by Wagher, Ward
“The dentist?” Schloss said sharply. “I should say not!”
Gisela laughed again in her musical way. “Karl said you were afraid of dentists.”
“With good reason,” Schloss replied. “In this case, he very likely was the one who gave my dental records to the coup leaders last year. He somehow managed to avoid prison, though Karl thought he was guilty as sin.”
Gisela touched her bottom lip with the tip of her index finger. “Perhaps I should have Willem mention this to Karl.”
“Precious, I think that would be a good idea. And my teeth are fine. I do not need another visit to one of those barbarians.”
She nodded. When Schloss became that adamant, there would be no reasoning with him. She decided that she would ask Karl to recommend a dentist. Once he had the appointment set, she would develop a stratagem to get Schloss to the appointment.
Schloss took a sip of coffee and set down his cup. He glanced at his watch and carefully set Anna-Lisa down.
“Time for Poppa to go to work, Liebchen,” he murmured.
He walked leaned over to kiss Gisela and then stood up. “Will I see you at lunch?”
“You have a lunch meeting with Herr Goering,” she replied.
“I had forgotten that,” he confessed. “I would much rather have lunch with you.”
Schloss purposely paid no attention to his appointments calendar. He saw no need to waste the mental effort when Willem and Gisela carefully reminded him of his appointments.
“I will see you tonight, then,” he said.
She stood up and came into his arms. “I needed a real hug this morning, Darling.”
“And I will wait for another one tonight,” he replied.
“I think we might accommodate you,” she said with a warm smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
June 6, 1943; 6 AM
Central Poland near Lublin
German Reich
General Erwin Rommel looked at his watch and turned to General Walter Model. “It’s time, Walter. I truly hope that you are ready.”
Model cocked a grin at the desert fox. “Oh, we are ready, Herr General. I just need you to keep the Russians from scratching my back.”
“We shall do our very best. If Gott and the Luftwaffe come through.”
“I am not too worried about Gott. He shall do as He wills. However, I worry about Hermann.”
Rommel laughed. “Unfortunately, your fears are well-founded. However, I think the Luftwaffe will show up. They hate to miss a party.”
“Indeed,” Model said. He touched the other man’s shoulder and then turned to his adjutant. “Send the signal, please.”
“At once, Herr General.”
A few moments later, the roar of artillery interrupted the quiet of the dawn as Germany began the offensive that was intended to decapitate the Red Army and end the Soviet invasion of the German Reich.
One-hundred-fifty kilometers to the west, a fleet of seventy-five of the Fliegende Festung, or Flying Fortresses, began dropping tons of bombs on the Red Army positions. The SC 250, Grade III bombs weighed 250 kilograms and were designed to explode on contact.
The air-raids along the front the Russians shared with the Wehrmacht were designed with several objectives in mind. Destroying and disrupting the Russian war machine was a considerable benefit. It was also a German maskirovka as Guderian had become fond of using the Russian word – designed to encourage the Russian belief that the Germans were attempting to attack along the broad front. It would give Model the best opportunity to break through and rampage behind the Russian Lines to the southeast. Most importantly, Rommel hoped to forestall any Russian effort to respond to Model’s attack.
“I’ll leave this to you, Walter,” Rommel said. “I need to get back to headquarters. The Ostroda operation should have kicked off, and I am less confident in Himmel’s abilities than yours.”
“Gerhard will do fine,” Model said. “After all, I trained him.”
“That is what concerns me,” Rommel said with a crooked smile.
Model roared with laughter. “You may well have a point there.”
General Gerhard Himmel was tasked with a diversionary attack on the front near Ostroda, north of Warsaw. Designed to resemble a major incursion, Rommel and Model had instructed Himmel to pull his forces back from the initial attack before the vastly more powerful Russian forces on either side snapped the opening shut like the jaws of a trap. He had been an understudy of Model’s for years. Himmel was a capable tactician with a flair for innovative plans; nevertheless, he lacked Model’s instincts for conserving his forces.
Rommel climbed into the back seat of the Fiesler Storch observation plane and took off for the Wehrmacht headquarters west of Warsaw. At 3,000 meters, the bright morning sun on the green countryside below drove away the evidence of war. A pleasant, gentle morning allowed Rommel to reflect upon the obscenity below. He knew that he was very good at what he did, but contrary to published reports, he did not revel in warfare. And he was much happier waging a noble war for Herr Schloss than he was for that madman Hitler.
The Russian invasion had quickly dispelled German assumptions about the competence of the Russian army. Most of the OKW was now soberly reflecting upon their earlier support of Hitler’s planned invasion of Russia during the summer of 1941. They had confidently predicted the Russians would quickly fold up like a termite-infested house. Accustomed to using the rapier strikes of the Blitzkrieg, the Germans now faced a much larger foe that used the sledgehammer as its operating practice.
Fortunately, Guderian trusted the instincts of Rommel and Model. He had heard the American phrase, playing to their strengths, and that was precisely what they were doing. The Germans would slip in wherever they spotted a weakness and bleed the Russians. Model would then pull back before the Russians could bring their superior forces to bear. Rommel took advantage of the Luftwaffe control of the air to strike the Red Army with relative impunity. Any Russian efforts to hinder the Fliegende Festung bombers were met with flights of the Me262 jet fights.
Messerschmitt had discontinued production of the Me109, and the jet fighter was now in full production. It was available at the front in increasing numbers. So far, and remarkably so, the Russians had not been able to recover the wreckage of those few aircraft that had been shot down over enemy territory. Rommel did not expect that happy state of affairs to continue, but he pressed his advantages as far as possible.
Everyone knew that the Russians would gain knowledge of German technology eventually. It would occur either through the recovery of crashed aircraft or by spies in German industry. Rommel fervently hoped that the later would be much later. The Russians made superb tanks. He was under no illusions about their abilities to produce first-rate jet aircraft when given the opportunity. Some of their propeller-driven aircraft were very good, indeed.
The landing at his headquarters interrupted Rommel’s musing. He rode in his staff car to the headquarters encampment and strode into the operations tent to look at the map and read the status reports. Early reports were encouraging.
§ § §
June 6, 1943; 2 PM
Near Aiea Military Hospital
Aiea Heights, Hawaii
Colonel Jeff Binger, United States Army, stepped out of his Jeep and walked over to where a group of GIs stood by the ravine. He looked down at what the soldiers had uncovered and choked back the vomit.
“Oh, my God!”
Captain Larry Strobehn saluted the colonel. “Sir, there has got to be thousands of bodies here. Looks like all civilians, from their clothing.”
Binger felt the breeze on his back and was glad to be upwind of the charnel pit. He at first wondered at how this obscenity came to be and then quickly reached his conclusion.
“The Japs didn’t want to feed everybody,” he said. “Bullets were cheaper.”
“I think the Japs hacked a lot of them to death, Sir,” Strobehn said. “And we wondered where everybody was when we came asho
re, Sir. I guess we know.”
The colonel shook his head. “I guess we do. Very well, Captain, you will do this. Get the chaplains up here and the combat photographers. And you probably should get the flacks here. Start documenting as much as you can. Tell everyone this is classified as top secret for right now. There is still a good chance the Japs will push us off this rock, and the world needs to know what they have done here. I need to go talk to the General.”
Strobehn saluted the colonel again. “Yes, Sir. I’ll get right on it.”
“And if anyone gives you any grief about this,” Binger continued, “tell them to see me.”
“Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir.”
Binger did not want his people to think he was running away from his duty here, but if he looked down into that glimpse of hell, he was going to throw up. He was now much less charitable towards the Japanese soldiers who were resisting the American advance. If they all died here, that would suit him just fine. He climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep.
“Let’s get to the HQ, Corporal,” he said to his driver.
The corporal made a three-point turn and drove up the hill to the road next to the hospital. As he pulled onto the way, he spoke.
“Sir, what happened back there?”
Binger took a deep, shaky breath. “Corporal, it appears the Japanese found a solution to the food shortage here in Hawaii.”
“They killed everybody?” his voice was incredulous.
“It seems so, Corp. And consider that a secret for now. I need to find out what the general wants to do.”
“God, Colonel! They killed all those civilians.”
“That’s what it looks like. For heaven’s sake, don’t drive off the road.”
“No, Sir.”
General Malcomb Braden, United States Army, used one of the few intact office buildings at Hickam Field as his headquarters. The army and marines had based themselves at Hickam and Ewa and had learned to set up heavily guarded perimeters. The tropical foliage and the challenging terrain made it easy for Japanese sappers to slip into the area at night and cause mayhem. The Americans held a relatively small perimeter around Pearl City and Honolulu. They considered anything outside of that to be Indian country.
“What brings you to Hickam, Jeff?” General Braden asked as he stood up and returned Binger’s salute. They shook hands, and the General waved the colonel to a chair.
“Sir, my people just discovered a mass grave over by the Aiea Military Hospital. It looks like thousands of civilians.”
Braden turned pale. “Near the hospital? Was it just a plague or something, Colonel?”
Binger recognized that the shock had driven the general into formality.
“Sir, it looks like a lot of them were hacked to death.”
“That explains why nobody was at the docks to welcome us. Those stinking animals killed everybody!”
“That’s what it looks like, Sir.”
“How many bodies?”
“It looks like thousands. I didn’t stay long. I didn’t want to throw up in front of the troops. It’s pretty bad, General.”
“What did you do?” the general asked.
“Sir, I told the captain to get the chaplains up there along with the combat photographers. I also told him to get the flacks up there.”
Braden exhaled heavily. He stood up and walked over to the window. A Navy R4D was just landing on the runway, and it looked like an Army C-54 was approaching behind it. A constellation of landing lights hung in the sky as the armed forces flew in as much materiel as they could cram into the airplanes. They then lined up to receive the litters of the wounded to transport to the hospitals back on the west coast.
One of the early arrivals at Pearl Harbor was a tanker carrying aviation gasoline. It pumped fuel into tanker trucks at the docks, which was then moved to the airfield for refueling. A team of Seabees worked frantically to get the tank farm back into operation. A steady stream of ships entered the harbor to unload men, cargo and heavy equipment.
Braden turned back to Binger. “Let me congratulate you on your good judgment, Colonel. I think you handled this very well. I need to contact Washington. They need to hear about this. As soon as you can get several rolls of movie film and still pictures down here, I want to put them on a plane back to Diego.”
“Yes, Sir. I will do that.”
“And it was a good call to clamp a lid on this. Go ahead and put a security cordon around that area. Make sure everyone involved knows not to talk. I don’t want this spreading among the troops until we can make a proper announcement.”
“I understand, Sir,” Binger said.
“On your way, then, Colonel.”
“By your leave, Sir?”
“Dismissed,” Braden said.
After the colonel left, Braden walked over and sagged into his chair. He played with the pencil on his desk for a few moments.
“Why couldn’t the Marines have found this before the Army got here?” he asked out loud.
He picked up his phone. “Sergeant find the adjutant and get him in here. You come in too when he gets here. We need to send an Urgent to Washington. Oh, and have my car ready. I’ve got to ride up into the hills.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
June 6, 1943; 6 AM
Central Poland near Warsaw
Red Army Headquarters
Colonel Ivan Smirnoff struggled to pull a command team together in the shambles of the headquarters encampment. After General Menschkin was killed in that mysterious bombing raid, things were starting to come together for him. Moscow had notified him that a replacement was on the way, and he wanted the HQ in order. Then came the nonstop bombing from the Germans, using those big American bombers.
It seemed as though every time he started to get things under control, either one of those mysterious buzzing things would strike, or the ultra-long-range artillery would drop shells around them. Neither was very accurate, but the men were getting rattled. It was something they could not see or hear until the last moment. And there were the two incursions to fight.
The Germans were making a significant effort to push through the Soviet lines at Ostroda, north of Warsaw. And something was happening at Lublin, though he wasn’t quite sure what. Stalin had put him temporarily in command of the western invasion, and he had to make decisions. He recognized that he was operating under the classic fog of war. He learned at the Frunze Academy that command paralysis was fatal in these situations. To make matters worse, the Commissar assigned to the headquarters unit was walking around with his hand on his pistol, adding to everyone’s nerves. Nobody had the authority to tell the man to ease up just a little.
Very well, he thought to himself, it’s decision time, Ivan. We must get ahead of events.
He turned to Lieutenant Colonel Belyaev, who was serving as his adjutant. “Send a message to General Sidirov at Ostroda. Instruct him to move quickly to pinch off the incursion. If the Germans still manage a breakthrough, we can slam the door behind them and cut off their supply train.”
Belyaev jumped to attention. “At once, Comrade Colonel.”
He looked at Major Kuzmin, the acting intelligence officer. “Major, do whatever you can to find out what is going on at Lublin.”
Kuzmin nodded and walked back to his ad hoc staff. Radio contact was spotty from that area, and the bombing had severed the telephone wires laboriously installed by the Signals staff. He had a strong feeling that whatever was going on was not good.
Belyaev returned shortly. “The message to Comrade General Sidirov was sent and acknowledged, Comrade Colonel.”
“Does it feel funny to be passing orders to a general?” Smirnoff asked with a smile.
“It does. But we must do something before the Germans walk all over us.”
“That is the case. Now, I would like you to construct a message to Moscow requesting a maximum effort against the German bombers. We need some breathing room, and we don’t want those pig farmers to see what we are up to.
”
“I will take care of it, Comrade Colonel.”
“It would be a good idea if you and I reviewed the draft before we sent the message.”
Belyaev raised his eyebrows and nodded. “I appreciate the suggestion.”
It was a risky message to send as it might reflect a less than glowing confidence in ultimate victory by the sender. By offering to help with the wording of the communique, Smirnoff told his deputy that he would accept responsibility for it. Belyaev understood that if he were going to be thrown to the wolves, at least he would have company.
Smirnoff spent a couple of hours sorting through the wreckage of the command tent. Like any military organization, the Red Army floated on a sea of paper. The destruction of the command tent effectively hamstrung the Soviet capabilities, at least temporarily. Smirnoff considered himself to be a capable tactician, but he knew his real gifts were administrative. He was going to do his best to have a functioning organization in place for whenever Menschkin’s replacement arrived. In the meanwhile, he also had a war to fight. Well, nobody ever promised him that the job would be easy.
“Comrade Colonel Smirnoff.”
Smirnoff looked up as Major Kuzmin approached. “Yes, Comrade Major, what is it?”
“I think we have a major incursion at Lublin. Whatever is going on, it is happening quickly.”
A couple of the sergeants had managed to find an undamaged map and had it mounted on a rough framework of boards along one side of the tent. Smirnoff walked over to it, and the major followed.
“Tell me what you know,” Smirnoff commanded.
No one had found an acetate overlay for the map as yet, so Kuzmin used a pencil to mark his conclusions lightly on the map.
“I believe the Germans have broken through the lines here, just west of Lublin. We had some observers hidden in the woods, and they have reported a lot of traffic moving through the sally. And it is moving fast.”
Smirnoff felt a chill in his spine. “And we have been stripping extra troops from that area to support our efforts to the west. I imagine it was like trying to stop them with a paper wall.”
