Fortress Falling (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 2)

by William Peter Grasso

  Tommy could see them a long way off: a column of vehicles snaking their way up the winding road out of Metz toward Fort Driant. They’re moving too fast to be tanks, he told himself. They’ve got wheels, not tracks. Probably armored cars. Kraut armored cars. About twelve of them.

  We’ve got to stop them.

  “Blue Leader to Blue Flight,” he radioed, “let’s hit them out of the east as soon as they’re on that next bend.”

  Out of the east meant out of the sun.

  It would be a tricky approach to the targets. The Germans were driving along the side of a steep hill, paralleling an intermediate ridgeline. One miscalculation by a pilot—one moment of target fixation—and his jug would fly right into the rising terrain just beyond his quarry.

  “Blue Two, you’re with me,” he told Tuttle. “We’ll take the head of the column. Blue Three, you take the tail.”

  A classic ambush technique, applied from the air: knock out the front and rear of a column and trap all the other vehicles in the middle, forcing them to a stop. It would be so much easier, though, played out on flat ground. And easier still if Blue Four was still in the air and not a pile of fresh scrap metal lying in the French countryside.

  At least Iverson’s okay…I think, Tommy hoped.

  Flying low, the three ships of Blue Flight swung a few miles east before turning back to their targets. Leading the way, Tommy told himself, Okay, we’re far enough out and the sun’s behind us. They won’t even see us coming…

  Not on the first pass, anyway.

  He was right. Their attack run worked exactly as planned, knocking out several of the lead and trail armored cars. Those trapped in the middle were now stalled on the narrow road. Their only hope of escape was to push the burning hulks blocking them over the road’s shoulder to careen down the steep slope.

  Nice pass…but this isn’t any time to celebrate, Tommy reminded himself. Sun in their eyes or not, they know we’re here now. They may not be able to move but they can still shoot.

  Better mix it up.

  Putting the high ground between Blue Flight and the stalled German column, Tommy announced their next move. “I’ll strafe their line north to south. As soon as I’m done, you two do the same but from the opposite direction.”

  Tuttle asked, “Which way are you going to break after your run, boss?”

  “Straight up,” Tommy replied. “I’ll stay out of your way better if I do it like that.”

  “You sure you don’t want to break east, away from the slope?” Tuttle asked. “Going up might put you in somebody’s sights for a long, long time.”

  “It’ll be the same either way, Jimmy. I’m more worried about being in your way. I’ll just do the old zoom and boom.”

  “Roger, boss. So be it. Good luck.”

  Hugging the contour of the hill, Tommy barreled his plane down the road, banking sharply right to follow the curve in the switchback as tightly as he could. The view out the right side of his canopy was enough to make his heart pound: the terrain was far too close to his wingtip for comfort and towered high above him.

  Halfway through the pass, his guns stopped firing. They were dry, out of ammunition. But he finished his sweep along the line of vehicles, pulling sharply up as he reached its end to make way for Tuttle and Nardini, who had begun their headlong sprint toward him.

  “You taking any fire, boss?” Tuttle asked him.

  “Can’t tell, Jimmy. But I don’t think so.”

  “That’s good news. See you on the other side of the mountain.”

  By the time they’d finished their pass, Tuttle’s and Nardini’s guns were dry, too.

  “Funny thing,” Tuttle said as Blue Flight re-formed north of Fort Driant, “but I think those Krauts ran away, just abandoned their vehicles. I don’t think anyone fired at us, either.”

  “Can you blame them?” Tommy replied.

  Orbiting at two thousand feet now, they could see the Shermans the ASO had advised them of, clinging to the hill on the fort’s east side. They weren’t calling for air support, but it didn’t relieve the sick feeling in Tommy’s stomach:

  That could be my brother down there. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to help him right now.

  He felt as if he was committing an act of betrayal as he told Halfback that Blue Flight was returning to base to rearm.

  Sean’s tank was still trying to push its first Bangalore torpedo deep into the wire. They were on their third try. The first two had been a circus of misguided design and the mistakes of terrified men under threat of enemy fire.

  Those engineers are trying their best, I guess, Sean told himself, but we ain’t gonna get nowhere with these piece of shit snakes if they’re too scared to get out in front of the tanks. But that’s where they gotta be—at least to put those pipe sections back together. Unless…

  “Hey,” he called to the engineer sergeant, “get your guys to fit those fucking pipes together under the tank. You can build the whole shebang beneath this little rolling bunker of mine…even hook it to the front bumper without having to hang your asses out for Kraut target practice.”

  The engineer sergeant looked skeptical. “I don’t think we’ve got enough room to work underneath the tank.”

  “Sure you do,” Sean replied. “We crawl in and out of that escape hatch in her bottom all the time, dragging all kinds of shit with us. There’s plenty of room. Of course, if you’d rather stand outside in the shitstorm, that’s up to you.”

  The sergeant thought it over for a moment. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll give your way a try.”

  “Just one little thing,” Sean added. “When I say CLEAR, you’d better make damn sure that every swinging dick of yours is out from under this tank. I don’t want to be running over no friendlies today.”

  As the engineers worked beneath Lucky 7, Fabiano asked Sean, “They ain’t really gonna be pushing any of those snakes under her, are they, Sarge?”

  “Yeah, they will. That’s the whole point.”

  “Well, I take a pretty dim view of that,” Fabiano replied. “That’s all we fucking need—get blown up by one of those pieces of crap.”

  “Relax, Fab. Those engineers will only be killing themselves. It won’t bother us none.”

  Promising as Sean’s ad hoc procedure for assembling the Bangalores sounded, the next three attempts to push one deep into the wire were no more successful than the first three. The assembly was never designed to be pushed up a steep hill. The torpedo snagged constantly; the pipe sections bowed and disconnected.

  On the seventh try, Sean thought he’d found a path free of obstructions. Lucky 7’s crew and the engineers alike held their collective breath as the first pipe section slid into the wire. In a few moments of slow, steady progress, over half its length had been shoved into place. The torpedo finally snagged as the last few sections of pipe were crossing the wire’s threshold.

  Sean asked the engineer sergeant, “What do you think? Close enough?”

  Before the sergeant could answer, the first German mortar round from Fort Driant landed no more than ten yards from Lucky 7.

  “Dammit,” Sean said. “I was wondering when they’d start with that shit.”

  The threat of a mortar barrage was more than enough to loosen the engineer’s standards. He grabbed the trigger and squeezed it.

  Nothing happened. This Bangalore was a dud.

  Calling Captain Newcomb on the radio, Sean said, “No dice, sir. I’m ready to throw in the towel on this fubar exercise.”

  Newcomb couldn’t agree more. None of his tanks had succeeded in pushing a Bangalore deep enough into the wire to do any good. Sean’s idea had seemed to be the only potential bright spot in the whole disappointing affair, but now that, too, had been a bust. Add the deadly inconvenience of incoming mortar rounds, and there was no doubt it was time to call it quits. The infantry they were supporting had already started their withdrawal. Newcomb radioed his company, “Fall back to the Assembly Area Dog.”


  Today’s on-the-job-training in the use of Bangalore torpedoes—and with it, today’s attempt to breach Fort Driant—had come to yet another inglorious end.

  Chapter Eleven

  It took less than ten minutes for Blue Flight to make it back to A-90. When they were a few miles out, Tommy requested clearance for his three-ship flight to land. The tower’s reply wasn’t what he expected: “Can you hold, Blue Leader? We’ve got high-priority inbound traffic in the pattern.”

  “Affirmative, we can hold,” Tommy replied. “We’re good on fuel for the moment. How long will it be?”

  “About five minutes, Blue Leader.”

  “Roger, we can do that.”

  Level at 2,000 feet, they picked up the racetrack holding pattern just south of the airfield. Below the patchy cloud deck, Tommy had a great view of A-90 and its incoming traffic. The delay grated on him, though. He wanted to rearm, refuel, and get back into the fight as soon as possible, before the weather shut down flight operations.

  To soothe his impatience, he began playing the control stick gently in his fingers, putting Eclipse through some playful s-turns. He marveled at how responsive and nimble a lightened P-47 could be when empty of ordnance and down to just reserve fuel. Eclipse’s responses to stick and rudder inputs now seemed direct and instantaneous, as if no longer being interpreted and delayed by that intangible elastic link between pilot and aircraft when she was heavily laden. For this brief moment, Tommy couldn’t contain his sheer joy of flying: Usually, it’s like flying a Mack truck when she’s loaded for bear. This is a lot more fun. Wish I had the time and fuel to really play around.

  Jimmy Tuttle’s voice in his earphones shattered his reverie. “You got ants in your pants, boss, or are you just trying to waste more gas? I’m getting a little nervous watching you jink around like that in front of me.”

  “Relax, Jimmy, I’m just passing the time, waiting to see who this high-priority traffic is.”

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Like lumbering dragonflies, two four-engined bombers—one in olive drab paint, the other a garish yellow—turned below them to final approach at A-90. Trailing a mile or so behind the bombers—too small to be seen until they were seconds from touchdown—were two miniscule single-engined aircraft painted that same decidedly non-tactical shade of yellow.

  “Holy crap, they’re B-17s,” Tuttle said. “And what the hell are those little toys chasing after them? Are they going to the circus or something all painted up like that?”

  “Good question,” Tommy replied. “But why the hell are they landing here? I don’t think a Flying Fort’s going to be able to take off from A-90, short as that runway is. Not with any kind of load, anyway.”

  The tower controller broke in: “Blue Flight, you’re clear to land. Wind’s two-six at ten. Altimeter two-niner point four.”

  Crap, Tommy thought as he watched the clouds thickening above them. Baro’s dropping. It’s going to sock in and rain again, real soon.

  And when it did, Blue Flight—and the rest of 301st Fighter Squadron—wouldn’t be able to help the ground-pounders even if they could get airborne.

  Once on the ground and taxiing to the hot pad, they could see the B-17s—the Flying Fortresses—and their little yellow friends tucked into a far corner of the field, away from any other installation. Half a dozen jeeps were forming a protective cordon around the parked aircraft.

  They look like MP jeeps, Tommy thought.

  The familiar faces of Blue Flight’s ground crews guided the jugs to parking spots on the pad, where fuel tankers and tractors towing trailers loaded with bombs and machine gun ammo waited. Tommy could see the apprehensive look on Iverson’s crew chief—a young, mild-mannered staff sergeant named Boone—as he waited like a man who’d just been jilted. He’d need to learn everything he could about what happened to his pilot and his plane—yes, his plane—for ground crews always felt the planes really belonged to them, and they merely loaned them to the pilots for a few hours a day.

  Boone and his crew would need whatever assurance he could muster that the loss of a pilot and plane wasn’t their fault.

  Tommy’s crew chief McNulty was on the wing beside the cockpit before Eclipse’s prop had stopped spinning. “Any problems with my little girl?” he asked Tommy.

  “No, she’s good, Sarge. Just get her ready to go again as quickly as you can.”

  Boone was now on the wing, too. Before he could say a word, Tommy told him, “I think Lieutenant Iverson’s okay. Looks like an armored unit picked him up the other side of the Moselle. The plane”—he stopped himself and rephrased—“your plane’s done for, I’m afraid.”

  He knew that bit of information wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Sergeant Boone, though. He’d need to know why.

  Tommy could ease Boone’s tortured soul by simply saying, Your guy screwed up. Flew a perfectly good airplane into a tree. But he was pretty sure Iverson would be back in the squadron, probably that day. And when he did return, he’d be a hell of a lot wiser—and a hell of a lot better pilot—than he’d been this morning. But he’d be facing these same mechanics whose plane he’d just lost. Tommy didn’t need them bad-mouthing one of his pilots. Nobody needed the drag on morale such dissension would create. His flight—and the whole squadron—ran so much better when mutual respect flowed between its members.

  We’ve all made mistakes—lord knows I have—and we’ll all probably make a whole bunch more. All that really matters is that we’re learning from them.

  He told Boone, “He was strafing and something hit her in the engine. Tough break, but your ship held up swell and got him down safe and sound. Nicest belly landing I ever saw.”

  Tommy watched the wave of relief pass over Sergeant Boone. In a few moments, he’d be able to watch that same relief pass over Boone’s crew, who were anxiously awaiting word from him.

  With Boone gone, McNulty asked, “That really what happened, Lieutenant?”

  “It’s close enough, Sergeant.” Anxious to change the topic, Tommy pointed to the other side of the airfield and asked, “What the hell’s going on over there with those B-17s?”

  McNulty shrugged. “Nobody’s told us shit, sir, except that if we got near them, we’d get our asses thrown in the stockade. Some MP outfit got that part of the field all locked up.”

  “Yeah, I figured they were MPs,” Tommy replied. “I wonder what it all means?”

  “Call me a pestimist, Lieutenant, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s still gonna shit on your head.”

  The mission debrief had just ended as Colonel Pruitt walked into the operations shack. “I’ve got good news,” he told Tommy. “Just like you thought, Lieutenant Iverson is okay and in the good hands of Fourth Armored. That’s your brother’s outfit, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy replied. “Thirty-Seventh Tank Battalion, Fourth Armored Division. But where are they, exactly? Last thing I heard, the Fourth was farther east of where Iverson went down.”

  “The call came in from a CP near Metz. That’s all I know about it, Lieutenant. But there’s something else I want to discuss with you. Alone.”

  As they walked to Colonel Pruitt’s office in the adjacent Quonset hut, Tommy wondered what was so important they had to talk in private. The more he thought about it, the more worried he became:

  The way he just talked about my brother’s unit and all—that doesn’t sound like he’s got bad news about Sean, does it? Or maybe something happened to the family back home? Nah, they send the Red Cross out for that kind of stuff.

  And it can’t be my turn to be an ASO with the ground-pounders again. Hell, most of the pilots in the squadron haven’t done it yet, and I’ve already had a turn. It’s never been any secret when you got picked to go, either.

  So what the hell did I do wrong?

  As they stepped into the office, Pruitt said, “Shut the door, Half.”

  Uh oh, Tommy thought, when the brass start getting real familiar with you, you migh
t as well bend over and grab your ankles…because here it comes.

  “You can say no,” Pruitt began, “but I hope you don’t. Because the judgment and experience which make you such a good combat leader are going to be sorely needed in the project I’m about to describe.”

  That sounds like a setup if I ever heard one.

  “Understand that everything I tell you from this point on is classified,” Pruitt continued, very serious, all business. “Were you to repeat a word of it to anyone—whether you sign on to this project or not—it would be a court-martial offense.”

  Some advice his brother gave him the last time they were together popped into his head: Try not to be conspicuous, Half. It draws fire.

  Tommy knew that was great guidance in this man’s army, even if it wasn’t doing him a bit of good right now.

  “Should I continue, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir. By all means.” Considering his apprehension, he was surprised how easy that answer slipped out. But he’d never given a moment’s thought to any other response.

  His tone suddenly relaxed, almost jovial, the colonel said, “Very good. Now let’s get down to brass tacks. I’m sure you’ve noticed we have some very unusual visitors here at A-90.”

  “Yes, sir, I sure have.”

  “They’re here for a very specific purpose, Tommy. The problem Patton’s having with the Metz forts—especially Fort Driant—calls for extraordinary measures. Now I don’t know any of the technical details, but it boils down to this: that Flying Fortress all painted up in yellow is actually a pilotless flying bomb. It’s part of a secret enterprise known as Operation Aphrodite.”

  “Pilotless, sir? That thing landed here without a pilot?”

  “Oh, no, Tommy. It was ferried here by real live pilots. When it’s loaded with explosives, though, it’s under radio control from a mothership. That’s the other B-17, I’m told. Actually, both those ships have different designations in this role. The flying bomb is called a BQ-7. The mothership is a CQ-17.”