Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [192]
Despite the fact that it was monsoon season, some nights were dry and clear. On those nights the moonlight illuminated the scattered high cirrus clouds as the planes made their runs near Phet Buri, Kanburi, and elsewhere. Prisoners in those locations, curious, puzzled, and hopeful, had dared not pray for the arrival of these aerial messengers. They had not envisioned this clandestine war, pursued at night by men out of uniform, foreign nationals, daring aviators hauling crates, and covert Yankee entrepreneurs such as Eben Bartlett.
When a warning came from Ruth that the supply drops had been detected by the Japanese, coupled with a recommendation that they cease, Bartlett was not at all bothered. “The way I feel about this business is you have to be a little bold otherwise it will be till doomsday before you could get in enough supplies,” he radioed headquarters. “One has to take a few risks if we are to accomplish our mission.” To conceal the nature of the supply effort, he recommended that bombers, which were more frequently seen in this airspace, fly the missions instead of C-47s. But Colonel Coughlin felt the need to mollify his courageous Thai patron. On June 30, he radioed Bartlett that he was suspending the drops.
Pattern camp was armed for war. Bartlett presided over a cache of arms large enough to equip a light infantry battalion: 388 carbines, 317 Thompson submachine guns, 90 M3 carbines, 50 M1 Garands, 8 Springfields, 218 .45-caliber pistols, 14 Browning automatic rifles, 825 hand grenades, 2 sixty-millimeter mortars, and a bazooka. He wondered if he might need to tap that terrible potential. “If Japs come in here,” he radioed on July 3, “shall we fight it out or take to the hills or is the decision left up to me according to the situation?”
But headquarters wanted them to lie low. Kandy radioed Bartlett, “Present policy is not to have any of our groups fight it out unless Ruth so orders. Meanwhile you should have escape plan and supply cache that will enable you to get away.”
Bartlett had plenty else to do. All through June, his native right-hand man, Pow Khamourai, had been watching the Phet Buri camp and its nearby Tayang airfield and radioing reports of its assets and personnel directly to Ceylon. Much of the reporting by other Thai agents was deemed “lamentable.” Although the OSS had to risk operational security by transmitting instructions to Pow—explanations of what radar was and what the installations looked like—his detailed reporting was considered excellent. In early July, he discovered and reported the presence of Americans among the prisoners at Tayang. Rumors of American prisoners nearby had been circulating for a while. Some of Betty’s men found an Australian POW who mentioned having been with survivors of the USS Houston out in the jungle somewhere. He described how bombers attacked the big bridge, and how the Japanese drove the prisoners under it for cover.
In Bangkok, Pow visited Nicol Smith and told him about his discovery outside Phet Buri: “Things are getting hot down there. Lots of Japs.” Though Operation Pattern hadn’t yet been compromised, there had been scares. Once, Pow was confronted with a pair of Japanese soldiers near the camp, “heading straight for it like a couple of homing pigeons,” he said. “If we hadn’t ambushed them, nothing could have stopped them from blowing the show.” Smith asked him what he had done with the bodies. “Buried them in the woods,” Pow replied. “The only trouble is that several others have dropped out of sight lately in the same way, and we’re afraid the Jap commander suspects why.”
When Bartlett learned of the U.S. prisoners so close to his camp, he ordered two of his men to try to contact them, to encourage their escape and arrange a rendezvous. When Huffman and Harris made their break, it was a Free Thai Army patrol from Pattern camp that led them through the jungle to the OSS major. “Upon