The Blankenship Solution

A tiny fishing village nestles in a cove resting on a narrow strait dividing Hokkaido, Japan and Sakhalin Island, The Soviet Union. The strait serves as the only conduit between the Sea of Japan, to the West, and the Sea of Okhotsk, to the East and is fourteen miles wide at the village which lies at the foot of a steep limestone cliff. The cornice at the top of the cliff offers a spectacular view of both the water and Russia. It is the Northern most point in Japan.

It is Summer and the Cold War is as hot as ever. Khrushchev has ousted Bulganin as Russian Premier while remaining Communist Party Boss and immediately promises to bury the United States. Richard Nixon is spat on in South America, Cuba is a mess and the Chinese are preparing to shell Quemoy and Matzu Islands, just off the coast of Taiwan, at the behest of Khrushchev.

Every Summer, since God knows when, the Soviet Eastern Fleet pulls up anchor, leaves it’s moorings, bursts out of the ice usually present in Vladivostock harbor and heads North to the Sea of Okhotsk to conduct war games. In order to reach their destination the ships must pass through this narrow strait.

Four years earlier the brain trusts at Langley, Virginia, decided two things. One — they didn’t know a thing about the size or capability of the Vladivostock Fleet and two — they could remedy this ignorance by photographing the Flotilla as it passed through the narrow channel. The job was given to Naval Intelligence, and crack teams of radio intercept and direction finding equipment operators were sent to the site for three consecutive Summers. They were to locate and track the Fleet to the Strait at which time a team of civilian experts would photograph the Soviet ships in all their glory. Our people were aware, they would certainly pass through at night and in a thunderstorm if that could be arranged, so they were equipped with State of the Art infra-red cameras with 1000 MM lenses. In three years these incredibly complex and expensive efforts yielded absolutely nothing!

The story opens with our hero, Frank Throckmorton, giving the reader a detailed tour of the village. Throck, as he is called by his mates, takes us through the backbone of the local economy, the Crab Cannery. We witness the entire process, from the boat to the six ounce cans. We are introduced to Jake’s Sake house, the only bar in town and visit the general store and laundry. We learn a great deal about the cliff, the obsolete artillery gun placements and the tunnel on the cornice and the bunker, above it all, making not only a great year-round playground for the local children but a wonderful venue for a bunch of intelligence types trying to spy on the Russian Navy.

We meet the ‘spy guys’ early on. They live and work in the large bunker above the tunnel. They are civilian and older than Throck’s people. They wear 45 caliber pistols and are nasty and arrogant. They act mysteriously, have their own jeep and don’t like Throck’s people at all.

We flash back several months to the top-secret Intelligence Facility back at Chitose. We learn that our heroes serve two masters. Captain Moffet, Regular Army Infantry, commands the base where they live, sleep, eat and play poker. Moffet has no knowledge of what they do at the heavily guarded operations center a short bus trip away and he doesn’t hide his resentment. Colonel Robert Blankenship commands the operations center and although Moffet has described these trick-two people as ‘gambling, womanizing drunks,’ Blankenship knows they are the best at what they do.

Blankenship is very young to be a Bird Colonel and is considered a G-2 wunderkind back at the Pentagon who is destined to become a General very soon. The three consecutive failures of Naval Intelligence to profile the Vladivostock Fleet has not gone un-noticed. It doesn’t take long before the problem is turned over to Blankenship for quick resolution. After all, he is the best and he is right there on Hokkaido.

He calls in Throckmorton and tells him what he needs of him and his people. They are to find the Fleet via shortwave radio transmission interception. Track them via radio direction finding and alert the civilians as to their arrival. Blankenship gives Throck all available information on the Fleet such as probable frequencies and Russian Naval communications formats but assures Throckmorton he’s going to need ingenuity, cleverness, creativity and stubbornness in order to succeed where others have failed.

After a night of drinking many liters of Sapporo beer at Jake’s Sake house our heroes decide they have not tried hard enough to be friends with the spy guys. They conclude a peacemaking visit is in order, right now! Even though it’s three in the morning. They are very drunk and climbing the cliff to get to the cornice to get to the bunker proves to be a major task as well as very dangerous. They stumble through the bunker door falling all over themselves scaring the hell out of Wilson, the head spy guy and two of his cohorts! Wilson stands in the middle of the bunker, in his shorts, brandishing his 45 automatic, screaming uncontrollably! Boggs, the Arab and little Jimmy, Throck and Leo are just laying on the concrete floor giggling hysterically and invoking the name of the Lord in an interesting way. The boy’s attempt a detente is a bust. Wilson is furious and demands satisfaction.

Wilson, Culpepper and Cooper track little Jimmy down in the city and give him a terrible beating. Leo, with the help of a local girl he has befriended, manages to get a Japanese doctor to examine, X-ray, medicate and bandage little Jimmy. Somehow Leo gets him to the Air Force Base where they hook up with the others on their weekly shower trip. Leo shows a new and charming side to his gruff, South Philadelphia personality as he earnestly tries to nurse little Jimmy back to health, while Throck and the others decide what to do. They decide to handle it themselves and Throck comes up with a plan to settle the score with “the bastards.”

The Russian radios go silent. The last RDF reading showed a slight Southerly movement — they are on the way! Throck calculates a 42 hour trip with an ETA at midnight the next day. Three ships from Magadan, an obscure and unimportant port on the Northern coast of the Sea of Okhotsk also participate in the War games. This tells Throck a great deal about the strength of the Flotilla but he is going to need the infra-red photos taken by the civilians to prove his theory.

First things first, however. Throck, Leo, the Arab, Boggs and even Jim Baker go to breakfast, prepared to carry out the plan. They enjoy their meal while waiting for the jeep to arrive with the three scrubbed, rested spy guys to complete their complement of six. It is on time.

Leo stands up smartly, revealing the 30 caliber carbine he has wrapped in a blanket. He throws a round into the firing chamber, getting the attention of all! They are told to unbuckle their gun belts and drop them to the ground. They hesitate and Leo fires a shot just past Wilson’s hip, creasing stone on the ground and making one hell of a whining sound and they conform quickly!

Boggs and the Arab pick up the weapons, unload them and throw them over the cliff. Leo brings the rifle to his shoulder and takes dead aim at Wilson’s forehead! The four others get behind the jeep and roll it off the cliff — creating one hell of a noise as it bounces from boulder to boulder on the way down. Before leaving, Throck tells Wilson the Fleet will be passing through the strait at midnight tomorrow. Wilson doesn’t answer and our boys go back to the Jamesway. The plan completed! Little Jimmy is revenged!

The next morning Wilson tells our guys that he intends to prefer charges against them immediately for att