"Lord, I hope so."

"Mr. President," Leahy injected, "are you aware that General MacArthur commands from the heavy cruiser Augusta, and that he is off Kyushu?"

Truman smiled tightly. "Yes, Admiral King informed me that the old warhorse had essentially commandeered the cruiser. King wasn't surprised and I agreed with him that there was no reason to deny Mac his ship. We certainly have enough of them. There was no way that MacArthur felt he could fight this battle from the safety of Manila, or even Guam." To their surprise, Truman chuckled. "And I can even see why he insisted on the Augusta. After all, it was the ship both FDR and I sailed on when we went to Europe. Hell, if it was good enough for two presidents of the United States, then it might just be okay for General Douglas MacArthur and his friends."

Both generals and Admiral Leahy smiled at the additional reference to MacArthur's monumental ego.

"Like I said," Truman added, "I really don't care how strange he acts and what he needs for his personal comforts just so long as he wins." He turned to Leahy. "Now, did you get anything from Admiral King regarding suicide attacks?"

Leahy would rather that King have delivered the information himself, but the other admiral was now trying to find additional transport shipping to send to the Pacific and had asked Leahy to carry the news. King's absence pointed out the desperate situation the navy was in.

"Mr. President," Leahy began, "over fifty ships have been hit by various types of suicide attacks, which include airplanes, small boats armed with torpedoes and dynamite, suicide midget submarines, manned torpedoes launched from rails that run to the water, and just about anything else they can think of to throw at us. Two of our larger carriers, the Ticonderoga and the brand-new Tarawa, have been badly damaged and have been pulled out of the battle. They may have to return to the U.S. to be repaired. One escort carrier has been sunk, and five others so badly mauled they are no longer serviceable."

"In just two days?" Truman gasped.

"Yes, sir. The rest of the damage was done almost entirely to our transports. As we feared, the Japs are concentrating on the carriers and the transports, and virtually ignoring the other ships. One troopship was hit by a suicide plane and badly damaged while it still had all its troops on board. There were more than five hundred casualties in that one incident alone, with many dead."

"Awful," Truman said, "just awful. Admiral, why didn't radar pick up the plane?"

"Sir, radar is good but far from perfect. Not all of our ships even have it, and it breaks down a lot. Then, with all the planes that are in the air at all times, the operators get fatigued and overwhelmed with information that can't be deciphered fast enough. With all that going on, they can't determine who is friend and who is foe. Last, the very way radar beams out in its searches leaves gaps. Low-flying planes will often get through and must be spotted visually."

Truman nodded bitterly. Yet another military marvel was proving itself to be astonishingly fallible. "If we've lost so many, how about the Japs?"

Marshall spoke. "We are confident that the preinvasion bombing and shelling killed or wounded large numbers. While the day of invasion, X-Day, probably cost us more than them, the Japs are paying for it now and will continue to do so in the long run."

Truman nodded. "And how long can the Japs keep it up?"

Marshall looked to see if Leahy wanted to add anything. The admiral did not. "Probably for quite some time. They appear to have more troops on Kyushu than we thought they did, and they continue to be able to feed more into the battle. They are coming across the mountains of central Kyushu in numerous but widely dispersed small groups that are virtually impossible to see by air, much less hit. There are a score of these rough trails and almost twenty thousand men a day can make it overland from northern Kyushu to the battle area."

"And," Leahy injected, "we are dead certain they are still able to bring reinforcements from both Korea and the main island of Honshu. They are using submarines as transports from Korea, and our intelligence estimates say they can bring over about two thousand men each day that way. During bad weather, which is getting more and more frequent as winter gets closer, they are attempting surface runs with troopships.

"Additionally, the straits between Honshu and Kyushu are only a mile wide at their narrowest, which means small boats can swarm across at night, take casualties from mines and planes, and still land a lot of men. During bad weather they are virtually unstoppable because they can't be seen."

"What about using our surface ships?" Truman asked.

"Sir," Leahy said, "using surface ships in the waters north of Kyushu or in the straits makes them terribly vulnerable to attacks by kamikazes. We have some of our own subs looking in the area, but bad weather hinders them as well."

"Mr. President," Marshall added, "through radio intercepts and our source on the ground, we've identified a number of divisions now on Kyushu as those that had been manning the defenses outside Tokyo. This supports our contention that the war will be won or lost for the Japanese on Kyushu. This is consistent with their doctrine of fighting the one Decisive Battle that will give them victory. But there is something very disturbing going on."

Truman looked at Marshall. The whole thing was disturbing. What else could be going wrong? "And?"

"Sir, it looks like some of the Japanese units coming across from Korea are passing through Russian defense lines to get there."

Truman sat bolt upright. "What?"

Marshall walked to a map of China and Korea. "When the Reds came in, in August, they launched a two-pronged attack. One quickly headed south into Korea, where it has stalled around the city of Seoul. This was no surprise to us. Northern Korea is really just an extension of Siberia. In a short while the weather will turn miserable and everything will freeze. The Russians will soon have a devil of a time keeping their very large army supplied and fueled over the totally inadequate Trans-Siberian Railway.

"The second prong headed south through Manchuria and into China to help Chiang and Mao Tse-tung fight the Japs there. Chiang has been complaining that the Russians are helping Mao fight the Chinese Nationalists rather than the Japs, but we've all felt it was Chiang exaggerating again."

To some, Chiang was highly unloved and considered capable of many duplicities to get additional American material help, which would then be stolen or used to fight the Communists and not the Japanese. It stood to reason that the Russian Communists would be far more helpful to the Chinese Communists than they would to the Nationalists, who were foes of the Communists.

"Go on," said Truman.

"Sir, it may just be the vastness of China and Manchuria that is permitting bypassed Japanese units to filter through the Russian armies, but I believe it is something that should be watched carefully."

Truman said it would be, rose, and dismissed the meeting. Leahy left separately, while Marshall and Bradley drove off together. As their staff car headed down Constitution Avenue in the direction of Arlington, the two generals rode in silence. Finally, Bradley broke the spell.

"General Marshall, why did you have me attend that meeting?"

Marshall turned away and did not answer.

Bradley persisted, "General, you are never a man to waste time, either yours or anyone else's. While it was most interesting, it has nothing whatsoever to do with my new duties at the Veterans Administration. Therefore, what was the reason?"

Marshall 's face was grim. "General Bradley, what did you think of that fella MacArthur's announcement? Did he state a case for his normally overwhelming sense of moral superiority that would end in total and unequivocal victory for him and for us?"