The gunny was amazed. He did not quite understand the science involved but would ask Mr. Brand later about this thing called a Doppler shift.
Finally, James decided it was time to ask his question, so he jumped in with both feet. “Professor Tuve, everything you have shown me is quite astonishing, and you seem to have a good handle on the fuse. Yet, you have not explained why you needed me to come over to Johns Hopkins to help you.”
Professor Tuve did not smile but quickly responded. “James, I think we’re on the right path, but we still have a long way to go. We found out that you were in the navy and since this is a navy project, we need your help in dealing with the people in charge.”
“Go ahead, Professor, I’m listening. What help do you need from the navy?”
The professor looked around at the men in the room who were working on models of the fuse and quietly replied, “They want the damn thing tomorrow. We haven’t conducted enough tests and aren’t confident in the attrition rate of the fuse. I don’t think we’re ready to go into large-scale testing until we conduct more analysis of the systems and run more stress testing. The tubes are extremely fragile. We’re still looking for some way to cushion them without causing problems.”
James examined the completed fuse in front of him, picked it up, and started talking. “Tell me, Professor, what are you using for the base plate, where it attaches to the munition?”
Berkner quickly answered, “We’ve used a brass ring and small springs like you would see in a watch. We’ve considered wax, but heat might be a problem. We also thought about some sort of fluid, but the navy wouldn’t go for that.”
“Why not fluid, professor?” James held the fuse, staring intently. Both professors looked at him with blank expressions.
“How about a multi-stage compression ring,” James said out loud.
He laid it on its side to point out possible locations for the rings. “Stresses are building up at the firing point due to the centrifugal forces plus velocity. If you added plates here, here, and possibly here, and perhaps used a very heavy viscosity oil or grease as the compression liquid, it would not cause corrosion, nor would it tend to leak. Some sort of gasket would be required, but there is enough rubber still around to make the rings. You might also consider using nylon, which is now becoming available.”
Looking directly at Professor Tuve, James provided a way to make the scientists and the navy both happy. “I think if you were to conduct tests at speed, you would find the tubes would still function. Even if you had a failure rate of fifty percent, it’s still a better weapon than what the fleet has now. I can work with the navy to get them to agree to a longer testing schedule plus developing initial plans for the manufacturing of the fuse.”
Both professors looked at the fuse and quickly agreed the solution was simple and probably effective enough to work. The gunny just smiled. His admiration for Mr. Brand continued to expand.
The two professors continued to bombard James with questions about their other work which included expanding the use of radar to control not only anti-aircraft weapons but also the main armament on board the largest navy ships.
25
15 April 1942
Office of Admiral King
Washington, D.C.
• General Eaker established headquarters of U.S. Bomber Command at High Wycombe; U.S. Eighth Air Force, which was originally to have supported Operation Gymnast, is now committed to the United Kingdom instead.
• Submarine bases at Kodiak and Dutch Harbor, Alaska, are established.
• United States Naval vessel sunk: PT-41 by scuttling, Philippine Islands.
Admiral Willson watched his boss’s face as he read the report from Naval Intelligence. He underlined several words and then looked up at his trusted chief of staff.
“Damn it, can’t anyone give me a straight answer? Where are the Jap carriers? Are they still in the Indian Ocean or somewhere else? What is their intent, direction? Hell, I would like to know what they’re having for lunch!”
Willson knew the admiral would not be happy with today’s update, but it’s all he had to offer. He let the boss cool down, then decided to let him see another piece of intelligence. This one might set him off even more.
“Sir, we received a signal from the Brits in Ceylon. They think the Japs have turned around and may be headed back toward Singapore. There is no verification, but air searches have turned up nothing for the past two days. The Royal Navy pulled all their ships back toward East Africa, and after losing the Hermes, they have no aircraft carriers left in the Indian Ocean. The Japs can float about anywhere they please, but nothing has been sighted.”
King asked for the report which came via the American navy liaison office in England. “Okay,” he said without much expression. “The Brits for once might be right. The Japs ran amuck for a few weeks in the Indian Ocean and bombed all they wanted. Knowing the Japs, they probably had orders to push the Brits away then come back to this side of the world.”
King scribbled a few notes and handed the sheet to Willson. “Get this out to Nimitz and see if he agrees. I know we’re splitting our carrier forces right now, but after Halsey’s operation is over, have Nimitz put him on a short leash. We need to consolidate our carriers so that they can act in unison.”
Willson looked at the message and asked if there was anything else for him to do.
“Yes, get Tower over here. I want to talk to him about a few things.” King went back to his pile of papers, most of which contained more bad news. Willson knew when to leave and find Admiral Tower.
Rear Adm. John H. Tower was the chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, and this was no small job. He oversaw all aspects of naval aviation from sourcing the planes and men to building land bases and carriers and to devising procedures for flying the navy way. He had been the vice chief of the bureau for a few years and had already seen the number of aviators jump from a few thousand in 1939 to now graduating nearly one thousand pilots a month at various training centers scattered across the country.
Tower was one of the pioneer pilots in the navy and had been one of the pilots of the first flight across the Atlantic in 1919 when three NC flying boats took off from New York headed to Lisbon. Only one of the three, NC-4, made it to Lisbon but the crews of these slow and fragile planes all survived. Tower was flying NC-3 which crash-landed near the Azores and was towed by NC-4 into the safety of the island. The NC-4 plane eventually made it to Lisbon. The pilot was Albert Cushing Read, currently the commander of the primary naval pilot training program in Pensacola.
Tower came to King’s office in the early afternoon. He had been in a meeting on Capitol Hill working with a Senate Committee on the allocation of critical materials necessary for manufacturing airplanes. His counterpart at the army air force was newly minted Brig. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, who served as deputy chief of the Air Staff under General Arnold. The two worked well together knowing the companies who built their planes pulled strategic materials from the same source. If one company failed to get their supplies, another company might have too much, hurting both the navy and the army air force. The two services disagreed on lots of things when it came to who controlled what assets over the water or who should have land-based aircraft. But these disagreements were set aside when it came to assembling more planes and getting the tires, fuel, and ammunition required to make them fly.
Tower walked in and stood at attention in front of King’s desk. They had known each other for many years and respected each other greatly. Both had imperious temperaments, an advantage when fighting for the navy, but Tower knew when to curb his temper around King. The chief of Naval Operations didn’t have such a filter on his behavior and yelled at just about everyone who entered the room.
“Tower, what did you agree to today that will make me happy?” King stared at the two-star admiral like some plebe at the Academy summoned to the office of the Cadet Commander.
“Sir, it would appear the resource committee of
the United States Congress does not have a brain. My colleague from the army air force agrees with me on this principle, and so we at long last agree on something.” Tower smiled just a bit to see what the reaction would be from the chief of Naval Operations. He was not to be rewarded for the small talk.
“So, you and the army are playing nice again. General Arnold will probably want to scrap a dozen carriers just because you played nice with some halfwit bomber pilot.” King shuffled papers from one stack to another. Tower stood motionless knowing if King wanted more information from him, he would ask for it.
“Admiral, I want you to take a trip down to Pensacola and see your old friend Captain Read. I want you to make a delivery for me, then make sure things are set in motion to make my wishes come true.”
Tower stuck his neck in the ring and waited for the next blow to follow. “Sir, I’m not sure what you’re asking. I was down in Pensacola a few weeks ago, to watch the final preparations for Colonel Doolittle’s people and have nothing new to add to Captain Read’s operation.”
King glared at the pioneering aviator. The CNO had gone to flight school when he was way over age so he could become the captain of the aircraft carrier Saratoga. Both he and Admiral Halsey saw the carriers as new weapons of war. Both went back to school as pilot trainees even though they were at least twenty years older than the other pilot cadets. Now, he was looking at one of the first five men to wear the gold wings that all naval aviators wore and was about to give him an order he knew he would dislike.
“Tower, you are going to fly down to Pensacola in the next few days. When you arrive, you are going to inform Captain Read that the person with you will attend an abbreviated pilot training course. At the course’s conclusion, you will have Captain Read pin navy wings on this young man and get him back to my office as soon as possible.”
Tower had not seen this order coming but had been fighting special privileges for years for those who wanted to be pilots but didn’t want to go through the long and arduous training program he had been instrumental in establishing. He knew that King, Halsey, and a handful of other “old men” had become pilots through a special training program in the late ’20s and ’30s, but these men were seasoned navy officers who just needed to learn how planes operated, especially at sea. Tower was now poised to jump into this mess with both feet.
“Sir, I must protest. We established a long and tough program for the selection and training of naval aviators. This would be a gross injustice to naval aviation.”
He was about to continue when King’s hand went up commanding silence. Tower knew when to shut up and did so.
“Tower, here is what you will do. The young man is a serving naval officer. He is a reservist and has over four hundred fifty hours of flight time in both single and multi-engine aircraft and holds the appropriate United States civilian licenses for flying said aircraft. He has been flying in the right seat on my R4D and also has hours in a PBY, helping fly the plane on a successful attack on a German U-boat. He holds a doctorate in Physics, among several other degrees. I have personally awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross and the president of the United States promoted him for his actions against the U-boat. Now, I understand the need to make sure no fool gets in one of our planes and crashes it into the officer’s club, but I doubt this young man will do that.”
The senior admiral of the navy was getting a full head of steam up, and it was not the time or place to object to anything he said. “So, let me restate my order to you. Take Lieutenant Brand to Pensacola. Tell your old friend, Captain Read, to assign his best pilot and run him through all the plane types you can. If, in the opinion of the instructor and Captain Read, this man is proficient, pin some wings on him and send him back to me. Do you understand these orders, Admiral?”
“Yes sir. When do we leave?” Tower knew not to ask again. His mind was already spinning about how any young lieutenant junior grade could get so many flying hours and fly navy planes without his knowing about it.
“Willson will give you more details. He’ll also tell you why this is so important to the navy.”
Part 6
26
16 April 1942
Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida
• Philippine Islands--General Wainwright places General Sharp in command of Visayan garrisons and orders him to reorganize Visayan-Mindanao Force for a stand on Mindanao. Cebu Island is thus conceded to be lost. A Japanese force of 4,160 men invades Panay at dawn most going ashore at Iloilo and the rest at Capiz. Landings are unopposed by Colonel Albert Christie’s Panay force of about 7,000 which retires to mountains to wage guerrilla warfare.
• Malta--The people of Malta are awarded the George Cross in recognition of their heroism under attack.
Lieutenant Commander Shoemaker brought the R4D down for the final approach to the naval air station and alerted the tower of a two-star admiral onboard. He had just taken over the controls from Lieutenant Brand who had flown the plane all the way from Washington. The copilot, Lieutenant Miller observed that Brand did an outstanding job. Admiral Tower studied the lieutenant for much of the flight and agreed Brand was a natural pilot who didn’t have much else to learn about flying transports. Tower was, however, very concerned about his skill in a fighter plane such as the F4F Wildcat which was the main fighter for the fleet. He was still upset about being shanghaied into making this trip and knew his friend Captain Read would be mad as hell about bending the rules. But, as he had learned from Admiral Willson, war makes for strange things. Tower thought back to the previous day’s meeting with Willson and how all of this had begun.
Admiral Willson took about five minutes to calm Tower down after he had left Admiral King’s office so that he would listen to reason.
“Damn it, Russel, what kind of war are we waging when the president gets involved in personnel decisions and wants kids to learn to fly? This is just not right. I don’t give a damn what anyone says, this stinks.” Tower’s loud conversation with Willson occurred behind closed doors because Admiral King would not tolerate an outburst like this unless of course, it was his outburst.
Willson smiled at the head of naval aviation and asked, “Are you through yet or do you want to yell some more?”
Willson did his best smile again as Tower meekly said, “Okay, I’ll calm down. I just want to know what the hell I’m getting myself involved in.”
Willson leaned back in his chair. “John, this is a long story, but I’ll give you the short version. First, let me tell you the chief’s R4D is going to take you and your staff plus our man Brand and his men tomorrow morning to Pensacola. So, before you object, the orders are set.”
Tower wasn’t in an acceptance mode but still nodded that he under-stood the plan.
“Good. I will get your aide the information you’ll need for your inspection trip to NAS Pensacola. This will be the reason you are going, not being the delivery boy for a young lieutenant. Here’s what you need to know, and what you can tell Captain Read and a few select members of his staff.” Willson handed over a two-page summary of Jameson team’s objectives and clearances. It did not go into great detail but clarified the top-secret nature of their work.
“As you can see, John, this team is all about Lieutenant Brand and his usefulness to the navy and the nation. You are now on an expanded list of people who need to know what he’s doing and his level of clearance to access information concerning national security. You are not in the loop for some of his projects, but let’s just say Admiral King is listening intently to what the young man says. He and the team just came back from meeting with a large swath of the British leadership, including the chiefs of staff and the prime minister, so he is traveling in very high places with incredible access.”
Willson looked over at his old friend and noticed that he was going back and re-reading some of the information in the two-page report. He decided to continue his conversation which would hopefully calm Tower down. “Captain Jameson is no slouch either, and
as an Annapolis man, we have high confidence in his ability to maintain Mr. Brand’s focus and attention. He’s surrounded by a security team led by a Marine captain who was awarded the Navy Cross for bravery in the Philippines. No one comes close to our young scientist except the people we want close to him. You are to make sure whoever certifies him as a navy aviator is the best and will not take chances. If for any reason, this senior pilot feels Brand cannot cut it as a pilot, the program is over, and I’m to be notified. If I’m not available, tell Admiral King. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Tower peered over the paper he was holding at his friend with suspicious eyes and asked, “Do you want me to make sure this kid is a pilot in a week or do you want me to fail him and send him back to your loving arms?” Tower smirked to see if his question elicited a positive or negative comment.
Willson smiled and said, “John, everyone who has flown with him says the kid is a natural flyer. We want him to get his wings, not to fly combat missions, but to help improve the planes we presently have and the new ones under development. If your senior aviators think he’s a danger to himself or others, pull him back here quick. I’ll take the heat for any decision you make. He’s too important to have him crash, but also he’s too important not to understand firsthand the issues and challenges facing our aviators, now and into the future.”
Tower looked at his friend and then smiled. The smile was one of relief, and for a moment he thought only positive things would come out of this adventure, as long as the kid didn’t get hurt. “All right, Russel, when do we set off on this flying adventure?”
*****
A truck carrying a red and white checkered flag and a follow-me sign met the plane as it made its way from the main runway to the flight apron. Commander Shoemaker followed as ordered. The plane came to a stop in front of the flight operations building. When he killed the engines, he could see a group of officers, a set of flag bearers, and a full Marine guard approaching the plane.
Mission to Britain Page 29
