1920: America's Great War

CHAPTER 11

“It was a terror attack, nothing more,” said a clearly agitated General Liggett. Sims nodded agreement. “They made no attempt to hit anything of military value. No bombs fell on our defenses and none on the Presidio, and they had to know this was our headquarters. Nor were any Navy ships attacked. They bombed the heart of the city just to prove they could do it.”

“What are the casualties?” a slightly calmer Admiral Sims asked.

Nolan sadly gave the numbers. “Just over three hundred dead with at least twice that many injured, almost all civilians. Women and children are included in the total. Certainly some of the injured will die and other dead will be found in the rubble. Overall, however, the actual damage to San Francisco was slight. The fires have been contained and crews are already clearing up the rubble. More people are homeless, though, which is a problem.”

“Which we will minimize by shipping still more civilians out of the city,” Liggett snarled, “and Mayor Rolph be damned. Nolan, in your opinion, will they attack again and what can we do about it?”

“Absolutely they will come again, and there is precious little we can do to stop them. We can elevate machine guns and our few cannon to shoot skyward, but hitting a moving airplane at ten thousand feet is virtually impossible. If one of their planes should deign to fly low, we stand a chance, but not against high-flying bombers. Until and if we have enough airplanes of our own to intercept the bombers, we are helpless. I believe the only practical and useful thing we can do is dig trenches for people to take shelter in.”

Nolan allowed a moment for that unpleasant truth to sink in. “Could we use civilian airplanes as interceptors?” Liggett asked. “I understand there may be several hundred in the area.”

Sims decided to interrupt. “I’ve had conversations on that score and civilian planes are small, slow, and frail. They would be slaughtered by the German fighters and many couldn’t attain the altitude necessary to fight the Gothas in the first place.”

“But what concerns me more,” Nolan said, “is just where did they come from? The Gotha V bomber has a range of just over five hundred miles, which means it can only be based about two hundred and fifty miles away for them to get here and back. To the best of our knowledge the Germans have still not taken San Luis Obispo, which is about two hundred miles south, and I can’t imagine they’d put a bomber base too close to the front lines.”

“A hidden base?” Sims asked.

At that moment, Luke entered the room and quietly took a seat behind Nolan. Liggett spotted him immediately. “Captain, you interrogated the German prisoner. Did he talk? And please tell me that you didn’t threaten to cut off his testicles or anything like that.”

“Wasn’t necessary, sir,” Luke grinned. “It seems the man is an enlisted gunner, not a pilot or an officer. He was conscripted into the German Army a few years ago and wants out of it. His name is Schmidt and he is pathetically eager to please. He also informed me he has family in Milwaukee and, in return for his cooperation, he would like to be released to them. I told him we’d consider it.”

Liggett stifled a smile. “Tell us what you’ve found.”

“First, sir, the Germans have sixty of the Gothas and a hundred fighters. Ten of the bombers didn’t go on the attack because of mechanical problems. Schmidt said his officers told him the attack was designed to bring us to the negotiating table by emphasizing how helpless we are against their bomber attacks. Again, sir, it was terror, plain and simple, and designed to get us to negotiate.”

“They do have a point,” Liggett muttered. “Tomorrow, I’m going to have to endure a meeting with local merchants who will doubtless want San Francisco either surrendered without a fight or be declared an open city. I will, of course, tell them exactly where they can put their precious business interests. Now, how the devil did the Germans accomplish the attack? Where are they based?”

Luke continued. “Sir, they are based just south of their lines at Obispo. They managed to cover the additional distance by reducing their bomb load and by carrying additional fuel in cans. Schmidt’s job was to take cans of gas and pour the gas down a funnel into the gas tanks as they flew along. By those means, they greatly extended their planes’ range. It’s almost like warships carrying extra barrels of oil or, in days past, bags of coal.”

Sims chuckled. “It’s a trick that works, but I cannot imagine sitting in a plane, ten thousand or more feet in the air, and pouring gasoline down a funnel. Instant immolation would have been only seconds away at any time.”

Luke smiled, “Schmidt felt that way as well, which is another reason for him to want to change sides. He says he cannot imagine American generals being so reckless with human life.”

“I can think of a few,” Liggett said, drawing laughter. “But did he give you a precise position where the bombers are based?”

“He did, sir,” Luke said. He caught Eisenhower smiling at him. “And I think we can come up with a way of disrupting their operations.”

“But will it be in time to forestall another attack?” Sims inquired.

“Probably not, Admiral. Schmidt said they want to hit us again fast so we don’t get the idea they’re short on fuel. And by the way, sir, they are short on fuel. There’s scuttlebutt in the German camps that tanker ships full of oil are only days away which will at least partially solve their problem.”

Sims leaned forward eagerly. “Did your man say where the tankers were headed, San Diego, Los Angeles, or elsewhere?”

“No sir. He didn’t know.”

Liggett stroked his chin. “And these plans of yours to, ah, disrupt the Germans, how soon can they be implemented.”

“A week to ten days,” Luke answered, looking at Eisenhower who smiled slightly. There was sadness in his eyes and the smile wavered. Ike had just gotten word that his son, David Doud Eisenhower, was deathly ill. Ike wanted to be by the boy’s side, but duty called. Luke continued. “Provided we can get the equipment and other resources we need.”

Liggett stood. “I will personally see to it that you get everything and then more. Anybody who fails to cooperate will be on permanent latrine duty for the remainder of their lives. Tell me, Martel, is there anything that might prove difficult?”

Luke grinned. “Well sir, I could use a couple of German uniforms.”

Roy Olson had seen death many times lately, but the dead body on the ground before him bothered him greatly. It was one of his Mexican soldiers and the man’s skull had been bashed in. From the look of it, someone had snuck up behind him and struck him with something like a hammer and hit him a lot of times.

“Another one?” Steiner said with a sneer.

Olson jumped. He hadn’t noticed the captain come up beside him. “Yeah,” he finally answered. “And it’s the fourth one if you’re counting.”

Steiner steered Olson away from the corpse. There would be no investigation. They had a man’s footprints as evidence and that was all, and that told them absolutely nothing.

“And what will you do this time besides send out search parties, Mr. Olson?”

“Captain, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it. You want me to hang a prisoner or two to make a point, I’ll do it, but the prisoners are surly enough now. I don’t think they’ll take to having some of them being strung up, especially in payment for a dead Mexican that they couldn’t possibly have hurt.”

Steiner’s response was silence. The American prisoners of war worked slowly at best, and neither man felt that a retaliatory execution would be a motivator. They needed the Yanks, however slowly they worked, to keep supplies flowing north to a hungry and thirsty German Army. The American prisoners had gotten over their shock of defeat and imprisonment and now their eyes were filled with hate. They seemed on the verge of bloody insurrection. No, it was better they work a little than not at all.

“I’m almost a hundred percent certain it’s Lew Dubbins,” Olson said. “He’s the last of the brothers alive and the only one with half a brain.”

“Maybe more than half by the way he’s eluded your men.”

“Maybe,” Olson admitted. “Dubbins was raised here, so he knows every place to hide. He could be fifty feet from here, laughing at us while we send patrols into the mountains that come back with squat.”

“So where is he?” Steiner asked.

“Probably in a hole in the ground, preferably in the shade. He’s likely got a full canteen and his head is covered with a dusty brown blanket. We could walk within ten feet of him and not see him. And the son of a bitch is definitely taunting us. He could have killed the four Mexicans he murdered earlier with a rifle, but he’s chosen to do it with clubs or knives.”

Olson shuddered. The first two’d had their throats slit, while the third, like the latest, had his skull turned to red and gray pulp.

Steiner disagreed. “If he’d used a rifle, it’d give us a direction and distance so we’d stand a chance of tracking and chasing him. No, by killing like he does, this Dubbins creature gives away nothing. Strange, but I did not visualize any of those unwashed Dubbins cretins as being great American patriots.”

Now Olson was on firmer ground. “They aren’t, Captain. Lew Dubbins is out for revenge for his brothers, nothing more than that. He’ll keep killing until he’s caught, or until you and I are both dead. Killing the Mexicans are just ways of keeping us on our toes and up all night.”

Olson mentioned that he’d found a scrawled and misspelled note on the latest victim saying that he and Steiner would be killed, too.

To Olson’s delight, Steiner looked nervous and glanced around. “Send out your patrols, Olson. The fool could not have gone too far.”

He hadn’t. Lew Dubbins was in a storeroom in the back of one of Roy Olson’s warehouses. Through a crack in the wall, he could see the two men conversing and they looked pissed. Good.

He heard a key turn in the door and he grabbed his rifle. He would go down fighting.

It was Martina Flores, Roy Olson’s mistress. She laughed at him. “Put down your weapon.”

Dubbins grinned at her. She’d brought food and water. Better, she’d brought him something else. She pushed him over on his back and unbuttoned his pants. She hiked up her skirts and put one of Roy Olson’s expensive condoms on Lew’s erection, then straddled his manhood. She smiled down at him. It felt good to betray Roy Olson by fucking this ignorant savage.

Martina had known for some time that her husband was dead and that Olson was using her. Maybe Dubbins would kill Olson, just like he bragged he would. In the meantime, she would reward him for each enemy soldier, Mexican or German, that he killed.

She had first seen Dubbins when his brother was executed. She had seen the rage in his face and knew that he would help her. She had made contact through one of the women in the village, an older woman who understood her situation and felt sorry for her.

Dubbins wasn’t much of a lover. After pawing her breasts and thighs a few times, he grunted and relaxed. “God, that was good,” he said.

Martina smiled warmly. To her, his exertions were far less than average. But it was a good reward for Dubbins. Someday, when the time was right, she’d get him to kill Olson for her and maybe even Steiner. In the meantime, he could stay in the storeroom for a couple of days until the patrols came back from their fruitless endeavors. Then she would smuggle him out of the camp and he could rest and wait for his next target of opportunity.

Winter in the mountains was unpleasant at best, even to an expert like Klaus Wulfram. He was cold, miserable, and alone. He felt numbness in his fingers that presaged frostbite. The last of his men had abandoned him. He still had some dynamite on his pack horse, though, and planned to use it.

After blowing the bridges he’d been assigned, Wulfram and his crew had hidden in an abandoned barn for a few days. Then they had simply taken an eastbound train to St. Louis, this time as Swedish businessmen. Fortunately, Wulfram’s ID was good, his Swedish language skills passable, and his cartoonish Swedish accent good enough to be accepted. He harbored some wild thought that he could destroy the bridges across the Mississippi, but quickly ascertained that the now aroused United States was watching them like a hawk. Also, there were more bridges than he could handle, but in the north where the great river wasn’t quite so wide.

In St. Louis he received a coded telegram saying that the bridges in the northern pass had not been sufficiently damaged, if they had been damaged at all. He was saddened by the obvious fact that a team of men he knew quite well had simply disappeared. His new orders said that he would try to rectify the situation.

A simple look around St. Louis showed how necessary destruction of the northern rail line was. Military supplies were beginning to pile up by the hundreds of tons, and there were literally thousands of men in uniform. They would not be anywhere near as good as a German soldier, but there were so many that they could possibly overwhelm a German force or, worse yet, successfully defend against the German advance on San Francisco. The northern pass must not reopen until after San Francisco fell and the American Army in California was destroyed, at which time it would be a moot point.

Money talked and ten dollars got him on a train to Spokane. There he changed to a train headed towards Seattle, where the railway was blocked by snow. The conductor told him the delay was temporary and that crews were shoveling as they talked. When no one was looking, he got off and began hiking into the woods. This time he was nowhere near as well equipped or armed as before and the tracks were being guarded.

He wished the others were with him, but he’d given them the choice of volunteering to stay with him or try to make their way south to the German or Mexican lines as best they could. They’d all said no to staying with him. They’d had enough. He was disappointed, but didn’t blame them.

Still, American guards could not be everywhere. Wulfram rented two horses, one for him and one for his supplies, and trekked into the snowy passes.

He managed a wan grin when he saw how deep the drifts were and how America’s Pacific Northwest was cut off from the rest of the world until the tracks could be dug out. But, deep as they were, that wasn’t good enough. His orders were to extend the problem for an additional several months.

He rode his horse through the waist-deep snow and wondered how far he could go before he had to admit failure and turn back. Then, just as he was about to give up, he found a bridge. A beautiful bridge, and it was over a wide and fast running branch of the Columbia River. It would more than do. The tracks on it were the only remaining link between the United States and California.

Wulfram was nearly at the limits of his endurance. He could understand how the men in the party that had disappeared could have been overwhelmed by the forces of nature. The wind whipped through his clothing and his feet were wet, almost numb. It was like walking on stumps. He thought his testicles were frozen. Whatever he was going to do would happen right now. Tomorrow, he might not be alive.

The bridge was guarded, but the guards were not in sight. Instead, tendrils of smoke blew from shacks at each end of the bridge. After all, who would be crazy enough to attack the bridge during the middle of winter? He imagined the foolish Americans playing cards, smoking, and drinking. In a way, he envied them. Warmth, food, and a chance to sleep were all he wanted.

Wulfram crawled out onto the ice and to the first of the trusses, remembering that he wanted to do more than just drop the bridge; he wanted to destroy it. A dropped bridge could be repaired, even in the winter. A destroyed one meant starting over.

Painfully, he attached the dynamite and the detonator cord to each truss. It seemed to take forever. His watch said it only took a couple of hours. Finally, he was on the southern side with the detonator. Now to attach the cord.

“Hey!”

Wulfram spun around. One of the guards had emerged from his shack and was less than a hundred yards away. Worse, he carried a rifle.

Wulfram pulled his revolver and fired a couple of shots in the guard’s direction. They went wild, but the guard ran back, screaming for help. Two more men ran out of the shack, half dressed, but also carrying rifles. They spotted him and began shooting as they ran forward. The gunfire in the snow was curiously muffled, the shots sounding more like popcorn popping.

His fingers wouldn’t respond. The detonator cord wouldn’t stay put. He tried again. Bullets kicked up beside him. “Stand up!” someone yelled. The Americans were getting closer. “Get away from that damn plunger!”

The devil he would. Not after all his efforts. Finally, it was done. Something slammed into his back, throwing him forward. His left arm wouldn’t respond. He was on his hands and knees. The plunger was in front of him. Another bullet smashed into his leg. The pain was sudden and beyond belief. He screamed. With the last of his strength, he pushed the plunger down.

As his vision faded, he saw the bridge rise up and disappear in clouds of debris.

Fifty-seven Gotha V bombers were lined up in neat rows. There had originally been sixty. Two had been shot down and one was thought to have crashed due to engine failure or pilot error, but there were no survivors so no one would ever be certain.

It was the middle of a clear and starry night and only a handful of guards were about. The airfield had the look of a temporary facility. As soon as the stubborn city of San Luis Obispo fell, the German lines would move forward and the bombers would be stationed ever closer to San Francisco. It would not be an easy move. The rugged Albatros fighters could take off and land from any field that was fairly smooth, but the great bombers were more fragile and needed an airfield that had been specially prepared for them.

In the meantime, they were basically grounded. Two additional attacks on the city had exhausted their supply of bombs and much of their fuel. No matter. More supplies were en route. Then they could pound the city into surrender.

At least that was what Captain Helmut Krause hoped. He was in charge of maintenance and security for the planes and it galled him that his beautiful and magnificent bombers were on the ground. However, it had given him the time to have his crew perform additional maintenance on the behemoths. And they were huge. Their length was nearly forty-one feet, their wingspan almost seventy-eight. Fully loaded, they weighed in at more than four tons. Sometimes he held his breath as they tried to leave the ground and, so far, they all had succeeded in defying gravity. And the next time there would be no mechanical failures. All fifty-seven would attack or he would have somebody’s head.

Even well maintained, the Gothas had their problems. They were underpowered by Mercedes engines that were too small and, as a result, the bombers could only do a rather ordinary ninety miles an hour. Still, they were fearsome things once aloft with their deadly cargoes. It never ceased to amaze him that man had first begun to fly less than twenty years earlier when the Wright brothers had taken the pathetically small steps at Kitty Hawk that signified mankind’s first controlled flight. He thought it was a shame that the first flier hadn’t been a German. Perhaps the Wrights were of German descent, he thought and chuckled.

Krause was alone except for the handful of guards on the perimeter of the base. The pilots and the mechanics, their day’s work done, were a couple of miles down the road, drinking and whoring. Helmut Krause had a wife and three children at home. A drink he didn’t mind, or even several, but whoring? Nein. So many of the whores were Mexicans, uglier than sin and a lot of them had the clap to boot. Get the bombers bombing and end the war so he could go home was his plan. He was a reservist who’d been called up for the Mexican venture. Only later had it turned into an invasion of the United States.

He caught motion to his left. A column of horsemen was coming down the dirt road towards the gate. Now what? Krause was delighted to see one of his four young and inexperienced guards actually get up and challenge the newcomers. There was hope for the boy yet. Whatever was said must have been satisfactory. The gate was unlocked and the riders entered. Krause noted that the two leaders were Germans and the others Mexicans. One of the leaders was a major, the other a sergeant. He drew himself to attention and saluted the superior officer. He was mildly puzzled by the fact that the riders were fanning out.

“How may I help you, Major?”

Luke returned the salute and responded in German. “It has been decided to give you more security. There are rumors that the Yanks might try a raid. Where are the rest of your guards? Please call them in so we can coordinate our efforts.”

Krause was a good German and automatically obeyed the man with the higher rank. As his few men gathered, he tried to place the major’s accent. He had obviously not gone to a good school, and Krause wondered how he’d gotten a commission. Within minutes his men stood behind him.

The major smiled. “Take their weapons.”

A score of rifles were pointed at the astonished Germans. Within seconds they were all disarmed and hands bound behind their backs.

“You seem like a decent sort, Captain, so if you don’t make trouble, nothing will happen to you or your men. Otherwise, we will be forced to slice your throats.” He gestured to one of the Mexicans, who pulled a large knife and grinned wickedly. Krause suddenly knew overwhelming fear and tried not to wet himself. He failed.

He watched sadly as the dismounted riders raced from plane to plane, setting charges. His great beautiful beasts were going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. Worse, he would bear the brunt of the blame and rightly so.

“Major, leave me a gun so I can shoot myself.” Krause spoke in English to what were obviously American raiders.

“That would be too nice,” the American sergeant said with a wide and engaging smile. “You and your planes have killed more than a thousand innocent civilians, women and children, and wounded many more. You should all be hanged as the barbarians you are.”

Krause’s head slumped in despair. Eisenhower, the “sergeant,” looked on him with contempt. Luke directed the preparations for the planes’ demolition, which included removal of the several 7.92mm machine guns they carried. Ike commanded the column with Luke as his second. Luke, however, wore the rank of a German major because he spoke German fluently. Ike’s German was miserable at best, which both men considered ironic considering his ancestry. Montoya led the Mexicans.

When they were done, the Americans pulled back. Ike grinned infectiously. “Care to do the honors, Luke?”

“Your show, Major.”

Fuses were lit and fires snaked across the field. One by one, the bombers exploded. Their fuel tanks were almost empty, but what was in them and the accumulated vapors ensured the fiery destruction of each plane. The plywood-framed behemoths quickly became torches.

“Like the Fourth of July, only better,” Joe Flower laughed.

The nearly empty fuel storage tanks followed. The sky was lit by scores of fires, large and small, and man-made thunder rolled about them.

On the other side of the base, facing the road leading to town, Tomas Montoya and his men awaited. They had four machine guns propped up and ready, along with their own rifles.

They didn’t have long to wait. Scores of men from the beer halls and whorehouses down the road came running to see what was happening to their precious planes.

At fifty yards, the machine guns and rifles poured bullets into them. The Germans fell like scythed wheat. In a moment, the massacre was over. The road was filled with the dead, the dying, and the badly wounded. Not only were the Germans without their bombers, but many of their pilots and skilled mechanics had just been slaughtered.

Payback for the people of San Francisco, Luke thought as he observed from a distance.

Montoya’s men mounted their horses, took the machine guns and what ammo they could carry, and joined up with Eisenhower and Martel. “A very good night’s work,” said an elated Eisenhower. It was his first time in combat. He would have something to tell Mamie. Perhaps news of this victory would take her mind off their son’s illness, at least for a few moments.

It had been fairly easy to get through the German lines. As before, the Germans couldn’t be everywhere and gaps weren’t that difficult to find. Going back, however, would be more difficult. The Germans would be thoroughly pissed as word of the destruction of their bomber force spread. The soaring flames and explosions had doubtless alerted every German within twenty miles. The fact that he and Luke had worn German uniforms would entitle them to a firing squad if they were caught.

“Captain Martel.”

“Major?”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The battleship Arizona led. Behind her came the Pennsylvania with the smaller Nevada bringing up the rear. Two destroyers patrolled in advance of the battleships. They did not want to blunder into the German fleet in the dark and the rain. That was not the plan.

Normally the battleship division was commanded by Rear Admiral Edward Eberle, but Admiral Sims had decided to be in on the adventure. He’d told Eberle to ignore him, which was, of course, impossible. Eberle was half amused and half frustrated, but the battleship division was his and he would lead as best he could, by God.

Pride of the squadron was the Arizona, BB 39. She had a crew of nearly eleven hundred, displaced more than thirty-one thousand tons, and she carried a dozen fourteen-inch guns in four turrets.

Next came the Pennsylvania, BB 38. She had a slightly smaller crew but displaced the same tonnage as the Arizona. She too carried twelve fourteen-inch guns.

The Nevada, was the smaller and older of the three, displacing just under twenty-two thousand tons and carrying only ten fourteen-inch guns.

All three had a top speed of twenty-one knots.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Josh Cornell wished he was elsewhere, in particular he wished he was in the slender and pale arms of the beautiful Elise Thompson. Along with missing Elise he was shocked to find himself in yet another combat situation with a real possibility of getting hurt once more. The three battleships were on a mission to probe the German fleet’s readiness and to act as a screen for additional endeavors.

As occurred so often, the weather was a cross between mist and rain. Visibility was poor and he was quietly freezing on the open portion of the Arizona’s bridge. The power of the Pacific Ocean was manifesting itself in the form of giant rollers that tossed the mighty warships like toys. Josh wondered just how the Germans on blockade duty were faring.

For Josh, being on the battleship had enabled him to renew acquaintance with Annapolis classmates. To his surprise they were impressed, even jealous, by the fact that he’d not only seen the elephant twice but had also been wounded. That he was Sims’ aide hadn’t hurt either, nor had the fact that he hadn’t gotten seasick. He’d noticed some of his old friends looking more than a little green around the gills as the battleship rocked and pitched.

Sharp cracking noises from ahead jolted him back to reality. The lead American destroyers were shooting at something. Roaring thunder counterpointed the destroyers. The German battleships were firing back. But were the Germans moving, and in which direction? Were they distracted enough? Josh prudently stuffed cotton and wax in his ears and opened his mouth to minimize the effect of the Arizona’s guns which were about to respond.

Eberle gave the order and the three battleships opened fire in the general direction of the German ships. The roar and concussion of the great guns nearly knocked Josh to the deck. He managed to steady himself although it did cause his shoulder to hurt.

He looked over at Sims, who was grinning like a little kid. Sims was a gunnery expert, but also a man who’d never been in combat. During the Spanish-American War, when so many officers had made their careers, he’d been the naval attaché in Paris. His specialty back then was espionage.

The Germans returned fire, but they too were largely blind. Still, a couple of shells landed close enough for him to see immense geysers roaring skyward.

Eberle turned to Sims. “Enough?”

Sims nodded, although with reluctance. The three American ships were not going to challenge five Germans. Their job was to taunt them and distract them. The American ships turned and steamed back up Puget Sound. German shells chased them and the Germans doubtless thought they’d won a minor, albeit largely moral, victory. When all was said and done, no ships had been hit and no one had been hurt on either side. Josh was singularly delighted that he hadn’t been scratched either.

Sims was pleased. Initial reports said that his distraction had worked. The three American light cruisers and five destroyers had made it out into the open sea. They would stop off at Catalina with additional fuel and torpedoes for Nimitz’s submarines and then set out as commerce raiders.

Josh caught the admiral laughing at him. “I told Elise I’d bring you back in one piece and so I will. It was a good night’s work, Lieutenant. The next time, though, we shall stay and sink them.”