Red Inferno

CHAPTER 23

Harry Truman glared at the two men sitting with him. He was still reeling in disbelief at the proposal put forward by Stimson and Marshall, both of whom he trusted, and concurred with by a man he trusted not at all, Winston Churchill.

Churchill had telephoned his opinion earlier. He was back in England and trying desperately to hold on to his position as prime minister, which was in jeopardy following the debacle along the North Sea.

Truman shook his head. “I cannot believe we are ready to countenance the use of Germans in our armies, however limited your proposal is. Yet we know that Churchill agrees with it and that this Miller fellow in Potsdam is already doing it. I can’t blame him there. He has a unique situation. But you’re telling me that the Russians are too?”

Stimson answered. “Everything is true, sir. Miller began to use Germans to crew German antiaircraft weapons properly, and Ike would like to extend the practice to the rest of the army.”

Truman turned to Marshall. “And you condoned this? Is there no way you could have stopped Miller?”

“Sir,” Marshall responded, “Miller is the commander in the field and, as such, is given considerable latitude regarding decisions. The fact that he is surrounded and outnumbered by his enemies, and hundreds of miles from contact with the American armies, makes the situation both more complicated and more desperate. Besides”-he smiled slightly at the memory-“Miller as much as told me we would have to come and get him if we wanted to court-martial him for disobeying orders.”

Truman grunted. Sight unseen, he had to admire this General Miller. He must have a fine set of really brass balls. Not too many military men would have had the temerity to tell the army’s chief of staff where to get off. Truman had also been appalled to find that the Reds had drafted Germans to man the antiaircraft guns around Ploesti and other places. Worse, there appeared to be an effort to create a German Communist army out of the multitudes of prisoners of war the Russians held. Just how successful this would be remained to be seen. However, it was thought that many German prisoners would likely choose the opportunity to live as a soldier instead of starving in a POW camp or being worked to death in the gulag.

“And now, gentlemen, you’re telling me that Ike wants to do the same thing?”

Stimson sighed. They had already been over this. “That’s correct. Ike feels we are winning the air war, but that the Red air force is still a formidable adversary. Despite the fact that we are producing almost three times as many airplanes as the Reds, they still have a mighty host. We made a big mistake last year. Ike ordered the disbanding of a hundred battalions of antiaircraft guns because the Luftwaffe was such a weakened threat, and everyone concurred. Now these battalions have been reconstituted in light of the still dangerous strength of the Reds, and we need much more to protect our boys. Thus, Ike is proposing that we utilize German soldiers to man the antiaircraft guns and other weapons that we have captured in great abundance.”

Truman did not respond. His expression was stern. Marshall took over from Stimson. “Sir, if you are concerned about our boys serving with any war criminals, I do not consider that likely. The antiaircraft guns and gunners were part of the Luftwaffe, their air force, and not the SS or even their regular army. Even if they were so inclined, I doubt that the gunners and others in the Luftwaffe would have had the opportunity to commit many war crimes.”

Truman stood and looked out the window behind his desk. “And Churchill concurs after all the Germans did to England? Well, I suppose he would, considering the mess his army is in. Has it been confirmed that Montgomery has been replaced?”

“Yes, sir,” Marshall answered. “By Alexander.”

Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander had served with distinction in North Africa and Italy. Marshall had just received confirmation from the British chief of staff, Sir Alan Brooke. The choice did not displease the American high command. After first being almost insultingly critical of the American military, Alexander had proven quite easy to work with and had strengthened the alliance between Britain and the United States.

The public had been told that Montgomery had been a casualty of the battle and had been evacuated to a hospital near York. Only a handful knew that he had suffered a nervous breakdown.

Churchill had made the decision that the mauled remnants of the British Army would continue to remain in German-occupied lands and fight alongside their former enemies. Wounded were being picked up by the Royal Navy from a multitude of beaches and small fishing villages along the west coast of Denmark. The British had lost most of their armor and artillery and practically all of their supplies, which meant they would be relatively helpless for the foreseeable future.

Marshall continued. “In a small way, using Germans in any capacity will help resolve the problem of numbers. We are still badly outnumbered at the point of battle.”

“I know,” said Truman.

In the nearly two months since the start of the war, the United States had managed to scrape together only a few new army divisions to throw at the Reds. Two each from Okinawa and the Philippines were en route to Europe. This did not mean that the four American divisions from the Pacific were in any shape to fight the Soviets. They’d been worn down by battle and disease. Physically, the soldiers were suffering from a score of ailments, and their equipment was shot and needed replacing.

Then there was the problem of getting any of Clark’s already reduced Fifth Army across the Alps. The Swiss and their neutrality were a large roadblock. A trickle of Clark’s army had made it across from Italy into Austria, but the price had been high, too high. Others were wending their way around Switzerland by way of France, while a lucky few got to take ships from Italian ports and thence around Europe to Antwerp. Either way there was a dreadful delay and moving any of Clark’s troops meant ignoring the fact that they were in Italy to prevent a Communist-inspired civil war from breaking out there.

“And what are the Russians doing?” Truman asked.

Marshall stole a look at his notes. “Sir, our intelligence sources say that the Reds are stripping their other armies in Europe for the coming battles, which we all assume will be decisive. We have also confirmed that they are using Romanians and Bulgarians in some locations, although these cannot be the best soldiers in the world. We further believe they will be using those so-called German volunteers wherever they can as shock troops. That’s been their tradition. They’ve always utilized penal battalions and released prisoners for suicide attacks. The men actually do volunteer because they know they will definitely die as prisoners, while there is the small chance they will survive as soldiers.”

Truman looked puzzled. “Under those circumstances, I would think a great number of them would desert. God only knows, I would.”

It further boggled his mind that Stalin would take the Russian men released from German POW camps, hand them guns, and send them straight back to battle as poorly led, untrained, and half-starved mobs. He had to remind himself that Stalin, early in the war, had said that surrender was punishable by death. He was just enforcing his decree.

“They might desert,” said Marshall, “we just don’t know how they would manage it. They would be closely watched and not have very many chances under any circumstances. We aren’t certain the German volunteers will be used against us. I consider it more likely they will be used as a police force to maintain order in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. All of those countries are now in rebellion against the Russians. Thus, more armies can be taken from the forces occupying those countries and sent to the front. Further, the OSS reports that their operatives have sighted trainloads of soldiers coming back from the Far East.”

“Makes sense,” Truman said. “How many men are we talking about?”

Marshall again referred to his notes. “These are estimates, but at least half a million from Siberia and maybe another half million from other sources.”

Truman groaned. Counting both the reinforcements from the Pacific and Clark’s army, if either got there in time to help in the next battle, they would total less than a fraction of what the Russians were bringing up. There had been some talk about lowering the draft age to seventeen and raising the upper end from its current high of thirty-five years of age to forty. The potential for the greatest numbers would come from the lower end, but, like Roosevelt before him, he was already catching hell because eighteen-year-olds were in combat. If seventeen-year-olds went to war, the political effects might destroy the entire war effort.

At any rate, it wouldn’t work. First, as they had discussed before, there wasn’t enough time to draft and train large numbers of men. Second, the decision had been made to hold the size of the American military at a certain level in order to keep the economy going, and that made sense. What good did it do to put all these men in uniform if there were no weapons being produced for them to use? There were very real limits to what the Arsenal of Democracy could do.

“Damn,” Truman muttered. “We can shoot down their planes and make more aircraft than they do, and we can make more tanks than they, but their tanks are much better. That pretty well evens out, doesn’t it?” Stimson and Marshall nodded. “Therefore, until and if we can get that bomb of Groves’s working, the difference in this war is numbers, isn’t it?”

“That and supplies,” Marshall corrected. “If they take Antwerp, our resupply effort will be crippled.”

“Well,” said Truman, “we cannot speed up the ships bringing in the Pacific reinforcements and we cannot enlarge the army by changing the draft. If we could get at least some of the Fifth Army across the Alps, it might help take pressure off, wouldn’t it?”

“A little,” Marshall admitted.

There was a pause as a courier knocked and entered with a note from the secretary of state. Truman opened the envelope and read the one-page document quickly.

“Well,” he said with a wide grin, “it would appear the British defeat has served one purpose, other than to get rid of Monty, that is.”

“And what is that, sir?” Marshall asked. He declined to remind the president that the Fifth Army had been stripped to support the invasion into southern France.

Truman handed him the note. “It seems to have scared the bejesus out of the Swiss. The idea of a possible Russian victory seems to have made them change their neutral little minds. They are going to let Clark’s boys transit through Switzerland in order to preserve their financial system. All right”-he chuckled-“if the British can decide to fight alongside the Germans, and the Swiss can give up their neutrality, you can use your Germans as antiaircraft gunners.”

• • •

Tibbetts watched as the flight of three B-29s circled for a landing on the isolated air base outside Reykjavik. Once again, another flight had returned unharmed from the long sortie over Germany. After a couple of false starts, he had devised the tactic whereby each trio of bombers would fly over selected areas of Europe just after a major bombing raid had taken place, either there or nearby. Thus, they would usually catch the Reds on the ground refueling and rearming as the American bombers disappeared to safety. In the first few days of this effort, there had been some attempt by the Russians to attack the bombers. This had cost him two planes, but the attacks had ceased as the Reds realized the bombers weren’t bombing. He presumed the Russians thought they were out for photoreconnaissance purposes. It was as if they didn’t want to waste precious fuel on them. Well, he decided, who cared what they thought? It worked, didn’t it? Now they were over Europe each day. It was as if the planes of the 509th had been given safe-conduct passes.

Tibbetts was pleased that the temporary base was pretty well complete. Men and supplies were housed in a host of Quonset huts. His ground crews had all been shuttled in and he had a full complement of supplies. Even better, the scientists had arrived, and that meant the nuclear material would soon arrive and then be flown to England. He understood that it was coming by warship, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis. Since the Germans had surrendered all their U-boats, the Atlantic was as safe as a pond. Arrival of the nuclear material would end his crews’ period of training and put them into the cauldron. Perhaps, if this bomb worked as the scientists expected, they would be the cauldron itself.

Everyone who knew about the atomic bomb, including Tibbetts, wondered what their target would be. He didn’t think it would be a German city, as they were already pretty well destroyed. He had seen the figures and they staggered him. Bremerhaven was 79 percent destroyed, and Bonn 83 percent, and Hamburg 75 percent. Ironically, Berlin was listed at only 33 percent destroyed by bombing, which was a testimony to the futility of trying to wipe out truly large cities from the air. While he sometimes wondered who went around and counted ruins, he had no reason to doubt the results. The major German cities no longer existed as viable targets. Besides, he reminded himself, we are now at war with Russia, not Germany.

Most of his people had put their money on targets inside Russia, and he had to admit some fondness for that idea. Moscow and Leningrad were everybody’s favorites and there had been some conventional bombing attacks on them. Leningrad was closest and much easier to hit, but there really weren’t many military targets around there, except some navy bases, and the Russian navy, such as it was, had stayed home for this war. Moscow was the capital and contained the military headquarters, and would normally be a juicy target. Unfortunately, it was so far inland and, therefore, so well protected by guns and planes, that the few attempts to bomb it had suffered badly.

There had been three attacks on Moscow totaling 500 bombers that had lost a total of 135 planes. Unacceptable, Tibbetts thought, totally unacceptable. If he were to launch a nuclear assault against Moscow those numbers meant there was the high probability that he would lose a bomber that carried a nuclear bomb, whether it was disguised as a photo plane or not. With so few bombs available, not to forget the highly trained crews, he could not risk the huge cost of failure.

Logically then, that left tactical targets, and they were in a constant state of flux. Tactical targets had the annoying habit of moving.

Tibbetts would have to give considerable thought to what he might suggest as a target. That is, he thought wryly, if anyone would accept targeting input from a mere colonel, even if he was supposed to fly the plane and head the mission. Well, he knew he had access to Ike and he had information about how the bombs might cause damage when they detonated. Perhaps it was time to call in some favors.

E LISABETH W OLF TWIRLED in her skirt and laughed as Logan stared at her white thighs. “Thank you for the razor, Jack. That’s the first time in months that I’ve been able to shave my legs.”

Logan flushed. “You’re welcome.” He still wasn’t comfortable talking strictly feminine topics. First body odor and showering, and now leg shaving. What was his world coming to? Apparently such discussions came more easily to Europeans than they did to comparatively puritanical Americans. The last time Lis had worn the skirt, he had noticed the obvious fact that she hadn’t shaved her legs in a long time. While some of the blond German women could get away with it, a dark-haired girl like Lis could not. He’d been told that many European women didn’t shave as a matter of course.

An airdrop had brought them an abundance of safety razors and blades. More than enough to share, especially since General Miller had not revoked his permission to grow beards. Many of the soldiers, Logan included, had gotten fond of their furry growth, and Miller was keenly attuned to what he could do for his men to make them happy in what was now openly referred to as Goddamn Potsdam.

Once again, they were outside in the warm sun. Elisabeth stopped her impromptu dance routine and sat down beside him on the rickety bench. Technically, he was still on duty but the bunker was only a short distance away and in plain sight. Bailey would call if anything came up. Casual arrangements like this were common up and down the perimeter, and Jack wasn’t the only one in the company doing it.

“You know, Jack, it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, my family and I were really quite comfortable. Regardless of where we were and even in the depths of the Depression, we always had enough money to buy both necessities and a few luxuries. Father was high enough in the diplomatic hierarchy to command a decent income, and we had rental properties that provided other money. I never had to do without pretty dresses, nice shoes, cosmetics, books, anything.” She lifted her foot, again showing a little bit of leg. “I was even able to shave my legs whenever I wanted to.” She laughed wryly. “Of course, as a young girl I never wanted to because it burned my skin. I tried to convince my mother that only evil women shaved.”

“Did it work?”

“Of course not. She said if I didn’t I would look like a bear. Did I look like a bear?”

Jack put his arm around her waist and pulled her more tightly to him. “Yeah, and the type of bear I wanted to hibernate with.”

She jabbed him in the stomach. “Be nice. Besides, it isn’t even winter.”

“I just hope we’re not here in the winter,” he said sincerely. Like most of the men in the garrison, he was astonished at the length of time they had been in Potsdam and the fact that no end was in sight to their precarious existence. As he had thought and said so many times before, these days in the sun were a blessing to be enjoyed while they could, since they surely could not last.

“Me neither,” she said. “I want to get back to someplace that’s real. Not just for me, but for Pauli. He deserves a better life than this. He needs a home, playmates, and a school. I may have been spoiled with what we had amid the privations of the Depression, but it wasn’t an evil spoiling. Surely there can’t be anything wrong with having loving parents.

“We weren’t plutocrats,” she added, “just normal people trying to live their lives. Now look at us. We’ve been reduced to little more than beggars living in caves and wearing rags.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the enormity of the disasters that had befallen her, and who could blame her. She was still only twenty, an age when many young women of her social and economic class were still single and in school. Instead she found herself in a refugee camp in a besieged city, wearing cast-off clothing made from curtains, eating a foreign army’s rations, washing infrequently, and being unabashedly grateful when a friend gave her something so she could perform an act of personal hygiene.

Worse was the feeling of helplessness. What would the future bring? For her and the others with her, was there a future at all? At any time a Russian shell could crash down and end any discussions of the future. It was something they had to live with and deal with. Thus, they were relatively unconcerned about sitting outside. If death came, so be it. Otherwise, there was still a semblance of life that had to be lived.

“Jack? Tell me about your home again.”

“America? It’s not like Canada. America’s a magical land that’s full of good things to eat and the streets are all paved with gold.”

“Jack. Please?”

He hugged her and nuzzled her cheek. “Okay.” Softly, gently, he again told her of his life. It had been rough but not desperate. His father had worked for the railroad and spent a couple of years riding the freight trains as a railroad cop chasing off the bums and tramps. He did not tell her what his father had told him of the starving young teenage boys and girls he came across and what they did to survive. That didn’t sound like America. He also didn’t tell her of the times his father had to club a vagrant senseless because he wouldn’t leave, or because the bum wanted to throw his father off the moving train. That wasn’t America, either.

He told her how his family had persevered, how they had grown some of their own food, sewn worn clothing, and lived as frugally and as moneyless as they could during the dark years of the early and mid-thirties. Jack’s father had never really lost his job; however, there had been long stretches of time when the railroad “ didn’t need him” and he waited at home for circumstances to change. There really wasn’t much use looking for another job; there weren’t any.

Finally, in 1940, things got better. His father got a job in the administration end of the railroad and they moved to a small house in Port Huron, not far from the tracks. They could see Sarnia, Ontario, across the St. Clair River, which formed the boundary between the United States and Canada. It was easy to watch the cars and people on the other side and wonder where they were going and what they were doing. It was also easy to take a small boat across or take the Bluewater Bridge, which had connected the two countries since 1938. Until the war came, crossing to Canada, either officially or unofficially, was quite easy.

“Did you ever go there, to Sarnia?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Montreal and Quebec, yes, but not Sarnia. And the only time I got to the States was a visit to Niagara Falls when we went across to the American side for a couple of hours. We were disappointed. The best view is from the Canadian side.”

Jack agreed. He had been there too. Idly, he wondered if he might have seen her. They compared dates and found they were years apart on their visits.

“I’ll take you back there,” he said.

“I’d like that.” Her voice was soft and he realized she was falling asleep. He guessed there wasn’t much rest for her some nights in what amounted to a crowded barracks. Sometimes it wasn’t so pleasant sleeping in that bunker with his men when one of them had a bad night or got hold of some liquor. Not all the gardens being grown were for food crops. Some enterprising souls had started making a near-lethal variety of moonshine.

That he could handle. Drunks were easy. But it was difficult to deal with a man his age who had suddenly given in to despair at the thought of ever leaving Potsdam. It was fairly easy to maintain a degree of bravado during the day, but ugly truths and nightmares came out during the dark hours. When that occurred, even the strongest of men was known to cry. No one mentioned it in the morning-their turn might be next.

Jack knew that he had to get Lis and the boy out of Potsdam. He had no illusions. The American army had been defeated and was retreating away from them. Sure, they might come back at some time in the future, but, based on what had happened in the Pacific, that could be years. The Russians would not grant them years of safety and the airdrops could not last forever. Sooner or later the Russians would attack again. Maybe the next one could be beaten off as well, but what about the following one, or the one after that?

As a soldier, he could hold out some hope that he wouldn’t be killed, that, instead, he would be taken prisoner and someday returned to America. He might live, and where there is the possibility of life there is hope.

But what about Lis and the boy? Pauli would probably be lucky. He would likely be killed outright. But Lis? He had heard the stories. Most of the German women in Potsdam had been raped by Russians and had made plans to kill themselves before that happened again.

Lis hadn’t mentioned anything-some topics were still taboo-but he knew she must have considered it. He could not bear the thought of her spread-eagled on the ground while a line of grinning Russians waited their turn.

He had to get her out of Potsdam. How? he bitterly asked himself. They were surrounded by a river and tens of thousands of Russians. If she could sprout wings she might have a chance.

“Did you say anything?” she asked groggily, and he realized he must have said something out loud.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Nah. Must’ve been mumbling to myself.”

Elisabeth shook her head and roused herself. “I have to get up and see your dear Sergeant Krenski.”

Logan chuckled. He saw nothing dear at all about First Sergeant Krenski, who seemed to worship Lis. “Why?”

She stood and stretched like cat. “Because I am teaching the nice man how to read. He isn’t dumb, you know. He just was too embarrassed to do anything after he succeeded in leaving school without learning a thing. Really, you ought to do something about your schools.”

Jack swatted her on the rear and she stuck out her tongue. Lucky Krenski, he thought, and what the hell is he doing with my girl?

Burke and Godwin waited in the chill dawn alongside the hastily built airstrip. It was long, very long, and Burke wondered just what the hell needed so much real estate for takeoff and landing.

Godwin was there as a representative of the RAF, and Burke was there because it was presumed he was an emissary from Marshall. Basically, this was an American Eighth Air Force show, and scores of air force personnel ranged the area. Antiaircraft guns pointed skyward, although their crews stood several feet away from their weapons lest there be some tragic mistake.

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Godwin said.

Burke chuckled. “Hasn’t happened yet, now has it?”

“If this is a trap,” Godwin said. “We are dead.”

It wasn’t a trap, Burke reassured himself. There weren’t that many important people present to make it worth a trap or a betrayal. At least that’s what he hoped.

A large flight of P-51s flew overhead with a roar. They were the van of the escort. Even though unseen, a multitude of other American fighters provided flank and rear support.

Godwin jabbed Burke’s arm. “There.”

A dark shape had descended from the clouds and was approaching the landing strip. Instead of the roar of a propeller plane, this had more of a singing sound. “Oh my God,” muttered Burke.

The strange plane touched down gently, showing the pilot’s obvious skill. “I can’t even get into bed that softly,” Burke said.

They openly gaped at the plane. It more resembled a shark than anything else. And there were no propellers. The plane was a jet, the dreaded ME-262.

Behind the first plane came a second and a third, and others queued up for their turn to land. The hatch of the lead jet opened and a man in his thirties wearing the rank of Luftwaffe general climbed out and jumped down. He looked around and spotted Burke. Godwin stepped behind. The turnover was to be from the Germans to the Americans.

Burke was a little befuddled. He knew what was supposed to happen, but there was an air corps general a mile away who was in the wrong spot and wondering how the hell to get to the right one without losing his dignity. Additional German jets were landing and lining up alongside the first one.

The German held out his hand, and without thinking, Burke took it. He’d never shaken hands with a Nazi before. But then, this general was supposed to be one of the good guys. That is, if there really were any good Germans.

“Colonel, I am Lieutenant General Adolf Galland, and you Americans will soon have all the German jets I commanded. At least those that survived,” he said sadly. “I trust you will use them wisely. I also trust you have fuel for them.”

Godwin responded. He noted that Galland was not shocked by his face. Obviously, the Luftwaffe had its own share of burned wretches.

“General, we have fuel for our own jet program and our scientists are confident it can be modified for your jets.”

Development of the British Meteor jet lagged well behind the ME-262. “I hope so,” said Galland. “If not, we might as well have blown them up on the runway.”