Carter peered through the periscope at the approaching ship. A freighter, but what nationality? He couldn’t make out her name and her flag was hanging limp. He couldn’t just go and sink anything he saw. After all, there were still a number of U.S. ships on the ocean, many of whose skippers didn’t know that Los Angeles and San Diego had fallen or, for that matter, were blissfully unaware that the U.S. was at war with Germany. Hell, many merchantmen still didn’t have radios.
Thus, he would surface, then hail and halt the big fat slow-moving freighter. He hoped and prayed it would be a German, although an Austrian would do just as well. Austria-Hungary had declared war on the U.S. in knee-jerk support of Germany, but there had been no attacks from that strange and polyglot empire. It didn’t have much of a navy or merchant fleet to begin with. Despite that, Commander Nimitz ordered his men to consider them the enemy as well. Carter and his crew didn’t need much convincing. They had all lost friends during the German sneak attack on Mare Island.
A quarter of a mile away from the freighter, he ordered the sub to surface. Carter figured seeing the sub so close would be worth some shock value. It was. As his men scrambled to man the three-inch deck gun, he could see crewmen on the freighter running like chickens with their heads cut off. Carter grinned as he identified her. She flew the German flag, and her name was the Gudrun out of Bremen. He watched in disbelief as a couple of the ship’s crewmen waved at the sub. Did they think she was one of their U-boats?
“Gunner, take out her radio and her antenna.”
The gunner smiled and fired immediately. He’d been aiming since he took up position behind the deck gun. The shell hit the structure below the antenna, sending pieces of wood and metal into the air. A second shell completed the job. The freighter struck her flag.
I will not be a butcher, Carter thought. I will not be like the Germans and slaughter the crew. He positioned the sub close to the freighter and was about to hail her when a fusillade of bullets struck the sub, sending men into the sea.
“Open fire,” he ordered and both the deck gun and the machine guns opened up, raking the Gudrun. Carter pulled the sub back a couple of hundred yards and the deck gun began pumping shells into her, just below the freighter’s water line.
More white flags flew and somebody tried to yell something. Too bad he couldn’t hear it. The German crew began to abandon ship as smoke and flames billowed up through a hatch. Something exploded and the ship shuddered, starting to settle. The explosion must have blown out her guts.
Another ship was approaching. What the hell? Carter thought. Had this part of the ocean suddenly become a damn highway? At any rate, the first ship they’d hit was beyond help.
“We gonna submerge, sir?” asked Chief Ryan, a man with nearly twenty years experience.
“Is it a warship?”
“No sir. Looks like another big ass freighter.”
Carter grunted. He wondered if the first ship had gotten off any kind of message. If it had, the message would likely have been a simple SOS, and nothing saying she was under attack. The new ship doubtless thought the O-7 was on an errand of mercy to save the Gudrun. If the new ship was also a German, he could also sink her without wasting a precious torpedo.
“All the men back on board?” He was told that the men who’d jumped when the bullets started to fly were wet but safe. A few bruises, but no real injuries, except to their pride.
He positioned the O-7 so that the dying German hid him from the new target. At a mile out he showed himself. The new ship also flew a German flag and her hull proudly announced that she was from Hamburg.
Burned once by the surprise of small-arms fire, Carter ordered the guns to fire immediately. Although smaller than the Gudrun, the new ship was more stubborn. It took a dozen solid hits before her crew began to abandon her and flames started eating at her.
Carter smiled. It was a good day. “Any more customers, Chief?”
“I see a couple, but they’ve turned and are running. We could chase them, but it’d take forever and we’d be out of fuel if we didn’t run into the German Navy first.”
Ah yes, Carter thought, the German Navy. The twin plumes of smoke from the sinking ships billowed high into an otherwise clear sky. Four lifeboats clustered on the water, the German crews wondering if they were going to be machine gunned or left to the mercies of a sometimes merciless sea. He would not gun them down. The Germans did that, not Americans. Let God provide.
But there was a problem and he could see it clearly. The sub base at Catalina had only five submarines. The plan was for two subs to be on patrol at all times, while the others either refueled or made it back and forth to their assigned areas. The O-7 had sunk two ships but missed the opportunity to sink at least two more. There had to be a better, more effective way of sinking enemy ships, he thought. Also, these had sailed without escort. Carter had the sinking feeling, pun intended, that German destroyers and light cruisers would soon be convoying the freighters and transports. As he thought this, the second ship exploded, sending shock waves over the O-7. Thankfully, the debris fell short of his sub.
The chief grinned. “I think she was carrying at least some ammunition.”
Carter checked his fuel supply. It was time to head for the little port near Avalon, on Catalina Island. Carter’s commanding officer at Catalina, Chester Nimitz, had a first-rate mind if there ever was one. Maybe Commander Nimitz would have a thought on how to catch the whole covey and not just a quail or two.
* * *
Tim Randall recovered, but with agonizing slowness. He didn’t know why he’d been chosen to survive the influenza when so many others had died. He was weak as a baby and nobody wanted to be near him even though the doctors said he was no longer contagious. Fair enough. He wouldn’t want to be near him either. The doctors said the epidemic had almost run its course and the young soldiers were all safe.
Nobody believed them.
No training was taking place at Camp Dix. Nobody came in and nobody left, except maybe in a box. If the doctors were right and the flu was over, that situation would change and new recruits would soon arrive.
When he felt strong enough, Tim managed to get himself to the mound of earth under which Wally’s body lay. He had died while Tim was unconscious. His last memory was of laying his brother’s frail body on the now empty cot, hoping that a miracle would cure him. Wally had died moments later, but Tim had been unconscious and near death himself.
Wally’d been buried in a mass grave with fifty others. Crosses lined the mound and Wally’s name was duly inscribed on one, but Tim wondered if his brother’s body actually lay anywhere near the spot.
He wanted to cry but it hurt too much. He and Wally had joined to fight the Germans. If that meant being killed or wounded in battle, so be it. War was tragic but heroic, and that was what they’d signed on for. Maybe they didn’t totally understand the implications of warfare, but to be felled by an invisible little Goddamned germ was too much.
Nor did it help a whole lot when a deeply sympathetic Sergeant Smith told him that this was the way of war. Since time immemorial, Smith said, more warriors had been killed by disease than by the enemy. Tim found it hard to believe and checked it out with the medics. Smith had exaggerated only slightly. Modern medicine had reduced the numbers killed by illness, but not eliminated it. Even a conflict as recent as the Spanish-American War saw many more American soldiers killed by Yellow Fever than by Spanish bullets.
Tim decided he didn’t give a shit. Wally was dead and who cared about numbers.
Smith tapped him on the shoulder, “Orders, Sergeant Randall.”
“Sergeant?”
“You’re surprised?” Smith said. “You were in training to be an NCO and you were doing very well. Now with all the casualties from the flu, the army is accelerating training for those who are left. You are one of the best who made it through the flu, so you get to be a sergeant. Not only that but you are a damn fine shot. Not as good as me, nobody is, but damned g
ood nontheless. You are to go to Kansas City as quickly as possible. If you are just a little creative with your travel plans, you might spend a day or two in Camden with your family.”
Family? It would be nice to see them, even though he’d heard that the flu was ravaging east coast cities. And the word “sergeant” did have a nice ring to it. Regardless, it was better to move on and leave this place of mass death and the memory of his brother’s dying.
Tim noticed that “Smeeth’s” crazy accent had disappeared. Did he put that on just for show? He held out his hand. “Thanks Sergeant Smith.”
“You’re welcome, Sergeant Randall. Now get the hell out of here. New recruits are going to be coming in soon, which means I’ve got fresh meat to cure.”
* * *
The President of the United States was appalled. According to the report in his hand, the surgeon general was now predicting that as many as forty thousand young men would die in the training camps as a result of the influenza that had originated somewhere in the American Midwest. While somewhat lower than the original estimates, it was a catastrophe nonetheless. He put his head in his hands. He wanted to weep.
However, the numbers would not go away. Three quarters of a million young men had been in the training camps when the disease erupted with a sudden and lethal fury. A third of that total had gotten ill and forty thousand would soon be dead. Many thousands more would die elsewhere, and still more thousands had yet to catch it.
Worse, the numbers of those with the flu had been so great that ill soldiers had been transferred to civilian hospitals; thus causing the hideous disease to spread throughout the civilian population. The country was staggering from this additional blow. Trucks and carts collected corpses from houses in Philadelphia, in a horrific replay of the plague in the Middle Ages.
The only good news came from the surgeon general who announced that a vaccine had been developed and that the flu seemed to be running its course. For the dead and the dying this was scant comfort. And as to the war? Dear God, Lansing thought, how would we ever be able to fight the Germans?
“Other than the surgeon general’s guarded optimism, is there any actual good news?” Lansing asked.
“At least in the Navy the flu is contained,” said Navy Secretary Daniels. “In those instances where it has appeared, the ships have been quarantined and that has proven effective. And the same holds true for the Marine Corps. The need to increase the number of Marines was not as great as the Army’s need to increase the number of soldiers.”
Secretary of War Baker could barely hide his shame. The rush to enlarge the Army was his responsibility and on his head rested the blame for the inadequate facilities and equipment. Now it was easy to say that increases in the Army’s size should have been incremental and not headlong, but the nation wanted quick action, not slow growth. People would be court-martialed, and civilian contractors put on trial for their shoddy work, and perhaps some of them might even see the inside of a jail. But that would not bring back tens of thousands of young men.
More soldiers had just died of the flu than on both sides at the battle of Gettysburg. Baker had offered his resignation, but the president had declined it.
Lansing took a deep breath and sat up straight. “We cannot dwell on the past. We must look to the future and do what we can. General March, is reinforcing Liggett in California still out of the question?”
“It is,” March replied. “Not only is the weather our enemy, but there have been further acts of sabotage, and the Germans have sent units of the Mexican Army to take and hold the passes. That is, all except the northernmost one which we still hold. Liggett is sending men to expel the enemy from the other passes, but he doesn’t have enough to spread around.”
“And Texas?” Lansing asked.
March again responded. It looked like Secretary Baker didn’t want to say much of anything. “The army known as the Texas Volunteers is still holding on to San Antonio, but for how much longer I don’t know. Governor Hobby has finally asked for our help and we are going to send it to him. With Secretary Daniels’ permission, a brigade of two regiments of Marines has departed with General Lejeune in command. Another two army divisions are forming and will follow. The overall command will be Pershing’s.”
“Will they be in time to save San Antonio?” Lansing asked. He was under intense pressure from Congress and the nation’s newspapers to do something, anything. The loss of another major city like San Antonio with its legendary Alamo would be devastating.
It had been almost two months since the sneak attack by Germany and Mexico, and the American response had been virtually nothing. There seemed to be a clear understanding that California was isolated by sabotage and the weather, but Texas was another matter. The fact that the Texans had been stubborn in their confidence that they could defeat any Mexican Army with one arm tied behind them had hindered any thoughts of sending reinforcements. Until now, that is.
There was still the issue of weapons. While the ammunition supply was not critical, there was not enough, and artillery was virtually nonexistent. Soon that would change as factories were beginning to use the new foreign dies to produce weapons, but it would be a while before large quantities of anything were available.
At least the Navy was doing fairly well. Submarines off the California coast had sunk a number of freighters bringing supplies to the Germans. Light cruisers functioning as surface raiders and additional submarines were in the Atlantic and heading for Caribbean waters. German ships carrying supplies and reinforcements had to either make port at Vera Cruz or go around the world to California.
Ireland’s pro-German government in Dublin had requested that German ships stop using her as a base and instead had proclaimed her neutrality. There was confusion in Ireland as so many of her sons and daughters now resided in the United States. The consensus was that the Germans would honor Ireland’s request and that it wouldn’t much matter. If necessary, the Germans would use the Canary Islands or the Azores. Any American plans to use those islands as bases had been abandoned.
Lansing nodded. “Then supplies are their Achilles’ heel just as they are ours?”
“In the long run,” said General March. “While it isn’t quite a scorched earth policy, we are destroying everything of use while we retreat up California to San Francisco. In particular, we are tearing up the railroads. This means the Germans have to haul supplies by wagon or by truck, and, with the shortage of oil and fuel, this is proving difficult for them.”
“I assume it also means their ships and planes are still on a short leash,” Lansing said. There was agreement with his comment. “Time, then, is on our side. Would you say that, General March?”
March sighed. “No, sir, I would not say that. If they succeed in taking San Francisco, they can simply dig in and we will have to try and root them out. That, sir, would not be easy. Indeed, it might not even be possible. If San Francisco falls, most of California might have to be written off.”
Lansing stood. “Then they cannot be permitted to take San Francisco.”
March looked away. Just how the hell do we accomplish that, he wondered.
* * *
Admiral Sims returned the salute of Colonel William Mitchell, commonly called “Billy” by his friends and by the newspaper reporters who enjoyed the controversy he generally stirred up. Mitchell was not shy about stating his sometimes radical views, and that annoyed his generally very conservative superiors.
It was still unusual for the Army and the Navy to be working together and it was even more unusual for Sims to be hosting a man who’d made public declarations that airplanes could sink any of the Navy’s capital ships.
Most in the Navy’s hierarchy had thought that Mitchell’s ideas were rubbish at best and, at worst, a heresy not to be spoken. Sims, however, had the nagging feeling that Mitchell might be on to something and wanted to know more about it, no matter how unpleasant the truth might be. In a way it reminded him of the resistance he’d confronted
when he’d suggested that ships’ gunners practice under realistic long-range modern conditions, and not replicate the close-in gun duels as in the War of 1812, which had proven so irrelevant in modern warfare.
Someday in the future bombs might sink capital ships. But not this day, or even this decade, Sims had concluded. The tests he’d quietly authorized Mitchell to perform had proven it. Still, he’d let the intense colonel have his say.
To his credit, Mitchell did not sugarcoat. “Things did not work out as I expected, Admiral. In sum, I was bitterly disappointed.”
Sims sighed and leaned back. The German fleet would doubtless try to force San Francisco’s growing but still fragile defenses and he’d hoped against hope for another weapon to use against them.
“So tell me what happened,” the admiral persisted.
“Sir, our planes are too small and too slow, and the bombs they carry are just not large enough or powerful enough to be effective against heavily armored ships, assuming they could hit them in the first place. My planes flew at high altitude and dropped bags of flour at moving ships in the British side of Puget Sound and managed to hit nothing. Not a one. Dropped from significant height, the bombs landed where the ships had been and if the bomber attempted to lead a ship, he either missed outright or the ship had time to dodge. All we did was create a flour soup in the Sound, which must have mightily puzzled the fish.
“Attempts to bomb from lower and then extremely low altitudes were a little more successful, but we had to use very small planes and small bombs. We concluded that our bombs would have caused some minor damage and some casualties, but would never have sunk a heavily-armored capital ship.”
“I admit I’m disappointed, Colonel. Even though I love our Navy’s great ships, I was hoping for a way of neutralizing the German fleet’s advantages.”
Mitchell nodded solemnly. “Above all else I too want to defeat the Germans. However, while the idea of dropping explosive bombs on ships appears to be an idea whose time hasn’t come, I do have another thought that is just in the planning stage. It is brutal and might be against the rules of war; therefore, I’m loath to discuss it at this time.”
1920: America's Great War Page 18
