Red Inferno

CHAPTER 26

“Hey, buddy. I’m Chuck Ames and I’m with Reuters News Service. Mind if we talk?”

Logan shrugged. The reporter was staring at him as if daring him to say no. “Sure, but you might not find anything interesting. I don’t know too many military secrets. Even my family thinks I’m dull.”

“You’d be surprised how interesting you might be, Lieutenant. Along with the big-picture news, I’m filing a bunch of stories about ordinary soldiers. Kind of like what Ernie Pyle was doing, only he was a lot better.”

At least Ames hadn’t said he was better than Ernie Pyle, the legendary correspondent who’d been killed a short while back in the Pacific after spending most of his time writing about the war in Europe.

“I met Pyle a couple of times,” Ames went on. “Helluva loss. Regardless, I want to do a little of what he did and talk to regular Joes. If my editors like what I write, it’ll be published and your folks at home will get to read about you.”

Jack nodded. “That, I’d like.”

General Miller had given Ames permission to use the army’s radios along with his own during downtime and subject to censorship. He was writing copious notes and planned to turn this adventure into a book when he got home. He was almost forty and thought it was about time he did something to get really noticed. Sneaking into Potsdam in a “borrowed” plane might just have been his last chance before the war ended and he went back to being a small-time reporter.

Ames asked routine questions, and Jack responded about his home, family, schooling, ambitions, and a ton of personal stuff he hadn’t thought about in a while, and he started to get emotional about it. Ames turned away and gave Jack a moment. He’d seen that reaction all too often. Home was another world, and many GIs had walled themselves away from it.

“And maybe finally,” Ames said, “what about a girlfriend? Got one?”

Jack smiled. “I hope so.”

Ames continued to scribble in his notepad. “She back home in Michigan?”

“Nope. She’s here.”

Ames blinked. “What? Oh, Christ, now I know who you are. I’ve seen you with that young German girl.”

“Are we that obvious?”

Ames laughed. “Damned straight, you are. You’re either the luckiest man in the world or the smartest. How the hell did you find a young woman like her in a hell hole like this?”

Jack gave him a summary of how they’d met and a little of her background. “If you want some more personal stuff from her, I think it’d be better if she told you and not me.”

“Nasty?”

“Some of it. Even so, she was luckier than most.”

Ames understood. The girl hadn’t been raped. They shook hands. Ames checked his notes. Ordinarily it would be just another human-interest story, but Logan’s finding a girl in Potsdam was a good one. He would look up the girl and interview her as well. Maybe something about love and romance in the middle of war and the squalor of Potsdam would play well back home.

He hummed happily. If he played this right and he actually got out of Potsdam before the shit hit the fan, he might just win himself a Pulitzer. First, however, he had to figure out when was the time to leave and how. Miller had already made noises about taking his plane for reconnaissance purposes. No sir, that couldn’t be permitted to happen. That was his ticket out and a chance to win Mr. Pulitzer’s little prize.

“I am angry,” declared Chuikov. His jaw was set and his eyes burning with rage. “No, I am furious. Comrade Zhukov, we need men and we need fuel. Someone is failing us.”

Zhukov looked about him in the small room he’d commandeered in Hanover. He looked grim. “Be careful. You run the risk of being accused of criticizing comrade Stalin.” Unspoken was the fact that anyone could be listening and could turn on them. No one was safe in Stalin’s Russia.

Chuikov started to say something more, then smiled sweetly. “Of course I would never criticize our beloved Josef Stalin, comrade Marshal. How could you even infer such a thing?”

“Good. Now let us understand that we will deal with the Allies using the tools at hand, not the tools we wish we had. The high command believes that these tools will be more than enough to ensure victory. Do you not agree?”

“Comrade Zhukov, Stavka and comrade Stalin are far, far away. At risk of again being accused of criticisms, I am afraid they do not understand the full complexities of the task before us. We have been resting our men and hoarding supplies for two weeks now and are ready to begin the assault on the Americans on the other side of the Weser. Have no doubt, we will cross that damned river. When we accomplish that task, next we will be up against the Rhine and the Maas before we reach Antwerp. I am afraid that we will again be forced to pause before we even think of eliminating the Rhine barrier. I shudder at the thought of sending our armies against American-occupied heights along the west bank of the Rhine.”

Zhukov agreed. He’d reminded Stavka of the hard-fought and costly battles against the Germans on the Oder when the Nazis fought hard for Berlin. He assured them it would not get easier. The Rhine could prove to be a mighty barrier. All the more reason to destroy the Americans this side of it.

Unlike the Germans they’d fought on the Oder, the Americans were neither disorganized nor demoralized as they continued their withdrawal. They had fought tenaciously and well for every inch of ground since the Red Army crossed the Elbe, retreating only when it was militarily expedient. Whoever said the capitalists wouldn’t fight was wrong.

The Americans still had the cream of their youth in their lines and they were pouring weapons into Europe. Weapons, not men. Spies had told Stavka that the Allied numbers had been only slightly augmented by new arrivals. Zhukov smiled. Perhaps there was a limit to the American horn of plenty, after all.

There was, however, a very real limit to what the Red Army could accomplish and that concerned him greatly.

Zhukov put his hands behind him and began to pace. “I have stripped both Koniev and Rokossovsky of much of their armor and air cover in order to make this final push successful.”

“I know, and I am grateful. But all of these tanks and planes need fuel, and we are not getting it. What little we have in reserve is not enough, and what is in the rear areas is just not getting through. The same is true of heavy weapons. We both know there are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tanks, T34s and Stalins, in hiding in eastern Germany and Poland because we cannot transport them safely to the front. The damned Yank bombers have disrupted road and rail traffic for hundreds of miles. We can repair most damage within a day or two, but the bombing occurs continuously and, worse, they keep destroying the bridges. Those, we cannot rebuild quickly. Nor can we simply drive them, because we lack the fuel.”

Chuikov took a deep breath. “Comrade Zhukov, with your permission, I am changing the immediate goal of the army.”

Zhukov was surprised. “You are what?”

“We will not be driving straight for the Rhine. Instead, we will be aiming toward Dortmund.”

“But why? That would have your armies veering north toward Amsterdam, not Antwerp. Why on earth are you interested in a detour toward Dortmund?”

Chuikov’s craggy face lit up with a smile. “Because the Americans have recently turned the area around Dortmund into a massive supply and fuel depot. Our planes have confirmed the existence of resources beyond our dreams. If we can take Dortmund, we will have all the American fuel we would ever need to complete our offensive, not to mention food and vehicles.”

Zhukov shook his head. “I do not recall that area being serviced by enough roads and rail lines to make the existence of such an immense depot likely.”

Chuikov smiled and passed over some eight-by-ten photographs. “Look at these. They have built major arteries to the depots and have done so just recently. These are the supplies the Americans will need to stop us. If we take them, the Americans will either be forced to retreat precipitously or will have to die protecting them.”

Zhukov studied the photos. What they showed was an extraordinary and sudden buildup. “Chuikov, I’ve seen your supply figures. If you make that detour and fail, you run the risk of running on empty fuel tanks.”

“That will also happen if we do nothing, comrade,” Chuikov said grimly. “The supply figures you’ve been provided from Moscow are, shall we say, optimistic? We’ve calculated everything more realistically, and there is no way we can force the Weser and reach the Rhine without the supplies the Americans have at Dortmund.”

Zhukov continued his pacing. Did they have a choice? He had nearly two and a half million men ready to attack the Americans. Despite losses, there were still thousands of tanks and thousands more pieces of artillery as well as additional thousands of planes to hurl at them. The Americans had hurt the Russian advance, but not stopped it. Only the threatened lack of fuel could stop the Red Army.

Perhaps also, Zhukov thought, the Americans would finally be put in a position where they could not refuse a battle of attrition, which the Red Army would certainly win. He and Chuikov had tried hard to make the Americans stand and fight to the death, but the Yanks would have none of it. No one in their right mind would want to fight the Russian bear at close quarters.

But sooner or later they would have to. Would it be at Dortmund? If so, perhaps Russia could win and end the war. This could occur if they could kill enough Americans on the east side of the Rhine so that the rest would lack the will to fight. American soldiers might be brave, but their political leaders were not, and they must be cringing at the thought of the losses they were incurring.

After all, it wasn’t as if the Americans were fighting for their homes. For that matter, he realized grudgingly, neither were his own troops. He had begun to notice a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the part of his soldiers and even some of his generals. He would have to deal with that, and very ruthlessly.

“The Americans must bleed,” Zhukov said.

“They will. The preparatory bombing will begin shortly, although with great care not to hit the Dortmund area. We will pretend we don’t know it exists. We will use every plane in our possession and hammer them along the Weser. This will be followed by an intense and prolonged artillery barrage, something the Americans have never endured. The Americans may crumble under the weight of the metal thrown at them.”

Zhukov concurred with Chuikov’s revisions to the original plan. He had to bow to the tyranny of logistics. They simply could not push on to the Rhine without the supplies Chuikov insisted were at Dortmund. As to the Americans crumbling, let Chuikov think that would occur if he so desired. Instead, he would have to prepare for the longer battle.

In the next few weeks, it was imperative that certain things occur: first, Chuikov would have to have some measure of success driving toward the Rhine while, second, Koniev would have to halt the inevitable counterattack that would come from the south. With many of his tanks stripped from him to support Chuikov, this would be a difficult challenge for Koniev.

Zhukov smiled inwardly. At least, he thought, if Chuikov’s armies were stopped in the north, Koniev was likely to get a bloody nose in the south. If that were to occur, his despised rival could not claim the upper hand in jockeying for the position of most favored general with Stalin.

Tony Totelli shrieked in horror as the Russian emerged from behind the tree and, equally astonished, confronted Joe Baker. It was their worst fear come true. It couldn’t be happening. Tony had checked the area and there had been no Russians around. Where the hell had this one come from?

Tony was more than a hundred yards away and he could only watch as Joe’s knife suddenly emerged in his hand and was driven into the chest of the Russian.

The Russian fell forward onto Joe and there was a sudden flash and the sharp crack of an explosion as the stick of dynamite Joe had been carrying detonated.

“No!” Tony screamed and stood up. It couldn’t be. Joe Baker was immortal. He couldn’t die.

Anton ran up to him, gasping. “I saw the Russian at the last moment. He had been taking a nap and must have just awakened. At least he was not part of an ambush.”

“We gotta help Joe,” Tony moaned. In the last few weeks, Joe Baker had been more than a leader to Tony. He had become a big brother to him, and Tony began to sob with the sense of loss.

Anton grabbed his arm. “Tony, we must leave. There’s nothing we can do for him and the explosion will surely bring more Russians.”

Reluctantly, Tony agreed. All they had been going to do was blow up a lousy telephone line using dynamite they’d stolen from the Russians. They had done it many times before and it was no great deal. Yet, this time, something had gone wrong. Joe had killed the Russian, but somehow the charge had detonated.

The smoke was clearing and Tony and Anton could see the misshapen and fragmented lumps that had once been Joe and the Russian strewn about on the ground. Neither man looked like anything human.

“Tony,” Anton insisted, “we must leave.”

“Yeah.” Tony shook the anger and sadness from him. What a fucking horrible break for Joe. “Let’s go.”

As they made their way from the danger area, they hid behind trees and were passed by a couple of trucks loaded with Russians who were heading quickly for the area of the explosion. The sight of them infuriated Tony and he wished he was carrying a weapon that he could use to avenge Joe. But he was unarmed. That was another of Joe’s thoughts. If you’re not carrying a gun or knife, you won’t be tempted to do something stupid with it. Even in his saddened state, Tony knew that attacking truckloads of Russians would certainly qualify as stupid.

After long detours, they made it away from the area of immediate danger to where Vaslov had stayed back at their last encampment. Their activities were somewhat protected by the fact that refugees of all types, ages, and nationalities were wandering Europe; thus, there was safety in the sheer numbers of people uprooted by the wars.

“What now?” Vaslov asked on hearing the sad details.

Tony had to think. For the longest time, other people had been doing most of his thinking for him. First it was his parents, then his teachers, and then his sergeants and officers. Joe Baker had taken over from them, as Tony really had made no long-term plans for staying alive in enemy-held territory.

Now it was time to do something on his own behalf. Sure, he had made it after his tank had been destroyed, but that was mere survival. Now he wanted to fight.

So what were their strengths? First, they had a couple of weapons and that NKVD uniform buried not far away. Second, they had the radio Joe had brought and they knew how to use it to contact his OSS superiors. All they had to do was decide how to use these resources in the best manner.

Oh yes, Tony thought, we are alive and free. They had survived the months since that fateful day of the ambush. That ought to count for something.

Lieutenant General Adolf Galland of the Luftwaffe felt the incredible surge of power beneath him. It was invigorating to be in a plane again and going to battle against the enemies of Germany even though he didn’t quite understand his status. Was he still a Luftwaffe general or, he laughed to himself, a prisoner of war out on parole? What the hell, he thought, he was flying the best plane ever made and the Americans were going to let him kill Russians while using British jet fuel. What was happening to his world?

Galland was forty thousand feet above the Weser River and stalking prey, this time Russian instead of American or British. It struck him as incredible that he and the other pilots had resumed working at their craft. He had fully expected to have been executed by Hitler either for insubordination or for having failed to stop the Allies, or, later, imprisoned for many years by those same Allies.

Instead, the war between America and Russia had brought him and his fellow pilots a reprieve. It had also brought the world’s first operational jet, the ME-262, back into the war, this time with American markings. It had only made sense to use the Germans who had piloted them, although there were a handful of Americans in the formation. Thank God he and some of his comrades spoke fairly good English and had been able to give the Yanks some solid but quick training.

The ME-262 was a weapon incredibly superior to any fighting aircraft other nations had. Unlike most of Hitler’s other attempts at a superweapon, the ME-262 actually worked. Heavily gunned, with four 30 mm cannon and twenty-four rockets, it could fly at 560 miles per hour, almost twice the speed of some of the Russian planes and still much faster than anything the Americans or British possessed. If only Hitler had permitted quantities of them to be built instead of the thirteen hundred or so that had finally been completed. It hurt Galland to realize that the majority of them had been either destroyed on the ground or captured in hangars because there was no fuel to fly them and no safe place for them to land. He was not aware of more than a few that had actually been shot down in battle.

The tactics were simple. The jets would be the first to attack the enormous Russian bomber stream that radar said was approaching the American defenses along the Weser. The jets would dive from on high and rip through the Russian air fleet at blurring speed, killing as many as possible and throwing the meticulous Russian formations into confusion. When they were finished, the other Allied fighters would take over and continue the battle. With luck, he and the others would be able to refuel and attack again and again. Jet fuel had been in short supply in Hitler’s Germany, but the Americans, even without any operational jets of their own, had devised a way to adapt British fuel and were well on their way to making their own.

There. He saw them. A long, ugly smudge of what looked like locusts coming in below him from the east. The hundreds of Russian bombers, quickly identified as Ilyushin IL-4s, were, as usual, flying in tight formation, close up and three abreast in a serpentine line that stretched for miles. Russian fighter pilots could be quite good, but their bomber crews generally were not.

He hand-signaled to his wingman, another German, a man who’d shot down more than two hundred Soviet planes, and received acknowledgment. They had kept radio silence and it was unlikely that the advancing Russians suspected their presence. They would logically expect American propeller-driven fighters, not jets.

Quicker than he dared think possible, they were over the Russians. Galland made another signal and the scores of sleek-winged jets began their attack, like wolves ripping into the herd of sheep below.

Tolliver winced and closed his eyes as the earth shook again. It was impossible to think clearly, much less hear. He glanced at Holmes and the couple of others in his trench on the west bank of the Weser and saw the pale terror on their faces. Did he look like that? God help us.

After a few drinks, some of the older men in the bars of Opelika had told of the incredible artillery barrages of World War I and how men went mad under the incessant thunder, knowing they could be blown to pieces, or turned to jelly by a near miss, or buried alive at any time. How long before that happened to his men? Or to himself? Buried alive was the worst of the three terrible choices. It was the stuff of nightmares.

The Russian barrage had commenced only an hour earlier, and that hour now seemed like forever. They had been fired on before by German artillery, but it had been nothing like this Russian effort. There must be hundreds of Russian guns zeroed in on his position, churning up the earth and lifting clouds of dust and smoke that made it nearly impossible to breathe. As any fool knew, it was part of the softening-up process that would precede the Russian assault.

Incredibly though, he didn’t think anyone had been seriously hurt. When they had retreated across the Weser, they had been directed to preplanned and preconstructed defenses that had been well sited and built to withstand Russian artillery. His respect for the army’s engineers had always been high. Now it was astronomical. Despite the noise and thunder, he was fairly safe from anything but a direct hit by a very-large-caliber shell, or a lucky piece of metal coming through a gun port. Neither seemed all that likely. All they had to do was stay sane.

Earlier in the day, the Russians had tried their luck at bombing the dug-in Americans. It had been a curiously ineffective attempt. While a lot of Russian planes had appeared overhead, their attacks had been disorganized, and it seemed to him that a lot of bombers had been content with dropping their load in the general direction of the ground and getting the hell out of there. Of course, the presence of large numbers of American fighters certainly had something to do with it.

Despite warnings not to, many soldiers, he and Holmes included, had stuck their heads out to watch the battle in the skies above. The sight of hundreds of planes circling like angry bees in the blue sky above had stunned them. So too had the numbers of smoking aircraft streaming earthward like smudgy banners in a macabre dance of death.

Holmes had tried to put it in perspective. “At least foxholes don’t fall down and crash.” Tolliver knew it was a play on a recent Willy and Joe cartoon that had appeared in the soldiers’ newspaper, Stars and Stripes. In it, Willy and Joe assured a sailor that they preferred the army because foxholes don’t sink. Tolliver thought Holmes had a very good point for a damn Yankee.

“On the other hand,” Holmes had continued in his aggravating nasal manner, “foxholes can get crashed into.”

At that point, their observations had been interrupted by the sight of a small black object streaking across the sky at an incredible rate of speed. It made the other planes appear like they were standing still. “What the hell is that?” Tolliver had asked.

“A plane, sir,” Holmes had said cautiously. “Only, I don’t know what kind of plane could move that fast.”

Mesmerized, they watched the dark bug dash in and out of the fray. They thought they saw its guns fire, and they saw planes disintegrate and plunge from the sky as the deadly bug whipped through the battle storm.

Holmes grabbed Tolliver’s shoulder. “Lieutenant, there’s a couple more!” This time the strange planes came out of their dives and flew close enough to the ground to give them a fair look. “Jesus, sir, those are jets.”

Tolliver laughed aloud. “And they have American markings.”

Tolliver had heard rumors of the German jet, but had thought it was a flight of Hitler’s fancy. Now they had emerged on the American side of the war. As he tried to think out the implications of that, a couple more Russian planes began their death spiral to the ground, courtesy of the American jets. Sometimes, when a plane was destroyed, there was a parachute with a pilot dangling forlorn and vulnerable beneath it, and these floated to the ground like pods or seeds from some strange tree.

Sometimes, though, the parachute didn’t quite open and the pilot was sent on his own death spiral, screwing himself into the ground at high speed. Tolliver could only wonder what last thoughts went through a man’s mind as the ground rushed up to squash him like a bug on a windshield. He shuddered. Foxholes don’t crash, he continued to tell himself.

Another Russian shell landed close, bringing him back to the present. Once again they were covered with dirt that had blown in, but had escaped unscathed.

“Lieutenant,” said Holmes, “I am getting fucking sick and tired of this.”

Tolliver thought it was a dumb comment to make, but let it go without a sarcastic rebuttal. Maybe Holmes just needed to get it off his chest. “So am I, Holmes.”

“No, I mean it, sir,” Holmes insisted. “Do you realize we’ve been fighting for more than two months straight? We haven’t been pulled for any rest or refit, we haven’t gotten reinforcements, nothing. It’s like we’ve been sent out to fight until there’s nobody left.” “Holmes, I don’t think that’s quite what’s happening.” “Yeah, sir? Well, how many’s left in the platoon? I’ll tell you: fifteen! And I checked, and there’s only sixty-two in the company. After all this, who the hell knows how many’ll be left.”

Tolliver hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but Holmes’s numbers were correct. They had gotten their share of supplies and ammunition, but there hadn’t been any fresh, warm bodies to fill in the gaps made by fallen comrades. Was the rest of the division in as bad a shape? What about corps? Or Bradley’s whole army group? Two thirds of his men were down. If that figure carried over to the rest of the army, just what the hell would they do to stop the Russians when they crossed the river only a couple of hundred yards to their front?

Another barrage of shells shook them and showered them with fresh debris. At least, he concluded, they were knocking the Russian planes out of the air faster than they could come at them. But he wondered about artillery duels. If the American big guns were returning fire, he was unaware of it. He was totally focused on the thundering Russian efforts to snuff out his young life.

“Y’know, sir,” Holmes continued when there was a breathing spell and they could better hear each other, “I almost wish the Reds would actually attack.”

Tolliver rubbed the dust out his eyes with a damp cloth. “Why?” “Then at least this bombardment shit would let up.” Billy Tolliver of Opelika, Alabama, thought for a minute and concluded that he agreed with the annoying little Yankee. Let’s end this shit. Let’s get it over with one way or the other.