by Stuart Slade
“You’re happy to take such an inexperienced man along?”
“Happy is the wrong word, Klaus, but I think it’s the best solution.”
“Agreed. I’ll issue the orders. After we’ve finished supporting your family business.”
Oval Office, The White House, Washington D. C.
“Your ten o’clock Mister President. Senator Stuart Symington.” President Dewey’s secretary spoke quietly on the intercom.
“Thank you. Send him straight in please.” There were those whose services merited immediate access and those who deserved a long, long wait in the Presidential anteroom. Symington was one of the former.
“Senator. Pleased to see you. How goes work on the Air Material Production Subcommittee?”
“Thank you for seeing me so promptly, Mister President. It’s one aspect of our work I wish to see you about. Particularly one aircraft, the C-99. On the face of it, the aircraft appears to be a scandalous waste of resources. I wanted to discuss the matter with you before the subcommittee investigates the program. In case there is a reason behind this program that I and my committee are not aware of.”
“You have doubts about this aircraft Senator? If you could enlarge on them, perhaps I can set your mind at rest.”
“Sir, put at its most basic level, the aircraft seems to perform poorly and demand excessive amounts of support. It is slow. It flies at around 200mph. That makes it appear to be even slower than a C-47 and much slower than a C-54. It is restricted in altitude. My understanding is that it cruises at around 10,000 feet. We have reports that it can’t climb above bad weather, so it is often grounded. Worst of all, it uses six of the R-4360 engines that are in such short supply. The Navy is crying out for F2G Super-Corsairs and the Air Force desperately needs F-72 Thunderstorms to replace the old F-47s. Yet the production of both is restricted by the shortage of engines. If we cancel the C-99, we could free up engines for those aircraft.”
“Senator, put like that, you make a strong case. If I might show you some pictures, they might put a different light on the matter.” Dewey had been anticipating a problem like this and he had the files waiting in his office. Symington’s Air Material Production Subcommittee dealt mostly with the components for aircraft; engines, weapons, most recently radar and other electronic systems. His point had been a good one. It was just he didn’t, couldn’t, mustn’t know the whole picture. The President opened the file and handed some 10 x 18-inch prints over to Symington.
The Senator gasped. The pictures, obviously taken from a high-flying RB-29, were of a port. From the size and scale, he guessed they must have been taken from almost 30,000 feet. The port showed clearly. What was even clearer was the mass of shipping that surrounded it. Symington was irresistibly reminded of ants swarming around a leaf. A mass of shipping that engulfed the port, obviously swamping its facilities.
“That’s Vladivostok Senator. Of all the supplies that go to Russia, 25 percent goes via the northern convoy route to Murmansk and Archangel. Another 25 percent uses the southern route, via Iran and the Afghan Railway. The other half, all of it, goes via the western route to Vladivostok. And you can see the result. The congestion off the Russian port is terrifying. I’m told Admiral King has woken up screaming in the night when he imagines enemy submarines or surface ships getting loose into that mass of shipping.”
Symington nodded. In his mind he could see the exploding ships; enemy warships running through the tightly-packed merchantmen and the burned bodies of seamen washing up on the cold shores. Just like they had back in the bad days of 1942. It could not be allowed to happen again.
Dewey was still speaking. “Of course, we’re doing what we can to solve the problem. We’ve got engineers expanding the facilities at Vladivostok. They’ve doubled the capacity of the port since 1943. We’ve moved a whole new prefabricated port over there, called a Mulberry, and that helps. We’re even unloading cargoes directly over the beach where we can. They’re all only marginal solutions. We’ve achieved a lot more by building support factories in Russia. There’s iron ore, copper, nickel, lead there, oil as well, a lot of it. We used to ship crude oil back to California, then ship refined products back. That blocked the port twice per cargo. Now, we have refineries in Siberia and that saves us a lot of shipping. Only, it’s still a marginal solution.
“It’s not just Vladivostok. The backlog of shipping is causing congestion in all the ports down the West Coast. Rail yards are full because the trains can’t unload until they have a ship to unload them into. The ship can’t take the cargo because it’s still waiting to unload the previous lot at Vladivostok. Then, we’ve got the railway problem in Siberia itself. We’re double-tracking the railway and building relief lines as fast as we can but we still can’t get the job done fast enough. For all that, the equipment needed to enlarge the railways comes by sea, and the ships are backed up all over the place.
“One final thing. Take a look at the map. Look how close that shipping thrombosis is to Japan. Bombers in the Japanese home islands could take off, bomb the stacked up cargo ships and return home without ever leaving sight of their bases. Do you know what it’s costing us to persuade the Japanese not to interfere with that lifeline? A free hand in China’s just the start of it.”
Dewey sighed again. “Look, Senator, I’m sorry if I’m ranting at you, but this shipping problem is keeping everybody awake. The C-99 is the solution to the whole problem. It may fly low and it may fly slow but it has the range to take off from anywhere in the western United States and fly to an airbase in eastern Russia. It can carry 400 men, or 100,000 pounds of cargo per flight. The C-54 carries 50 men or 10,000 pounds of cargo. That means that a single C-99 can carry the human payload of eight C-54s and the cargo payload of ten. It can do all that while flying three times as far. And it doesn’t stop there. The C-54 and the C-69 are basically passenger transports. They have small doors and that gives them problems handling bulky cargoes. The C-99B onwards have clamshell doors in the nose that are big enough to handle whole vehicles. We could fly tanks to Russia if we had to, and deliver them directly from the factories in Detroit to the troops waiting on the Volga. And they can back-load troops from the Volga to the United States. Think on it, Senator, because of the C-99, a soldier with a five day pass can come home and see his family instead of drinking too much in a ‘rest camp.’
“Senator, don’t think of the C-99 as a slow, low-flying aircraft. Think of it as a very fast, amphibious, high-sailing merchant ship. In the time a Victory Ship takes to get from the West Coast to Vladivostok, unload, and come back, the C-99 can lift the same weight of cargo and bypass the ports completely. All it needs is an airstrip and we are building those by the score. It bypasses the ports, bypasses the rail system and means we can route supplies far away from Japan. We’ll still need merchant ships. There are some bulk cargoes that even a C-99 can’t handle but, for the rest, the C-99 is it.”
Symington thought over the whole situation, his eyes fixed on the picture of the mass of shipping piled up outside Vladivostok. It would be easy to create a scandal over the C-99. It was a big, expensive aircraft and its performance figures didn’t look good. But, what he had just been told made sense. It left him with a choice between making political capital for his party by embarrassing the Government or supporting the interests of the country. He was a Democrat, a holdover from the Roosevelt administration. To a party political man this was a gift. But, to Symington, that wasn’t a choice. No honorable man would put his party before his country.
“Thank you Mister President. The situation is quite clear to me now and my initial impressions were quite wrong. I must ask your forgiveness for wasting your time. My committee will say nothing about the C-99.”
“Senator, may I ask a kindness of you? Obviously the problems we are having with port congestion must remain completely secret but it would do much good for public morale if the capabilities of the C-99 were publicized. The good with the bad, low speed: low ceiling but great range and
payload. Perhaps some color pictures might be released. I understand the orange and silver color scheme used by the Air Bridge aircraft photographs very well. I think the people would be encouraged and cheered by the news that your Committee has expedited the aircraft that brings their boys home on leave. There’s nothing secret about the C-99 itself. We could even have some newsreels made.”
Symington smiled broadly in response. This was true politics, two men resolving their differences and coming to an agreement that benefitted both. “I think that is an excellent idea, Mister President.”
After Symington left, Dewey relaxed in his chair. The case made for the C-99 was a powerful one. It was true, but it was only part of the picture. It was also important that people be taught to see any six-engined aircraft with orange markings as just another transport from the Air Bridge. That brought another thought to mind. Senator Symington was an honest man and an honorable man. This meeting had proved that. He was a good candidate to be informed of the real secret that lay behind the C-99. When the time was right, of course.
C-99B Arctic Express Seattle Airport, Washington
“Well, that was unexpected.” Captain Bob Dedmon closed the cockpit canopy panels and settled comfortably into his seat. The cargo manifest was on a clipboard in front of him. Ten spare R-4360 engines for an F-72 group and a mass of spare parts, propellers, tires and electronic gear. Plus ammunition and drums of lubricants. Enough to keep the group going for a week or more. A total manifest of 35 tons.
Outside, a cinema newsreel crew had been filming the apparently endless column of trucks bringing up equipment that vanished through the giant clamshell doors in the nose and into the belly of the C-99B. She was a new bird. This would be her first flight to Russia and that was the apparent subject of the newsreel. It had been a well-made piece. The news crew had wound up the tension as the weather reports came in. Would it be possible for the C-99B to make the flight? The plane was too slow and didn’t have the ceiling to climb above bad weather so a good forecast was critical. Then, the message had come in from Anadyr in Russia. All clear, good weather all the way. The flight was on.
Dedmon had never expected to be the subject of a newsreel; privately, he’d thought the interview he’d given was a disaster. He’d tried to explain what flying the big transport was like. How the huge double-deck fuselage acted like a sail and caught every hint of a crosswind. How flying it felt like steering a house from its front porch. But also what the flights achieved; tonnage delivered directly to the people who needed it, troops brought back for the short leave with their families that they had all so richly earned. He’d tried to say how much getting the supplies through and bringing the people back meant to the pilots on the Air Bridge, but he’d made a complete stumbling mess of it. He didn’t realize that the emotional, semi-articulate explanation of how the C-99 crews thought and felt had the ring of truth that a polished, professional, effort would have lacked.
“Never thought we would be movie stars. Engineering, ready to go. Full power engines three, four, two, five, one and six in that order. Nose doors closed. Check cargo secured.” Dedmon glanced out at the transport. The C-99A had its cockpit buried in the contours of the nose and the pilot couldn’t see much of his aircraft. Modifying the design to include the nose loading doors had meant the cockpit had to be moved to a bubble on top of the fuselage. From there, he could see the whole aircraft. Arctic Express was bright silver except for the outer wing panels and tail surfaces. They were orange-crimson, a high-visibility color in case the bird went down in the snow. It is one pretty color scheme Dedmon thought.
“All engines full power. Ready to taxi out.”
The big transport moved slowly onto the taxiway and waddled down towards the runway. Sitting so high off the ground gave the crew a tremendous sense of power; they overlooked everything. It was as if they were watching the working of the airfield from a moving control tower. Dedmon glanced down. There was a little C-94 in front of them. It was a small utility bird, the military version of the Cessna Skymaster. He could hardly see it. That was a safety problem worth bearing in mind. “Navigator, got the flight plan?”
“Sure thing Captain. North to Alaska, over the Bering Straits to Anadyr then inland to Khabarovsk. Flight time, estimated 20 hours. Assuming we don’t open her up properly.” The C-99 was quite a bit faster than the published data suggested although there were strict orders against revealing that fact. The explanation was that the unrevealed extra speed was their ace in the hole, to get away from fighters annoying them.
“Radio message sir, from the C-94 in front. He asks what our plans are.”
Dedmon snorted. Viewed from the perspective of the tiny utility aircraft, the C-99 must look like a massive monster towering high in the sky. The thought gave him an idea. “Cargo deck, start opening the clamshell doors. Radio, patch me though to the C-94. Dedmon waited until the connection was made and the rumble of the nose doors showed they were opening. Then he spoke to the C-94 pilot, “I am going to eat you!”
C-66D Dragon Rapide Matilda, Kola Peninsula
The blinding snowstorm that had grounded pretty nearly everything north of Petrograd had eased off a little but the white stuff was still coming down hard. It was a matter of great personal satisfaction to Flight Lieutenant George Brumby that his little detachment of antiquated biplanes, the only Australian aircraft operating this far north, were flying while the sophisticated Canadian and American aircraft were grounded. Not that it surprised him. He had come to the conclusion that the Americans couldn’t fly unless they were surrounded by every technical luxury known to man. The Canadians were being dangerously contaminated by their close proximity to the Septics. Brumby sighed. Poor Canada, so far from civilization, so close to America.
He leaned forward, bringing his nose closer to the glass paneling that made up the nose of his Dragon Rapide. It didn’t really help him see better through the falling snow; but it gave him a comforting illusion that he was. In any case, he was flying largely by instruments. Looking through the snow was an effort to warn him of trees and other obstructions. He quickly spared a thought for the four Russians sitting in the passenger compartment behind him. They were squeezed in with a load of supplies and ammunition. A Russian ski patrol, a bunch of Siberians, had hit problems and lost some men. They’d also been caught by the storm and had to hole up, so they were short of food. A few hours earlier, they’d got a message through. They hadn’t asked for help but simply reported their situation. Brumby had been asked to take his Matilda down, deliver the supplies and replacements, pick up a wounded man and bring him back. It was what the little Dragon Rapides did all the time.
According to the map, he was nearing the target coordinates now. It was hard to know for sure. The snow flattened out the landscape and destroyed the contours that would have helped him find his way. Brumby wasn’t that worried. He’d been a bush pilot for years before he’d volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force. In that time, he’d done everything from flying cargo to taking part in the Flying Doctor Service. He had one of the new navigation gizmos the Septics had come up with. Gee, it was called. A master transmitter and two slave transmitters created a grid on a cathode ray tube in his cockpit. It allowed him to plot his position within two or three miles; that was far better than anything he’d had before. With a little luck, the troops on the ground would hear his engines. It was hard to believe but sound carried well in the snow. They would signal him in.
Brumby strained his eyes and peered harder through the snow. Was that a flashing light? Matilda was barely a hundred feet up and doing less than a hundred miles an hour so the weak flash seen through the whiteness was more than adequate warning. With the aid of experience and Gee, he was practically dead on. He cut the two engines on his wings back still further and allowed the Dragon Rapide’s skis to touch the snow in a perfect landing. The little transport kissed the snow, bounded slightly and then came to a stop.
“Everybody Out! And take the cargo with y
ou!” The four Russians didn’t understand the words but they understood the gestures and the urgency in the words. Around Matilda, figures on skis had loomed out of the whiteness and surrounded the aircraft. Brumby clambered out and picked out a figure who seemed to be in charge. He was the one who was telling the four new arrivals what to do and where to go.
“G’day, mate. Got a wounded man for me?”
The figure looked at Brumby in confusion. “Please. Officer come.”
Another figure joined the group. “Tovarish Lieutenant. I am Stanislav Rnyaginichev. Lieutenant also. Please, call me Knyaz.” Knyaz looked at the Dragon Rapide in amazement. It seemed such a flimsy aircraft to be flying in this foul weather. But the biplanes had established an incredible record for doing the impossible. This one was painted gloss white except for a rippling of very pale gray and even paler blue. Even the circular markings were vague and indistinct; just a slightly darker shade of the pale gray. Or was it blue? It was hard to tell. The colors seemed to run into each other.
“Thanks mate. You got a wounded man for me to take out?”
“Yes. We bring him now. He is badly hurt and needs help very much. And we have some papers and documents we captured from the same ambush.” Knyaz looked at the aircraft again. This was something that had come with the Americans, the determination to get the wounded out and to the best treatment they could provide. There were those who said the Russian Army didn’t care about its wounded. That wasn’t true; they’d always done the best they could. The truth was that a poor army with massive casualties didn’t have much it could do. Then the Americans with their wealth of equipment and treasure had arrived. It was overwhelming. Knyaz almost resented it, but he reminded himself that, when he had gone down with pneumonia, he’d been flown out on an aircraft just like this one.
“Right mate, put him in. Need to get out fast.”
