“As long as the hurricane is blowing in our direction, Doctor. We can use your butterflies in our favor.”
“Certainly, Mister President,” it was Marshall’s turn to speak, “but a small change now can have large and unpredictable consequences further down the road.”
Roosevelt was fitting another cigarette to its holder, “Yes, yes, general, but in truth we are looking for large changes aren’t we?”
“No, sir,” Winston spoke with a suddenness and force that might have seemed rude, “the war as it is presently destined to happen worked out in our favor in many, many ways. Changing the broad outlines of the war would have unforeseen results. We could very easily make things worse for ourselves if we try to be too clever.”
For the first time the President tilted his back with a jaunty cast to his cigarette holder. He looked just like one of those old photos in Winston’s past. “Clever? Us? Why we are but poor victims of circumstance Doctor!”
An hour later, the President was lifted into an open car by a small crane mounted on a flatcar under Grand Central Station. While this was being done and the bags were unloaded; nobody noticed a colonel and his negro servant walking down the platform.
Chapter 4
The Black Diamond was waiting for them around a bend in the tunnel. The same size as the Ferdinand Magellan, the Black Diamond was fitted out with a larger number of smaller rooms and its own baggage car with a kitchen and a number of offices. Inside, Winston was pleased to see his usual team of interrogators from the previous day. For a change, all were now in civilian attire.
“Do we have to leave? I wanted to see New York.”
“You will get a chance later, right now we need to get you acclimatized to America in 1935.”
Hereford, the navy man said. “We,” he indicated the other military men, “talked it over and we think this might be the best way. We can do our discussions here, travel a bit and not attract too much attention.”
“Frankly,” Tom continued without his usual grin, “we’re afraid you might get yourself lynched.” He nodded his head slowly.
“Why is that?” Winston asked. The line of conversation had caught him by surprise.
Colonel Orbino, the oldest of the group, sank heavily into a leather chair. “Basically, you attract attention to yourself. You don’t mean to, but compared to other colored folk you stand out like a sore thumb. And that.” he said, looking up, “is very, very bad if we want to keep your light under a bushel.”
Frederick’s look of confusion encouraged Tom to continue, “Winston, you just told off the President of the United States. That sort of thing is going to draw unwanted attention.”
Orbino interjected, ”So here, in this car, we can be ourselves, you can be yourself, you can see what life is like in the Year of Our Lord 1934. The car belongs to the Oglebay Company, they loaned it to the President, and he loaned it to us. The staff has been replaced by mess boys from the White House, everyone aboard knows at least a little about you.”
Bob added in his best Southern drawl, “If anyone asks, I am Robert J. Asbury, a millionaire touring America, and you are my trusted confidential secretary.” That sparked ripple of laughter.
“Where are we off to first?” Winston asked.
“Something simple, Santa Monica, we have to visit the Douglas plant and place some orders.” Tom replied. “Mister Asbury” he indicated Hereford, “is investing in new transport airplanes. Charles Lindbergh is supposed to meet us there. It seems we are going to form a new airline.”
All three officers pulled out notebooks.
“So let’s talk about this DC-3 of yours.” Larry said in an official tone.
Winston talked long into the night.
California was very different than the place Winston remembered. Fresh air and unfiltered sunlight washed over the Douglas airfield and its motley collection of sheds and hangars. In the center of one sat the first DC-3, surrounded by a little knot of mechanics working on the tail unit.
Lindbergh was already deep in conversation with Donald Douglas when the time traveler arrived.
“Mister Asbury!” Lindberg shook Hereford’s hand with vigor. “Don and I were just catching up on old times. Are you ready to see the new machine?”
Douglas led the way to the nearest wing describing the Twin Wasp engines as he walked. “This plane will be able to fly coast-to-coast with just one stop, it’s going to change everything.”
“Lindbergh talked to Smith at American Airlines and told me I had to get in on this.” Bob played his tycoon as a crotchety old man. “When will it fly?”
Douglas never missed a beat as he went up the steps to the passenger door, “December, but in truth she is ready now.”
“How many orders you got?” the navy man shot back.
“American is good for fifty as an initial batch, we expect more orders later.” Douglas was taken aback by the mysterious millionaire. The group sat in the passenger seats.
“Last night the boys and I talked,” he indicated to entourage, “we’re ready to back Lindbergh’s plan.”
“You want to order? Today?” Now Douglas was clearly back on his heels.
“We’ll need a dozen, of a cargo variant.” Lindbergh was clearly enjoying this. “Double-sized cargo doors, strengthened floors, some other changes. I have a little list.” He handed over a sheet of foolscap.
Already the group was taking turns peering into the cockpit. Led by Asbury they began to parade out the door. Their visit lasted had lasted only a few minutes.
“Can he do that?” Douglas asked in a horse whisper.
“You can have a check for the deposit tomorrow.” Lindbergh replied with a smile.
Back in the railcar, Winston asked, “That was fun, but did it help?”
“Hard to say, the plane was ready to fly anyway. We just made sure they are thinking towards a transport and gave them a little encouragement in their good work,” Tom replied.
“Lindbergh’s going to have an airline?”
“I suspect that won’t quite pan out and the aircraft with end up with the Air Corps pretty quickly,”
Tom said with satisfaction.
“With that, we encourage people to think about air transport, we start to train a cadre of officers and men. A little seed that will grow into something bigger.” Larry added. “And speaking of bigger, tell us about that C-130 again.” Notebooks came out around the table.
It was the next day before Winston even thought to ask where the train was going. The cars rushed by featureless plains, with the Rockies in the far distance.
“Next stop? Seattle, sir” the waiter told him at breakfast.
“The new Boeing bomber, the 299 flew a few months ago. We are going up to take a look.” Tom said brightly.
“The 299?” Frederick asked.
“Your folks called it the B-17 Flying Fortress,” the airman answered.
“With the contract will come at least some suggestions for improvements, I suppose.”
“Why yes, do you have any ideas?”
Tom unrolled a large blueprint on the table and produced a folder of typewritten notes and photographs of the doomed prototype. Frederick shuffled through the pile and began to speak. “M’
pleasure,” the time traveler replied with mock formality. “first thing is to mind the gust-lock.
“What’s that?”
“This prototype, or my prototype that is, crashed on a test flight because the pilot had the stabilizers locked. It almost wrecked the program. The B-17 was mostly used in Europe because it lacked the range for the war in the Pacific. While very advanced, it was later seen as a stopgap until the B-29 Super Fortress came along. The design philosophy was simply wrong. The B-17 was meant to fight through the enemy fighters unescorted. Even in large formations, that was pretty problematic. All the extra guns and armor made the B-17 slower and less capable than the British heavies. This time we need to develop the long-range fighter side-by-side the B-17. Both need to come in
to service together.”
“Engines?” Hereford asked.
“The original models lacked superchargers, and of course were of some American design, Curtis maybe Pratts, I don’t remember, since the Rolls Royces were not under license yet in my time. Now we have the chance to go for a faster, higher-flying plane with fewer defensive geegaws.”
“Is that safe?”
“Really no, hundreds of these planes were, are going to be lost to enemy fighters, flack and so on, but long-range fighters plus a faster, higher bomber makes for the best possible combination. Alternately, we could adopt the British idea of night area bombing. Then we can even do without the fighters at all.”
Tom was the expert in this area. “The Mustang is already in the early stages, very early. Our next pursuit plane will really be a proto-Mustang. I suppose we will try daylight bombing, and if that fails we can fall back on hammering cities.“
“We talked about the NACA wing last night. I forgot to mention winglets.” Frederick reached for a scrap of paper and made a quick sketch. It is supposed to reduce turbulence at the wingtip and increase range. Oh. I saw an old movie late one night about B-17s, made during the war in fact. It mentioned the early models lacked a tail gun. A faster plane might only need a tail stinger. God bless the History Channel.”
The men around the table did not even ask about the obscure reference.
“Also for the European war my Air Corps had to fit the nose with a lot of extra weapons, the German fighters found the nose to be the soft spot. Still I wonder,” Frederick continued, “in my war, the Air Corps flew day missions at huge cost. The destruction on the ground was significant, but never lived up to expectations. The real prize was forcing the Luftwaffe to fight and then blasting it from the skies. If we go to night bombing, would the Germans retain enough air power to make landings in Europe impossible?”
“Dunno.” Colonel Orbino answered.
“Same program this time, Doctor Frederick,” Bob adjusted his black necktie in the mirror. “I play the rich eccentric, you are my secretary.”
“The mysterious Mr. Asbury is going to buy bombers?”
“No, this time I am a government academic. It seems I have my finger on the pulse of government research and patents, or something like that. The main thing is for you to see the plane up close. Anything about it might stir a memory in you. Metallurgy, instruments, hell even training, anything at all.”
Tom in his lieutenant colonel uniform provided introductions to the team from Boeing outside an aluminum hanger. The famous Washington state rain had paused. The collected engineers looked skeptical as the millionaire and his colored secretary climbed over their plane unescorted. The group clucked like chickens. Tom allayed their worries “Mr. Asbury has done some very interesting design work, we have a lot of confidence in his theoretical understanding.”
“Never heard of him,” one man scoffed.
“No reason why you should have, we have been keeping him in the background. He asked to be allowed to look at the prototype alone for a bit.”
“He isn’t alone,” a pudgy man in overalls pointed out.
“He never goes anywhere without his secretary.”
After over an hour, the two men gathered the Boeing people together around a collection of waist-high wooden crates.
“Great job, gentlemen. General Arnold has asked me to say how pleased he is in your work. Has it all over the Douglas plane. The Air Corps wants you to fly this one for contract evaluation. Let me assure you that is just a formality. But we will want some changes in the production aircraft.”
“Such as?” one of the Boeing men asked.
“We will be sending you a telegram from the War Department in a few days outlining our concerns.
But the main thing is this, you need to look beyond the few testing aircraft we will order. Think about large-scale production. Whatever you can do to lower production time and costs. Also we need to think about the next plane after the 299. I suspect we are going to need something high and fast as a counterpart to this,” he waved at the aircraft. “My studies are showing we will need a new bomber that has extremely long range, high speed and extreme altitude.”
“Your studies, Mr. Asbury?” an annoyed voice asked.
“My studies will be an Air Corps requirement document in a month or so. If you like, Boeing can build the next machine. If you don’t want the business, there are plenty of others. Thank you for your time.”
Tom repeated his thanks to the knot of men and got into the car. He imagined they just got out with their lives.
“That went over like a lead balloon,” Winston said as he entered the railcar.
“Well, heck with them if they can’t take a joke. Besides, no way I am going to argue with half a dozen aeronautical engineers about things none of us understand in any detail.” Hereford took off his overcoat and handed it to a valet.
“So now what?” Tom asked.
“We need to make up the type up my notes and get them to Washington,” Frederick said, “then we need to have General Marshall send them back down to Boeing along with a contract, then we have to design us a B-29.”
“Higher, faster, stronger?” Larry asked.
“Maybe even smarter,” Winston took a mug of coffee off of the proffered tray. He sat down. “The B-29 was the first modern bomber. It featured a fully pressurized cabin, low-profile gun turrets mounting
.50 cal guns remotely controlled by gunners in the fuselage. In the Pacific, even its range was marginal.
We had to make landings on Tinian to get bases to hit Japan. We need to think about Pacific sorts of ranges now. While the B-17s flew in formations for protection, the B-29 was too fast and high for the Japanese fighters. I read somewhere they could have just left the gunners at home for all the good they did.”
“What sort of bomb loads are we talking about?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know, more than the B-17 for sure. More importantly, in my war we started with huge numbers of high-explosives, but once we started hitting the Japanese cities we discovered that fire was our most effective weapon.”
“So incendiary bombs?”
“Of a very advanced type. Big bomb bodies released from altitude. Then the ‘bus’ breaks open and scatters hundreds of tubes made of aluminum of magnesium, something flammable. The tubes are heavy enough to break through a typical Japanese roof, then a black-powder charge in the center of the tube fires, shooting a glob of thickened gasoline out of at least one end. Makes a hell of a mess. When you use thousands of them at once most of a city will burn.”
“How can you hit a port of factory like that, Winston.” Bob suspected the answer.
“You can’t. Japanese industry is scattered in little home workshops, they produce little widgets that are fitted together in the factories. Precision bombing didn’t work in Germany due to bad weather and the Luftwaffe. It did not work in Japan because of how their industry is laid out.”
Hereford closed his portfolio. “This is not how I was taught to make war. Killing women and children?
That is simple barbarism.”
“You want me to argue?” Frederick spread his hands wide. “This is a war where the Germans will try to exterminate entire nations of women and children. The Japanese in my time handed over their Chinese prisoners at the end of the war. You know how many? Less than 500 from over a decade of war.”
“It is horror to fight like this, but it would be much worse if we let them win. End of sermonette.”
“We can pass it up the chain and let others decide.” Bob opened his notebook again, “but I am against it.”
“Talk to me again after Pearl Harbor.” Frederick said. “If we want to find our targets, in Europe or worse in the Pacific, we are going to need navigation aids. These grew out of blind-landing systems. If we can master that sort of thing, we can reduce collateral damage.” Winston read Larry’s notes upside down, “Oh, the incendiaries, that reminds me about Improved Conventional Munitio
ns, ICMs. You see with a big bomb you spend a lot of energy blasting a small piece of real estate into smithereens. If you drop bomb body, a ‘bus’ full of grenades you spread the energy more effectively over a wider area.
Simple idea, I don’t know why it was never used in my war. Maybe I am missing something.”
“We will have to get someone thinking about the proper size and mix of bombs against various types of targets.” Tom replied as he scribbled.
“Also napalm, gasoline thickened with palm oil, soap or something. It makes a flame bomb much more effective.”
“How about bomb sights?” Tom asked.
“The Norden sight was the most advanced in the world, it cost thousands of dollars and we had all sorts of ways to destroy it to keep it out of enemy hands. Postwar analysis showed that most bombardiers never really used it. They could not see their targets at night, or through clouds, they were part of a formation and just dropped when the leader dropped. No need to spend too much time on bomb sights.” Winston waved off another cup of coffee. “Why are we so focused on planes anyway?”
He asked. Night had fallen and the train was moving with unknown velocity.
The navy man replied. “We can retrofit ships with modern equipment, the Army stuff is mostly small and easy to make, but the planes we have to start first, they have the longest lead time, they are the hardest to get right.”
“Still we need to talk about the software, the people issues.” Frederick insisted.
“That will happen when we talk to Senator Taft.”
“When? Where?”
“Akron, in a couple of days. Congress will be in recess and the Senator will be confined to his home with a bad cold.”
Chapter 5
“Cincinnati?” Frederick asked, reading the name on station.
Paul Adkins Page 2
