A Shadow On the Sea: The Pacific 1938-1943
Synopsis
In essence this is a story of a father and son whose innate differences are aggravated by
the coming of the Pacific war in 1941. The father, "Tip" Wheeler, leaves his home on Cacapon
Mountain in West Virginia and rides the freights to California's gold coast. There, as a big, selfconfident 15 year old, he joins a new venture to broker oil shipments from San Pedro. He
quickly becomes perhaps the one indispensable person in the business. By the end of World War
I, and not yet 30, Tip effectively controls the company along with a fleet of tankers. The war
makes him rich, but it also teaches him how to use shell companies to disguise his business
dealings.
As war approaches in the Pacific, Tip accedes to appeals from friends in the Japanese
government to set up a transfer station in Manila to conceal shipments of oil to Japan from the
East Indies. With oil the primary source of tensions between America and Japan, Tip believes
that supplying Japan with oil is America’s best chance at preventing war. Reluctantly, he also
agrees to sell nine precious oil tankers to the Japanese. Tip's operation in Manila draws the
attention of American naval intelligence, in particular, Lieutenant Commander "French" LaPorte.
LaPorte is a womanizer, but a shrewd operative, who comes to resent the rich and successful
Wheeler.
Tip's son, "Sonny" Wheeler graduates from Yale, and Ensign Wheeler joins USS
Jennings, a decrepit World War I era destroyer of the Asiatic Fleet in Manila. Sonny uses his
naval service as a ruse to avoid joining his father's business, which holds little interest for him.
In his absence, Sonny's younger sister, Margie, demonstrates much of her father's brashness and
business acumen, and to Tip's surprise and Sonny's relief, becomes a key person in the company.
In the final months of peace, Sonny becomes a competent officer under the tutelage of
Jennings' executive officer, Johnny Johnson, a World War I retread, master navigator, sea
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A Shadow On the Sea: The Pacific 1938-1943
Synopsis
captain and intellectual. A bond develops between Johnny and the much younger Sonny. Sonny
also digs far enough into his father's operation in Manila to become troubled, but he expunges his
concerns as certain war looms.
Life for the crew of Jennings is routine during the first two months of war, but in early
February 1942, Jennings is sent on a mission to the coast of Borneo to snatch survivors of the
Japanese invasion from the beach. After an unsuccessful rescue attempt, a Japanese naval force
intercepts Jennings and sinks it. The few survivors, including the badly injured Sonny and
Johnny, are washed ashore. The survivors spend several weeks dodging the Japanese and trying
to survive with neither adequate food nor proper medical care. They take refuge in a village with
a Catholic mission and clinic where Johnny Johnson dies. Sister Gertrude Shaw, who befriends
Sonny, runs the clinic, and is torn between protecting her villagers and supporting the American
rescue. After a savage fight with the Japanese, the few who remain are rescued by submarine
and taken to Australia. Sonny is evacuated to San Diego and recuperates in San Pedro. He is
haunted by the deaths of so many friends and shipmates. In San Pedro, Sonny probes further into
his father's activities, straining their relationship. Margie, zealously loyal to her father, deeply
resents Sonny's inquiries.
Sonny is awarded a medal for valor and sent to Hawaii to work in fleet intelligence. His
commanding officer is French LaPorte, and Sonny suspects that his assignment is an indication
that the Navy, who is closing in on his father's misdeeds, does not trust him. He also learns of
the existence of a naval intelligence report detailing his father's Manila activities. Through a
curious chain of events, Sonny gains access to the secret report. He learns that the Navy does not
know about the sale of tankers to the Japanese, perhaps the most damning of his father's
offenses. However, the report does reveal that his father's activities may have prompted the
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A Shadow On the Sea: The Pacific 1938-1943
Synopsis
Japanese to strike Borneo sooner than planned, leading Sonny to ponder the connection between
this revelation and the fate of his ship and her crew. On the other side, Tip knows of the report,
but not its contents. Tip is desperate to find out how much Sonny knows, but Sonny,
increasingly resentful of his father, but at the same time, oddly protective of him, keeps silent.
In the meantime, Sonny falls in love with a Navy nurse, Paula Bauer, a charming, exotic
girl of Hawaiian and European descent. After an intense affair, Sonny and Paula marry in early
1943 on the anniversary of Jennings' loss.
In the spring of 1943, Tip is flown to Washington to receive a high award for
volunteering his tankers to the Navy immediately after Pearl Harbor. Coinciding with his
father's award, in a symbolically defiant gesture, Sonny sails with Paula to a secluded bay on
Oahu. There, with the woman he loves and surrounded by the beauty of Hawaii, Sonny is
determined to find the happiness that he knows has eluded his father in spite of his business
success.
After the award, Tip goes to West Virginia to see his ailing mother, and they visit the
now dilapidated house on Cacapon Mountain. Fearing that he has lost his son, Tip regrets the lost
innocence of the mountain, but knows that he must return to the life that he has made for himself
in California.
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