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Canoerebel -> RE: The Good The Bad & The Indifferent (12/3/2012 3:50:20 AM)
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Headquarters Building
Pearl Harbor Naval Station
7 December 1941
Captain John Cole Harper watched columns of thick, ugly, roiling smoke. Reports of damage were coming in quickly. Frantically. There were rumors of Japanese landings here, there, everywhere. Harper knew many of these were exaggerated or imagined. At least he hoped so. Too much was happening too quickly to make an accurate assessment, but he knew for certain that things weren't going well; that the Japanese had targeted Hawaii, the Philippines, and Malaya. How hard wouldn't be known until the smoke began to clear.
Pursuant to Plan Portal, Harper's task was to see that Fire Teams One through Eight were promptly activated. Each of the eight represented important American military moves that were already underway. Each was complex, time consuming, and might not be scheduled for completion for days or weeks. Uunder wartime conditions, however, Fire Team protocol called for each to get underway immediately with whatever might be on hand. Each officer commanding a Fire Team had no more than 24 hours to assemble whatever else he might get his hands on and then to get moving. No exceptions. No excuses.
Harper knew that his RN counterpart at Trincomalee was responsible for Fire Teams Nine through Twenty-One. Since Harper had participated so closely in Plan Portal, many of the RN Fire Team objectives were particularly close to his heart. He didn't have time give them serious thought, but he hoped that Fire Team Two, in particular, would do its job expeditiously and well. This called for immediate embarkation of naval support personnel and gear at Colombo for deployment to Port Blair, Diego Garcia and Cocos Island, in advance of infantry and support troops to follow. If Plan Portal was on target, these positions would be vital to the Allies.
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