“We’d sort of like to keep control of this, Commander,” Colonel Jerry Whitney said firmly.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Colonel,” It. Commander Komman said.
“All want to do is cooperate. This is obviously your show. I understand that we’re getting a free ride.”
“Just as long as we understand each other,” Colonel Whitney said, not mollified.
“Absolutely,” Commander Korman said. “I’ll have whatever I can come up with by 0800 tomorrow. You just come in and I’ll turn it all over to you.
I’m re’xy grateful for your cooperation.”
“Well, what the hell, we’re all in the same war, right, Commander?” When Colonel Whitney was off the line, Commander Korman pulled his leter to his wife from the typewriter, crumpled it up, and tossed it into a wastebasket. It would just have to wait.
Next Commander Korman called the duty off ficer at Naval Aviation Element, SHAEF, identified himself, and said he was coming right over and would be grateful if the file of Lieutenant Commander Bitter, Edwin H. , had been pulled by the time he got there.
When he arrived, he was informed that the only thing they had on Lieutenant Commander Bieer, Edwin H. , was that he had only a few days before he arrived in Europe, that his service records were not to be found, that the
“Are you familiar with our Impact Award program?”
“I can’t say that I am,” Korman said.
“Very briefly, when one of our people does something that clearly deserves recognition–when there’s no question about what he’s done and there are witnesses who can be trusted–we make the award just as soon as we can, the same day or the next day, and let the paperwork catch up later.”
“And you say one of our people is involved? What did he do?
“He was riding as an observer in a B-17 on a raid we made on Dortsund today. Kraut fighters blew the nose off his airplane, killing the pilots, the bombardier, and the navigator. The plane was last seen in a spin with two engines on fire. We put it down as a confirmed loss.
But then, at five o’clock this afternoon, it came in at Fersfield with your man at the controls. All by his lonesome he’d flown it and navigated it all the way from Germany with one engine out and the fuselage shot full of holes.”
“I’m surprised Kraut fighters didn’t pick him off as a straggler,” Commander Komman said.
“He avoided the fighters by flying it two hundred feet off the ground.
“Fucking incredible!”
“It gets better,” Colonel Jerry Whitney said.
“He’s a pilot, of course, but not a B-17 pilot. The Group Commander, who put him in for the DFC, said it was the first time the guy had even been inside a B-17, and that’s what he was doing on the mission, getting familiarized. Talk about on-the ob training! aso when I heard about it, I immediately saw the public relations potential. So I called the Group Commander and told him not to give him the medal, we’d take care of the presentation ceremony.”
“How do you plan to handle that?” Commander Korman asked.
“As soon as I touch base with you, I’m going to call over to Fersfield and tell this guy to move his tail to London. And first thing in the morning, I’ll be at SHAEF, trying to find somebody senior to make the award. Maybe set up a special press briefing. Get the Signal Corps newsreel cameramen in. Using GI cameramen, we’ll have prints to give Pathe, the March of Time, all the newsreel outlets.”
“Sounds fine,” Commander Komman said.
“I’ll get the Navy a print, too, of course–inter service cooperation, right? –and I thought maybe the Navy would like to have a senior officer there, representing the Navy.” only thing they knew about him was that he was involved in some Top Secret project, and that the only person who knew anything about that was Rear Admiral G. G. Foster.
Thirty minutes later, Commander Korman found himself standing at attention in the Connaught Hotel suite of Admiral Foster. Upon hearing Korman’s recitation of the facts, Foster turned white. A moment later he infomled him that while he admitted he knew nothing about public relations, he could see at least a half dozen ways that Commander Komman had fucked this up.