! There’s a half-naked Aussie dame out here. She’s covered in blood. She claims the C.O. shot hisself up at the gravel pit! Colonel Kincaid is dead, sir!”

As the sky lightened from an inky blue-black to a dull grey-green, most of the bowerbirds and cannibal frogs in the rainforest had begun their cacophony to greet the new sun. For their part, the harpy eagles watched silently from the tall trees, as the faint morning light provided a ghastly setting to the scene at the gravel pit.

Col. Kincaid’s body was still seated on the passenger side of the Jeep. In the last few hours, the top of his torso had slumped to the left and his head now lay supported by the back of the driver’s seat.

A small, greasy hole festered in his chest. A sticky pool of blood covered the front panel, windscreen, and foot well of the Jeep. A horde of screw-worm flies swarmed the pool of blood and buzzed around the colonel.

When Maj. Genero first saw the regimental commander that morning, Kincaid’s eyes had been open but eerily sightless in the way of dead men. A considerate military policeman had closed them, out of respect for the deceased and to keep the flies from laying their eggs in the soft tissue around Kincaid’s eyes.

Genero’s blood boiled until his temple throbbed. He’d seen men killed in combat. If it were possible, you handled the remains quickly to give the insects, scavengers, and grave robbers the smallest window of opportunity.

Maj. Genero walked over to the captain in charge of gathering the evidence. Noting Genero’s demeanor, the captain snapped to attention, and saluted smartly.

“Captain Adams, Colonel Jones asked me to look after things here, until he can get back this morning. I’ve been watching your M.P.s playing grab-ass and fuckin’ around for over an hour. The sun’s almost up. It’s going to get hot around here. I want your investigation concluded. Get the colonel out of that Jeep and inside before one of those eagles swoops down from those trees and tries to carry him off!”

“Yes, sir!”

As Genero walked away from the captain, he turned his back on the Jeep. He glanced up in the eucalyptus trees and watched the raptors staring at the dead American commander. A powerful feeling of déjà vu swept over him, causing him to shiver.

For just a moment, he was not standing on a ridgeline near a gravel pit in a little known corner of the world, where a tortured soul had taken his own life because of dark secrets that only he could possibly know.

In his mind’s eye, Phil traveled back to a wooded glade on Waggoners Gap, the bucolic sanctuary tucked into the green hills above his family’s farm in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was a boy again.

When he stood on the rocky promontory at the edge of his special place in the Gap, Phil could see the other verdant fingers in the Appalachian Mountains, the picturesque multicolored patchwork quilt of farmland in the Cumberland Valley below, and the quaint working-class town of Carlisle. He could make out the smokestack of the clothing factory where his mom and dad had worked.

For uncounted millennia, Waggoners Gap had served as the way station for transient hawks, falcons, and golden eagles. These graceful raptors—so similar to the harpy eagles in the trees above Col. Kincaid—had used Waggoners Gap as a rest stop in their yearly intercontinental migrations.

Phil had spent many fall afternoons lying on top of his favorite boulder, watching the great birds conduct their reconnaissance. Mesmerized, Phil would close his eyes and dream about the adventures that he’d have in the future.

As a young man, he’d hike up to the Gap for solitude. When he got older, he’d take Linda with him. Just like Col. Kincaid on the ridgeline, I guess, thought Phil.

Waggoners Gap had been Phil’s personal refuge. His secrets had been safe there. It was different now.

The cold reality of this morning struck him. Dark, unfathomable issues had caused the regimental commander to go to his New Guinea refuge, have one last drunken tryst, and then end his life. In Phil’s case, his family’s inscrutable secrets were now coincident with Waggoners Gap.

Phil thought of his family. There’d once been happiness. Now there was desolation. C’est le vie et c’est la guerre!” Phil decided.

Maj. Genero turned in time to watch the soldiers begin to remove Colonel Kincaid’s remains. Staring right through the men and machines, Genero thought again of his youth at Waggoners Gap.