“That’s right.” It was a new voice, deeper, with a markedly American accent. “Let me introduce myself. My name’s Groves. Leslie Groves.” Like Weatherspoon, Groves was a stout man, but much taller, towering over Philby himself. His hands were huge and his face was large and rectangular. He wore a U.S. Army uniform with the one star of a brigadier general, and a castle insigma that Philby recognized as belonging to the Corps of Engineers.
“General Groves, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Philby’s the name. Harold Philby, actually, but I’m generally known as Kim. I’m with the Secret Intelligence Service.”
“Good to meet you, Philby. You’re right. Most of these planes have gone to the Pacific. The missions there are generally much longer range, and the B-29 is the only aircraft capable of flying those missions. The B-17s and B-24s are great aircraft when the ranges involved are shorter, as they generally are in Europe.”
“Then why …”
“Why have these here? The other distinguishing quality of the B-29 is its payload capacity. The package it will carry is just a bit bigger than a conventional bomb, and this is the only aircraft big enough to carry it to its target.”
“I see. And does the package live up to its billing?” Philby asked.
Groves fell silent. “Until you see it,” he said after a pause, “you cannot possibly understand it. It is beyond description.”
Philby nodded. “I see. Or, rather, I should say that I don’t see.”
“If you’d like to follow me, gentlemen, the packages are in the hangar over there,” Groves said, and marched off at a rapid military pace. In spite of Groves’ bulk, Philby was challenged to keep pace. Weatherspoon started puffing after a few feet.
Inside the hangar, which was surrounded by guards, workmen had uncrated a line of twenty huge bombs, several times larger than the five-hundred-pound bombs that were standard for normal missions. Each bomb was over ten feet in length and nearly a yard in diameter. “They weigh nearly four tons apiece,” commented Groves.
As he spoke, a forklift was trying to lift one of the units, but the weight caused the forklift to tip forward. The bomb rolled off and hit the floor with a crash that felt like an earthquake. “God damn it!” roared Groves. “Be careful!” Workers began scrambling over the dropped unit and the tilted forklift.
Philby had closed his eyes, expecting that moment to be his last, but Groves turned back to him and said, “Wasn’t armed yet. They don’t get armed until they’re aboard the bomber. Until then, they’re just big heavy pieces of metal. Wouldn’t want to drop one on your foot, but other than that, they’re not dangerous.”
Philby took a deep breath. “Thought I heard the trumpet of doom there for a second.”
Groves laughed. “I understand. I’ve been working with these things for years now, and there are days they still scare me.”
“If I may, General,” Philby asked, “I had the impression that there were limitations on production. I’m quite surprised—pleased, mind you, but surprised—to see so many bombs ready here.”
Groves nodded. “You’re absolutely right. Getting the production process started was immensely difficult, and getting one bomb ready took years. The trick is that once the process was up and running, we found that making more than one was far easier and quicker than we had expected. Not only do we have these, we still have enough for Tojo and his friends in the Pacific.”
“Really?” said Philby. “That is impressive. The war will be over in a matter of weeks, then.”
“One way or another,” said Groves. “This is it. The fat lady—or Fat Man—has sung.”
After Kim Philby had left, Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Tibbets walked up to General Groves and said, “Bet you’re glad I made you get me those extra pumpkins, now, aren’t you?”
“Pumpkin” was the nickname for the dummy bombs used by Tibbets’ group for target practice. Because of the difficulty and expense in manufacturing numerous duplicate bombs, Groves had initially vetoed Tibbets’ request for seventy-five pumpkins as excessive, but when the assembly team pointed out that they needed practice as well, Groves had finally given in.
What he hadn’t expected was to use the pumpkins to create a fake display for a suspected Soviet spy so that the spy could report to Moscow that the U.S. had at least twenty bombs in England plus an unspecified additional number in the Pacific.
The truth was a little more bleak: one untested unit here in England and two more undergoing final construction in the United States. This wasn’t a war as much as it was the highest-stakes poker game in the history of the world.
“Yes, Paul,” Groves said, “I’m glad you made me buy the extra pumpkins.”
CCA, NINETEENTH ARMORED DIVISION, POTSDAM, GERMANY, 1225 HOURS GMT
The division artillery came into play in the center of the line. Diaz had his guns depress to fire directly at the Soviet tanks as they tried to push their way around the wrecks of their comrades. It was not that Ballard had lost all his Shermans, though more than thirty of the M-4s had been knocked out by now. Instead, it was that the big 105s were the only guns that had enough punch to stop the huge Russian tanks, the JS IIs and JS IIIs, collectively called the Stalins.
From his new command post Ballard had seen no less than four of the armored behemoths destroyed. Two of them were still smoking in the middle of an intersection, in death serving nicely as a roadblock. But there were still more of them rumbling through the smoky shadows farther away, looming over the ubiquitous T-34s. And always there was the infantry, the Red Army soldiers hurling themselves forward into the face of machine guns, tank cannons, rifles, and hand grenades.
They had broken through along the Havel riverfront, a bold attack in small boats helping to outflank the CCA position. The division reserve had moved up and stanched the flow, but the Soviet infantry had finally started to lever Nineteenth Armored out of its initial position. Now the colonel was managing a difficult retreat, trying to keep a line intact as they fell back one block at a time.
The battle had carried them into a residential district of mostly small houses, and each of these became a point of resistance, or a barrier behind which an American tank or self-propelled gun could find a moment’s sanctuary. Each house had a tiny rear yard, often with nicely-groomed gardens, small gazebos, or fountains; invariably these were fenced from the neighboring yards by hedges, or walls of wood or brick. The population had long since fled, but there were reminders of people all over the place—a neat stack of laundry on a back porch, a rocking horse with one small, unbuckled shoe lying beside it.
A thunderous eruption of noise blasted along the line as the Soviet guns once again opened up. Houses, gardens, groves, arbors, and rocking horses vanished in a hail of dirt and debris, splinters of wood and metal and stone. The barrage thundered relentlessly, a hail of shells as the enemy tanks and infantry paused for a breather. Sensibly, they would let their artillery soften up the battered American defenders.
“Back—pull back!” Ballard called to all his units, hoping that most of the men could get out of the killing zone. They came into sight along the line, stumbling on foot as they broke for the cover of the next block. The tanks rolled over obstacles, turrets reversed to fire into the smoke at the unseen Russians.
“Save the ammo!” Ballard barked. “Mark your targets!”
They had reached the last strip of houses. Beyond was a stretch of open fields, parks, and sports venues, with a dense band of trees about a kilometer away. Ballard knew from months of scouting this position that the forest was thick, crossed with ravines and deadfalls, as well as many roads and hiking paths. He had long planned on it as his last line of defense, if he was to be driven out of Potsdam. For all its thickness, the woods was still bounded by the Havel on the left and the lake on the right; they had flank protection and some shelter against enemy fire. If they were pushed back through the woods, however, the country opened up; the enemy’s superior numbers would swarm around and devour the Nineteenth Armored.
/>
Ballard made the connection to Diaz, ordered him to get his big guns back first, then to set them up to cover the withdrawal of the rest of the division. Fortunately, the Soviet barrage continued—the thunderous curtain of explosions helped Ballard now because the smoke screened his withdrawal from enemy observation. Since the men of the Nineteenth had already pulled back far enough that they were out of the killing zone, the Red Army guns pulverized an uninhabited German neighborhood.
After Diaz had his batteries in position, Ballard sent the infantry across the fields. By now the curtain of enemy guns was beginning to lift, but the dogfaces made it to cover before the Russian troops came into view. Finally it was the tanks that crossed the field, Shermans once again with turrets trained to the rear, shooting on the run. Ballard saw three of them get hit and burn, but the rest made it to the shelter of the forest, lurching down through a shallow ditch, pushing noisily through the saplings at the fringe of the woods, filing along the tracks and trails. Like their CO, the men had spent the months of the siege getting to know the area. Now everyone had a predetermined fallback point, and the withdrawal went pretty smoothly—all things considered.
Ballard came in by jeep, following the main road—one of many that crossed all the way through this urban forest. At the first crossroads he stopped, startled by the sight of a German officer in a peaked leather cap—and even more surprised when he recognized him.
“Field Marshal Rommel. Willkommen,” he offered, shrugging apologetically at his German.
“Danke schön,” replied the Desert Fox. An aide stepped forward while he spoke again in German.
“The field marshal extends his admiration for your defense,” said the aide in good, clipped English.
Ballard shook his head ruefully. “We lost our first line. I don’t know how long we can hold here.”
“I thought you Americans delivered some heavy artillery barrages, in Normandy,” Rommel said, through the translator. He indicated the field, and battered Potsdam beyond. “We used to curse your guns, and wonder how any army could have so many batteries. I must say, those attacks were like pinpricks compared to this pummeling. These Russians, when they fire their guns like this, are like a force of nature, a flood.”
“Yeah,” Ballard admitted, beginning to feel his exhaustion. “And now, one more time, we’ve got to build a levee.”
TEMPELHOF AIRPORT, BERLIN, GERMANY, 1815 HOURS GMT
The American fighters flew from bases outside of the siege for reasons of supply, but every now and then one of them would make an emergency landing at the big airport. Chuck Porter had been hanging out here since his arrival as the first official passenger on an incoming flight, and now that the battle had taken to the skies he was determined to get a firsthand account.
During the months of the siege he had been able to get press credentials that gave him almost free run of the huge airport, but one of the few areas that was off-limits was the barracks where the pilots who were stranded here found temporary accommodations. So the reporter found himself watching and taking notes on the first day’s air battle, but he wasn’t able to get the interview.
Stationed on the tower’s observation deck, binoculars glued to his eyes, he watched the deadly dance being enacted in the skies over Berlin. He couldn’t count who was winning or losing—the tiny fighters were virtually indistinguishable to him, unless they happened to be right overhead—but from the number of crashing aircraft he knew it was a frantic battle. He observed something like twenty different fighters come down to land on Tempelhof’s wide runways during the day of July 5. Some of these were trailing smoke, and a few had landing gear problems, sliding in with screeching, fiery belly landings. One P-51 wobbled crazily as it came down. Before it could settle in for a landing, one wingtip dipped and scraped the tarmac, and the fighter cartwheeled through a flaming explosion. Only the Mustang’s engine came rolling out of the inferno; there was no point in asking if the pilot had made it.
Today was the second day of the big air battle, and as afternoon waned there were fewer than a dozen Mustangs that had made forced landings here. The fighting in the sky had grown visibly less intense, until by the afternoon it was hard to find a Russian plane up in the sky.
But Porter still wanted his interview. He had noticed that some of the damaged Mustangs were rolled off to a secondary hangar, behind the main terminal, and as afternoon waned into evening he decided that his best chance of meeting a fighter pilot was to go over there. First, he took the precaution of acquiring four large bottles of beer from the airport commissary, then he ambled over the pavement, showing his pass to the lone MP who questioned him.
He found six Mustangs lined up, all of them looking a little battle-worn. They were inside, illuminated by electric lights, but there were only a couple of mechanics at work. Near one of the planes he saw a young officer, ruefully trailing his hands over the bullet holes in the engine compartment of the P-51.
“Lieutentant?” said Porter, approaching the fellow, reading the name on his tunic. “Wesling, is it?”
“What do you want?”
“You flying tonight?” Chuck nodded at the fighter, and the pilot grimaced.
“Not bloody likely. I’ll be leaving Berlin tomorrow in the passenger seat of a Dakota—but when I get myself a new plane, you can bet I’ll be back.”
“Well, until then, maybe you’d like one of these?” Porter extended an opened beer bottle and the flier, who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, nodded agreeably and took a long pull. Suddenly he lowered the beer and looked at Porter skeptically.
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. But I was hoping you’d talk to me.” Porter set his own beer down on the floor and pulled out his notepad. “You know, let the folks back home know what it was like to go toe to toe with the Red Air Force.”
“You a reporter, huh?”
“Chief of the Paris Bureau of the Associated Press.” That was usually good for a laugh around these parts, and Wesling was no exception.
“Paris? Damn, was I off course!”
“Temporary duty in Berlin—just like a lot of other Yanks. So tell me, how’d we fare?”
“We kicked their asses!” The lieutenant’s face was suddenly alive. “I shot down two of the bastards myself, in those new Sturmoviks—the IL-10s.”
“Good airplanes?”
The young man shrugged. “Better than some. But we can take them in speed, turning, and climbing. And I think our guys have more experience. Yesterday there were two aces made in my squadron alone! We shot down thirty-two of the bastards, between the twelve of us. Lost one of ours, a good guy, Kelly, from New York.”
“And today?” Porter pressed, quickly scratching down the numbers, the name.
“Well, we didn’t get as many ’cuz they didn’t come out to fight, not after the early hours of the morning. Still, we got a dozen kills, including mine. Far as I know we didn’t lose any planes—well, I guess you have to count me as shot down, now that you mention it. I never would have made it back to Frankfurt, anyway—lost all my oil pressure and had to glide her down here to Tempelhof.”
“But it was your impression that we were winning the air battle?”
“Impression, hell, it’s the truth. One reason I don’t like being stuck here—I’m sure the boys are really whooping it up back at the base. I wish I was there.”
“Well, here, knock yourself out,” Porter said, offering the flier another beer. He made some more notes, happy that he could report that the air battle seemed to be won.
Now if only somebody would do something about their problems on the ground.
7 JULY 1945
HQ, THIRD ARMY, REICHSTAG BUILDING, BERLIN, GERMANY, 0651 HOURS GMT
“We have reports of Russian tanks within a mile of Tempelhof airport,” reported the XO from the Forty-second Division. “They broke through in a couple of places, and we had to fall back—or we would have been surrounded.”
“What ab
out your boys, Henry?” Patton turned his glare to the CO of the Nineteenth Armored Division. “How are things in Potsdam?”
“Sorry to say, but we were pushed to the outskirts of Potsdam by yesterday night, General. They’ve got the urban part of the city—but there’s a good bit of forest there; it was like a big park preserve. So Frank Ballard has his men set up with the woods for cover. As of twelve hours ago, and still holding, he’s fought the Reds to a halt.”
“Damn, they’re doing a helluva job. But shoot straight, Hank. How long can they hang on before they break?”
“Best guess is just that, General: a guess. These men have been through hell. They’ve had more shells dropped on them in the last few days than any division I’ve ever heard of. I can’t promise anything beyond another twenty-four hours.”
“That’s what I thought.” Patton nodded, the point of decision passed.
“Get Ike on the phone. Tell him we need help now! If he can’t give us anything, I’m not sure we can hold out for more than another day, before we lose both our airports. And once that happens, it’s all over.”
SHAEF, REIMS, FRANCE, 1231 HOURS GMT
“General Groves? This is the Supreme Commander. Yes, General, this is a secure line. Listen, we’re going to need you to go into action on an emergency basis. Today, if possible, tomorrow at the latest. After that, I’m afraid it will be too late.”
“I understand, General Eisenhower. And please know that we’re doing everything we can. I’ve got my top men on this thing, and they’re swarming all over it. But we … well, I know you have no time for excuses.”
“No, General Groves. I understand about problems, about not having enough men, materials, time. But we all have to function anyway. And I tell you this, if we don’t get a big helping hand out of your boys, this thing might be all over. And it won’t be a happy ending.”
Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine) Page 64
