Silver Wings, Iron Cross

by Tom Young

  Karl hoisted his flak jacket, built of nylon pockets containing steel inserts. Heavy and uncomfortable, but it could keep you among the living. He donned it over his other flying clothes, then took the yoke long enough for Adrian to put on his own flak jacket. Just as Karl transferred control back to Adrian, the first hint of danger came from the group commander in the lead ship:

  “Fireball squadrons, look alive. We got bandits coming up from eleven o’clock low.”

  Despite the cold, Karl’s palms sweated inside his gloves, and he felt a strange heat through his legs. He’d noticed that sensation before when close to the enemy’s guns; Karl wondered if it came from somewhere primal. Maybe it was the circulatory system’s automatic preparation to survive a grievous wound? A question for another day. Right now, he concentrated on scanning for enemy fighters. He focused on small chunks of the sky and ground; he shifted his eyes and scanned again. At first, he saw nothing.

  “I got ’em,” Russo called from the ball turret. “Right on the horizon, maybe ten miles out.”

  There. Karl caught movement along the line where the sky met the earth. A swarm of a dozen bees rose toward the formation. At a closing speed of maybe four hundred miles per hour, the bees quickly took the shapes of Messerschmitt Bf-109s.

  From the corner of his eye, Karl saw friendly fighters—four Mustangs—maneuvering to intercept the 109s. Welcome assistance, but not enough to stop all the enemy planes at once.

  “Gunners,” Karl said, “we got Messerschmitts coming up. Remember—short bursts.”

  The 109s ripped into the lead squadron. They bored in on the Fortresses from dead ahead, twenty-millimeter cannons blazing. The fighters held what appeared to be a collision course—but at the last second, they banked hard and scattered among the bombers. From this distance, Karl could see no immediate damage to any of the Forts. The radios erupted with warning calls:

  “Two of ’em coming up at the high squadron.”

  “Fireball Charlie, watch your nine o’clock.”

  “He’s coming back around.”

  A German plane dived from somewhere above and rolled in for a pass at Hellstorm. Guns aboard neighboring B-17s opened up. Karl couldn’t tell if they scored hits. The Messerschmitt veered up to fly over the top of Hellstorm.

  “Top turret,” Karl said, “coming your way.”

  Fairburn started firing before Karl finished talking. Expended brass clattered down from the turret. The 109 flashed so close, Karl could see oil stains underneath its engine cowling. An instant later, Hellstorm’s left waist gun opened up. One quick burst.

  “Anybody hit him?” Karl asked.

  “Not sure,” Firth said from his waist gunner’s position.

  “Couldn’t tell,” Russo said.

  “You guys got him,” Anders called from the tail. “When he came by me, he was burning.”

  “Good work,” Karl said. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Most of the enemy fighters concentrated their attack on the lead squadron. The 109s banked and turned, fired and dived, set up for additional passes. A Mustang dived behind one of the Messerschmitts and opened fire. The Messerschmitt spiraled to the ground, flaming.

  Karl scanned to see if any Fortresses were damaged. The high squadron’s number-two ship had taken hits; it started smoking from its left outboard engine. Then the left inboard began trailing smoke, too. The aircraft began a slow descent. Parachutes began to open underneath the bomber.

  “One, two, three,” Adrian said. He eventually counted chutes from all ten crewmen.

  Karl eyed the cluster of descending parachutes. His attention in their direction, he found himself caught by surprise when the high squadron’s number-four ship, Knockout Punch, exploded.

  No distress call. No parachutes. Just a flaming gash in the sky where an airplane used to be.

  Ten men gone in half a second.

  6

  Landfall

  Wilhelm’s decision to leave the war left him feeling ripped out from the inside. Giving up on his duty meant giving up everything. But duty to what? And to whom? The fanatics who had brought down such destruction on Germany? During the summer, a group of army officers had tried and failed to assassinate the Führer. Had they felt the way Wilhelm felt now?

  Maybe, he thought, but I can’t compare myself to them. They were trying to save the country. Wilhelm could only save his crew. The loss of their executive officer might delay their next patrol long enough for the war to end. Or at least long enough for someone to rescind this insane suicide order. Wilhelm had to find a way to desert before the U-351 went to sea again. Repairs would take a few weeks at most. He would need to act fast.

  Does this make me a coward? Wilhelm wondered.

  No, he decided. Cowards don’t brave ocean storms, depth charges, and aerial bombs. Cowards don’t last a day on a U-boat.

  Ahead, Bremen’s concrete submarine bunkers came into view. The structures seemed to rise like mountains of stone heaved up from underground. With ceilings seven meters thick, they shielded boats from air raids. But the bunkers would do the U-351 no good; Wilhelm had radioed ahead and learned that all bays were filled with wounded boats under repair. His sub would have to tie up at an exposed pier until space became available.

  One of the facilities—U-boat Bunker Valentin—was still under construction. Plans called for Valentin to serve as an assembly plant for a new ultramodern submarine. How can we build a revolutionary super U-boat, Wilhelm wondered, when we can barely supply parts for the Type VIIs? More crazy promises of miracle weapons.

  “I’d love to see the boats that will come out of that plant,” Captain Brauer said.

  “Yes, sir,” Wilhelm said. As noncommittal a response as he could make. He knew what the skipper was really thinking: The U-351’s crew would not live to see new boats come out of Valentin.

  “I hear they’re pushing hard to complete it,” Brauer said. “Making the most of prison labor.”

  “We are all pushing hard,” Wilhelm said. He did not say aloud his next thought: But why?

  “Engine half ahead,” Brauer ordered into the voice tube. He gave engine commands in the singular because battle damage had left only one diesel in running condition. The boat slowed as it approached its mooring. A few hundred meters in the distance, dockworkers stood on the pier, holding lines thick as a man’s wrist.

  The commands for mooring deepened Wilhelm’s sense of loss. Never again would he help lead such a team of professionals; never again would he know the camaraderie of sailors at sea. He had devoted everything to his naval career, and he considered himself a good officer and mariner. If anyone needed proof, they needed only to look at his Iron Cross, First Class.

  At the naval college, he’d found the life for which he was born. He’d thrown himself into his studies, loved every page of the books on navigation, oceanography, and naval architecture. He and his classmates honed their minds with study and their bodies with rowing, boxing, and running. The pounding of the surf, the luff of a sail, and the growl of a diesel engine stirred his soul. But his dedication had led him to this: an order to destroy a seaworthy U-boat and kill its finely tuned crew.

  When the boat came alongside the pier, Brauer ordered the engine idled. A few minutes later, the skipper gave the order to shut down. Wilhelm could have sworn he heard the U-351 sigh like a tired and wounded beast finally granted rest—though he knew the sound came from her exhaust air fan. She rocked in the black river water as dockhands and sailors tossed lines and draped loops around bollards.

  Wilhelm lingered for a moment on the bridge, fingers hooked over the rail. From this station, he’d plotted attacks, ridden mountain-sized waves, watched great ships burn in the night, seen the destiny of nations play out across the seas. Never again would he wield such power.

  With the boat firmly moored, the crew brought out their personal belongings. Men with bearded and grimy faces carried small seabags up the tower ladder. After most of the crew had emerged from the boat for th
e last time, Wilhelm stepped through the bridge hatch and climbed down to retrieve his things.

  The odor inside the U-boat nearly made him retch. He’d spent the last few hours outside, up on the bridge in fresh air. The U-351 stank of a long patrol: unwashed bodies, urine, oil and fuel, stale food. Despite the smell, Wilhelm took a long last look at the instruments, the chart table, the radio compartment—all the tools of a trade that had meant so much to him. He placed his hand over the Luger holstered on his belt, a weapon he had never fired in anger. Already these things seemed like museum pieces, mementoes of someone else’s life.

  A black thought pierced his nostalgia: If he couldn’t stop the next patrol, this space would go dark and fill with seawater, and good men would drown for a cause unworthy of their lives.

  By the time Wilhelm hauled his bag up the ladder and emerged onto the bridge, a fresh-faced ensign in clean fatigues had appeared on the dock.

  “Sir,” the ensign told Captain Brauer, “the flotilla commander sends his greetings. He asked me to tell you we have not yet found quarters for all your men. We expect to have the problem worked out before nightfall. In the meantime, I can offer you a tour of the new facility we’re building.”

  Disappointment darkened the faces of Wilhelm’s crewmates. They all wanted the same thing he did: a shower, a shave, and a long sleep. The skipper, ever a good officer of the Reich, did his best to maintain a good front.

  “Thank you,” Brauer said. “I’ll go have a look.” Then he addressed his crew. “You men can rest here if you like, or you can go with me. I know you all want to get cleaned up and into bed, and you deserve it.”

  Most of the sailors sat down on the pier. A few pulled packs of Gitanes from their pockets and lit up; they had bought the French cigarettes during better days in Brest or Lorient. Several men stretched out on their backs and quickly fell asleep. For appearances’ sake, Wilhelm elected to take the tour. He did not yet know when he would make his escape, but until he left the base, he wanted to look like the dedicated officer he’d always been.

  Three petty officers joined Wilhelm and the skipper for the tour of U-boat Bunker Valentin. The fresh-faced ensign led the way down the docks toward a mass of new concrete walls. Many of the submarine bays and associated workshops in the new facility had been completed, and beyond the completed portion, earthmovers crawled and cement mixers rotated. Civilian engineers and architects conferred over blueprints spread across boards laid over sawhorses. Construction cranes angled above the site like monstrous insects. Concrete slabs dangled from the cranes’ cables.

  “Here, we will assemble the Type XXI submarine,” the ensign said. “I know you gentlemen look forward to sailing the new state of the art.”

  Wilhelm glanced at Brauer, who maintained expressionless military bearing. Hard to care about the new state of the art when your boat has been given a death sentence—with you in it.

  The ensign slid open a steel door. Only darkness lay behind it, and in Wilhelm’s current mood, the door looked more like an entrance to a crypt than to a modern Kriegsmarine base. The smell of moldering concrete rolled through the doorway. The ensign bade the men to enter, so enthusiastic that he practically chirped his words. “This will be the birthplace of the Reich’s newest weapon, gentlemen,” he said. “But for now, we are using it as a repair facility.”

  The ensign flipped a row of switches, and one by one, overhead lights flickered on. The glow revealed a row of U-boats in their protected slips. Other boats sat in dry dock on raised platforms. The cavern-like structure, with water lapping at walls that never saw the sun, looked like the final stop on a journey down the River Styx.

  To Wilhelm’s eyes, this was not a scene of progress and technology; it was a scene of ruin. Most of the U-boats had suffered severe battle damage. Like the U-351, they had made it back to port only by miracles. On the U-201, a depth charge had blown away much of the bridge structure. The U-423 had a crease in her hull. Mud oozed from every hatch on the U-374; she’d been raised from the bottom after sinking in a training accident.

  The boats in dry dock portended even worse things. They showed no battle damage—because they had not seen battle. They were not even Type VIIs. They were hopelessly outdated models previously used only for training. Now they were being outfitted for combat.

  Captain Brauer leaned over and whispered to Wilhelm, “When a Liberator’s radar picks them up, they’ll last about ten minutes.”

  The men’s footsteps echoed as they strode down a catwalk past the damaged boats. The ensign slid open another steel door and showed off a row of offices, a machine shop, and a parts warehouse. Wilhelm squinted when the young officer opened a door to the outside. Daylight seared Wilhelm’s eyes as he stepped through the doorway. When his pupils adjusted, he found himself amid construction in progress. Scaffolding and partially built concrete walls towered over pools of mud. Foremen and civilian workers milled around the site. An adjacent fenced yard contained stacks of steel I beams and rebar.

  “We hope to have this portion completed by the end of the year,” the ensign said.

  A large Opel truck with a covered bed pulled up near the fenced yard. Something about the truck seemed to make the ensign nervous.

  “Ah, gentlemen,” the ensign said, “perhaps we should leave these men to their work. Let’s go back to your boat, and I will go see if your quarters are ready.”

  Wilhelm shaded his eyes with his palm. Two SS sergeants emerged from the truck, one pointing a machine pistol. The other pulled open the flap at the back of the vehicle and shouted, “Juden. Out of the truck.”

  One by one, emaciated men wearing black-and-white striped pajamas dropped from the tailgate. Their clothing hung from sticklike limbs. The men peered at the construction site through sunken, hollow eyes. Their heads were shaved, but dark stubble sprouted from their cheeks. Even from a distance of several meters, the truck smelled like a U-boat at the end of a long patrol. One of the men who jumped from the tailgate stumbled and fell into the mud. The guard with the machine pistol kicked him in the stomach. The man clutched his abdomen, and the guard kicked him again, this time in the face. The man staggered to his feet, clothing streaked with mud. Blood streamed from his mouth. He spat out something, probably a tooth.

  “Prison labor?” Captain Brauer asked.

  “Ah, yes,” the ensign said. “They are early today. So much the better.”

  Slave labor, Wilhelm realized. Is the navy I love, the country I love, built on the backs of these poor creatures?

  Wilhelm had heard talk of prisoners worked to death in factories and mines. Jews, as well as Russian, Polish, and French POWs. But over the past three years, he’d had neither the time nor the inclination to give it much thought. Now, however, he felt morally adrift, as if he had surfaced to take a bearing on a lighthouse and found the light extinguished.

  The ensign began walking back toward the completed portion of the bunker, but Wilhelm and his crewmates did not follow. They watched the SS guards march the prisoners into the fenced yard, where the guards began to bark orders.

  “Who are these men?” one of the petty officers asked, gesturing toward the prisoners.

  “They are the eisenkommandos,” the ensign said. “The iron-moving detachments.”

  The prisoners formed two lines, one at either end of the stacked I beams. They lifted the I beams, one by one, and began carrying them into the construction site. Foremen pointed to show them where to place the I beams.

  “Gentlemen,” the ensign said, “we really must move along.”

  The U-boat men ignored him. Wilhelm watched the prisoners struggle through the mud with their heavy lengths of steel. After just one trip from the steel yard, the men were soaked in mud to the waist. Many of them coughed as they worked—the hacking, wet jags of pneumonia or influenza.

  After two trips, some began to falter and sink to their knees in the mud. At the guards’ shouts and curses, the prisoners raised themselves to their feet again, strain
evident on their pinched faces. One of the slave workers dropped his end of an I beam; Wilhelm recognized him as the man the guard had kicked earlier. The same guard strode over to the man and began shouting.

  “Up, you malingering dog,” the guard yelled.

  The man bent over and placed his fingers around the I beam again. He tried to lift with his back, and he groaned in pain. The beam slipped from his mud-slickened fingers. It dropped into the muck and splashed mud onto the SS guard’s uniform.

  The guard pointed his machine pistol at the prisoner’s chest and fired a three-round burst. Blood sprayed from the man’s exit wounds, and he dropped into the muck.

  Wilhelm gaped. He opened his mouth to speak but could find no words to express his disgust. Why couldn’t the prisoner have rested for ten minutes? Even if one thought in the coldest terms, after a moment of rest, the man might have given another day’s work to the cause. For a second, Wilhelm fought the urge to draw his Luger and shoot the guard.

  “I think we’ve seen enough,” Captain Brauer said.

  The skipper turned and followed the ensign back into the completed portion of the bunker. Wilhelm and the petty officers trailed close behind. Wilhelm’s crewmates remained expressionless. None showed any revulsion over the murder, nor did they display the smirks one might expect of ardent Party men.

  Inside the bunker, the group walked in silence. Thank God, Wilhelm thought, that chirpy ensign has finally shut up. Each of Wilhelm’s footfalls felt odd; at the end of every patrol, he needed to get used to walking on land again. The firmness of the concrete under his feet made no sense: Didn’t every surface pitch and roll?

  But another strange sensation pulsed through the soles of his boots. Intermittent vibrations, almost like a U-boat’s electric motors on the fritz. Some sort of construction equipment pounding outside, Wilhelm supposed.

  When he emerged from the other end of the bunker, he saw the rest of the U-351’s crew on the pier beside their boat. But they were no longer lounging and smoking. Every man was on his feet, pointing into the sky and scanning.