Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal sighed as Ran and Gaz walked toward the internal lagoon inside the atoll. The sea floor inside the atoll was shallow enough that the bottom could be seen, though given the things he'd heard about Animalians and by the fact that their entire civilization was openly sexual and unapologetic about it. He didn't personally like it, but as much as the new president seemed to push a great many ideas that made little sense, with more than just Animalia. Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal followed orders as he always had, and was perfectly willing to try and coerce Animalia to fully submit to direct governmental control, preferably with giving up the right to vote and citizenship if possible, as the President had ordered him to, but at the same time, he privately didn't think the President's "plan" would work. At the same time, he didn't fully see why the new President had always seemed so "offended" by Animalian culture. Sure it was openly sexual, but so was the hippie culture of 1960s and Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal's older sister had been one of them, but she never harmed anyone and in the end, she found happiness. Personally, Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal favored a point of "let it be" regarding Animalia.
He sighed and shook his head to see Clara leading her mate and the other Animalians toward the beach on the outside of Mieni Atoll, likely to meet with Joe, Ralph, and Rita who had stated that they were on their way to Mieni Atoll after the additional fish that had been with Gaz had been uplifted and were on their way. Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal guessed that they had likely swum by the island before or that Ran had given them directions. That, however, had little interest to him. The thing that interested him the most was what these smaller uplifted fish had found. While Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal was an army man and trained in ground combat, he was not unaware of what had happened with other events of American military history. And what had been found gave some indication that some historical records were either wrong or mistaken. He thus pulled out a small cellphone and dialed a number that he'd learned after a few years of work as a staff officer.
"Naval records office," a female voice spoke, "Ensign Yuri, speaking. To whom may I direct your call?"
"To Commodore Tiller, tell him that Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal is calling," Lt. Col Lance Corporal spoke.
"Hold on a moment," the ensign spoke and the army officer waited quietly.
After a few moments a male voice then cut in again.
"So, Lance, still trying to write a book about how the Army won the Battle of Midway?" the voice teased.
"Very funny, Tiller," Lt. Col Lance Corporal answered, "you know the mission that I'm on."
"Yes... the President's whole "trick the Animalians plan;" how is that going?" Commodore Tiller answered.
"I think they might be willing to go with the deal to buy the island and work with us in a way... but NOT in the way that the President wants," Lt. Col Lance Corporal answered, "essentially showing that he's tweeting at a lost cause."
The snicker that he heard in response was loud enough that if the others were near by, they might have overheard it.
"Anyway, they've carried out their secondary mission in finding a mate for their male Great White as well as uplifting a few other ocean fish in a way that won't cause problems," Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal spoke.
"Oh?" Commodore Tiller wondered, "and what does that have to do with me?"
"They found a sunken ship out to the north west of Mieni Atoll," Lt. Col Lance Corporal spoke, "and identified it as the USS Pennsylvania."
"The Pennsylvania?" Commodore asked.
"Yes," Lt. Col Lance Corporal spoke, "and according to the stories, the Pennsylvania was sunk at Kwajalein after the Bikini A-bomb tests. Mieni, however is about one hundred miles straight west from Kwajalein. Your maps can't be THAT wrong..."
And to Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal, that made sense. On many maps that you saw in a common classroom, many of the atolls of the Pacific were fairly close together, but at the scale of those maps, things could be misleading. Kwajalein was more than 400 miles southeast from the Enewetak Atoll. Enewetak was just over 200 miles from Bikini Atoll. Mieni was in the same general area and was far enough away from the atomic bomb tests at Bikini to be be clear of the radiation, but wasn't close enough to Kwajalein for the USS Pennsylvania's presence to be a result of a mapping mistake. Commodore Tiller, in the Naval Records Office was to be the best man to ask about how and why a battleship sunk as a target ship was not where many of the history books said it was supposed to be. After a few moments, he heard Commodore Tiller speak up again.
"Well... I don't think there was a mapping error," Commodore Tiller spoke, "Our records put the USS Pennsylvania to the west of what is now Mieni Atoll, though the exact coordinates are were the ship went below the waves."
"But... why the mention of Kwajalein?" Lt. Col Lance Corporal answered, "Mieni and Kwajalein are two different atolls."
"Not according to the maps we have," Commodore Tiller answered, "According to our records, Mieni was split off from Kwajalein in 1953, which was after the USS Pennsylvania was sunk as a target ship."
"Okay... but then why so far from what is now Kwajalein and not with the other ships that were sunk as target ships there that have been identified?" Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal asked.
"From the footnotes that I've found there was some fear about souvenir hunters wanting to get something that came from a battleship from WW2," Commodore Tiller spoke, "Something like some of the historical concerns over people taking things from the Titanic or the Bismarck."
"But those are graves, one an accident and one sunk in battle as a war grave," Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal commented, "the USS Pennsylvania didn't take anyone down with it and all personal effects and property were removed."
"That wouldn't mean that someone would want gauges and dials and so on," Commodore Tiller pointed out, "You have seen Pawn Stars, right?"
"Yes," Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal answered, "So, I take it Truman didn't want to share anything with history?"
"Probably more that there was no need for it and with the changes in naval warfare there was no further need for battleships," Commodore Tiller spoke, "but it would present you with an opportunity for continued talks with Animalia and a way to get them to work with us... even if not quite in the way the President thinks... We lay claim to the Pennsylvania as a historic site and we can maintain some small office to help set it up."
"Wouldn't that fall to the Park Service and not the military?" Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal asked.
"Eventually," Commodore Tiller spoke, "but it'd be the only thing that you do for the moment to try and negotiate with them."
Lt. Colonel Lance Corporal only sighed, though he did thank his friend in Commodore Tiller. The two had been career staff officers and had met a few times when the Army and Navy held either joint conferences or during other meetings. Their rivalries were still there, but that wasn't anything that made them hate each other. And while he might think that the new President was obsessing over certain things to a degree that made no sense for anyone, he was still bound to follow his orders, and Commodore Tiller had given him the only openning to keep negotiating with Animalia.