Himmler's war

by Robert Conroy

  Still, many of the best and brightest Luftwaffe pilots had been killed in the war and replacement pilots from service in other planes were scantily trained, little more than cannon fodder for the Americans who shot them down as fast as they went up.

  Perhaps, Galland thought with a smile, the situation would require him to spend more time in a cockpit.

  ***

  Beetle Smith was in his normal lousy mood. “Granville, please tell me you know what the hell is going on because nobody else around here does.”

  Colonel Tom Granville took a seat and adjusted the folders he’d brought. He knew everything in them, but their physical presence reassured him. Smith was a harsh and demanding leader on a good day, and this wasn’t a good day.

  “Regarding the jets, it’s easy, General. The ME262 is something we’ve known about for a long time. It was inevitable that the krauts would introduce it, and they have a number of other new planes being developed, including a rocket plane that’s a real pilot killer, the ME163 Comet, and another jet, the Heinkel 162, which they refer to as the Salamander. Of the group, the 262-it’s called the Swallow, by the way-is by far the most formidable if only because they are beginning to make them in numbers that are large for German war production, although quite small in comparison with ours. We picked up a message that Galland himself flew one of the planes involved in that attack on our bombers, and that he referred to the jet as an ‘angel.’ He also said it was worth five ME109’s. We should thank our lucky stars, or our air force pilots who have been bombing their factories, that the Germans are unable to produce them in any real quantity.”

  “Shit. Tell me again what we’ve got in the way of jets to counter the ME.”

  Granville sighed. “Not much. The British are introducing something called the Meteor, but it’s nowhere near as fast as the 262, and we’ve got the P80 but it’s a long ways away from entering the field. Apparently it’s killing more of our pilots than anyone likes.”

  “Fantastic. So what is the air force going to do now?”

  “They are going to saturate the skies with fighter escorts, mainly P51’s. The air force believes we will win a battle of attrition if only because we outnumber them so vastly.”

  “And that will be a great comfort to the widows and other family members of those killed.”

  “General, the air force does have other tactical plans. The German jets guzzle fuel, so they have to land and gas up fairly frequently. The idea is to follow them and either shoot them down when they slow down to land, or hit them on the ground, or bomb the crap out of the airfields so they can’t take off or land.”

  “I guess it’s better than our boys lining up to be shot at,” Smith said, again grumpily. “Now, what the hell is going on with the French and what the hell are the Russians up to? All I’m getting is word that the French commies are rioting and that the Soviet advance is slowing and we don’t need either to happen, not for one damn minute.”

  “General, we’re trying to pin things down, but nothing looks very good. In fact, it could wind up being real, real bad.”

  ***

  Jack flew the Piper in lazy circles around the barn a thousand feet below while Snyder called out information that was largely superfluous. The American tanks were pounding the building. For reasons known only to them, a handful of German soldiers had opened fire on the head of the 74th’s column. A Jeep and a half-track had been damaged and two men lightly wounded, but now the barn, yet another old stone structure, was surrounded and being blasted to pieces by a platoon of tanks. Although he could not tell the difference from the sky, he knew that the American tanks were Jeb’s and now had the higher velocity 76mm guns that could knock out most German tanks. Unfortunately, they still had inadequate armor and were vulnerable to both German tanks and antitank guns.

  “Can’t have everything,” Jeb Carter had said. “And by the way, keep yourself out of my cousin’s pants.”

  They’d had the conversation that morning. “Got nowhere near her pants, or any other part of her clothing or anatomy,” Jack had responded in mock anger. “Even though she’s related to you, she’s got more class than to allow that.”

  Jack was well aware that the relationship was by marriage not blood. “I’ve seen her naked,” Jeb volunteered, shocking both Jack and Levin. “Of course she was two and I was about four. Still, she said she was impressed with the state of my manhood even at that young age. Sadly, I thought she was a little flatchested.” He declined to add that he’d seen her half naked just a few years ago when she was much older.

  Jack flew lower to see the damage being done to the barn. As he did, Snyder caught motion and suggested they reverse course and fly higher. “Good catch, Snyder,” he said and keyed his radio to the ground. “Jeb, you’ve got a handful of German tanks coming right at you.”

  Carter chortled. “How many in a handful? Some of my cracker relatives got eight webbed fingers on a hand.”

  “Four tanks and one scout vehicle and, oh shit, I think they’re Panthers.” He flew low, almost at ground level and picked up the distinct slope to the hull and turret. “Confirmed, Jeb, they’re Panthers.”

  Carter swallowed, or tried to. His mouth was suddenly dry. The five man Panther weighed nearly forty-five tons, but, more importantly carried a high velocity 75mm gun as its main weapon, and its sloping front was heavily armored and virtually impervious to many American weapons. Now it was time to find out what the Sherman’s new 76mm gun could do. Many other U.S. units had fought the Panther with mixed results. In most cases, the German tanks had inflicted serious damage and withdrawn.

  The Germans were in sight and Morgan again confirmed that they were the dreaded Panthers. Now they were just within range. “Open fire,” Carter ordered.

  All four of his tanks shot, but, at long range, only one hit, and that shell bounced off the glacis, or sloping frontal hull. We’re in trouble, Carter thought. He’d also fired way too soon and cursed himself for the mistake.

  The Panthers fired and one of Carter’s tanks was hit. The shell penetrated the tank’s armor and it began to burn almost immediately. Jeb heard the explosions but was too focused on his immediate front to care about the other tank and its crew. Carter’s tank fired and again the shell bounced off the glacis.

  “Damn it to hell,” Carter swore. Even with improved guns, the Panther’s front armor was impervious to the Sherman. The reports were right, only a hit on the side or a damned good shot on the turret would stop a Panther.

  A second Sherman was hit and damaged. Carter called for reinforcements and the remainder of his twelve-tank company responded rapidly. The Germans saw them and decided they’d had enough. They began to back away. Carter’s tank fired again; this time the gunner’s aim was true, hitting a Panther’s turret. Smoke and fire billowed from it. Carter was about to cheer when his own tank was rocked by a hit, hurling him against the turret’s wall. Smoke filled the compartment.

  “Abandon ship,” he yelled, coughing violently from the smoke. The order was probably unnecessary. Everyone knew to get the hell out once fire started. He tried to open the turret hatch but it was stuck. Jesus, he thought as he fought off panic, I am going to burn to death.

  Carter slid down through the smoke to the belly of his tank. The bottom hatch was open and one of his crew was already escaping that way. Carter called out and heard no one else. He hoped they were all gone. If not, their life expectancy was now in seconds. He slid down and crawled out behind his immobile tank, hoping that he wasn’t going to be machine-gunned. When he was far enough away and thought he might be safe, he stood up and watched the remainder of his force moving carefully in the direction of the Germans who could no longer be seen.

  “Anybody call for air support?” he yelled. His voice was hoarse from inhaling smoke.

  “They’re coming,” was the answer.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Once again a day late and a dollar short.” Worse, they’d just had their first real taste of fighting the best tan
k the Germans had and it had just clobbered the best tank the U.S. had, the up-gunned Sherman.

  “This is going to be a long fucking war,” he said to no one in particular.

  ***

  Colonel Otto Skorzeny stood at attention. Both Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt waved him to a seat. Skorzeny smiled inwardly at the fact. Which of them, he wondered, was truly in charge? And who would still be standing when this damned war was over, Himmler the snake or Rundstedt the warrior? Never bet against the snake, he decided.

  Himmler smiled. “Colonel, we have several important and discrete tasks for you. I’ve been told you speak both English and French, true?”

  “Yes, but not as fluently as a native.”

  Himmler smiled. “No, we would not think of passing you off as one. Do you also speak Russian?”

  “A very little,” he admitted, “but I am certain I could improve on my skills.”

  “An excellent idea,” said Rundstedt. “In the meantime, we wish you to develop separate detachments of men who can speak English, Russian, or French, or, perhaps, all of them. And in these cases, the men must be fluent enough to fool the natives, so to speak.”

  Skorzeny paused for a moment, thinking. “Finding large numbers of men who can, as you say, fool the natives, will be very difficult, if not impossible. Many of my men who have those language skills from living in other countries have now lived in the Reich so long that they’ve picked up accents or forgotten old idiom, or are unaware of current ones. The Americans, for instance, ask questions about current baseball standings if they are suspicious of someone, and most of my English speakers don’t even know the rules of the game, or they learned their English in England where they know even less about it.”

  “As do I,” Rundstedt said dryly, and even Himmler smiled.

  “Although, there are times when an English accent is often a good excuse for not knowing about American trivia,” Skorzeny said. “In fact, Americans are almost childishly impressed with an intelligent sounding British accent.” His mind was racing with possibilities. What on earth did they want him to do?

  “What would be feasible,” Skorzeny continued, “is to establish certain levels of language skills, such as Class A for the handful of those who could pass as natives, Class B for those larger numbers who are fluent but have accents and lack knowledge of minutiae, and Class C for that largest group who are fluent enough to understand and be understood, and read newspapers, bulletins, menus, etc.”

  “Excellent,” said Himmler.

  “Since it is obvious that these people would be intended to operate behind enemy lines, the Class A types would be the ones who would actually come into contact with the enemy, while the others would avoid it as much as possible. It goes without saying that they would need appropriate clothing, uniforms, identification, and equipment.”

  Himmler beamed while von Rundstedt nodded. “Colonel,” said Himmler, “all that will be done. In the near future, we will have several assignments for you. First you are to deliver a package, human, to the Soviets. Second, you are to disrupt matters in France as much as possible, and last, think about how you would deliver an extremely large bomb or two into the heart of the enemy.”

  Skorzeny thought quickly. Disrupting the French would be no problem. They were in a state of near anarchy already. “I assume you want the French communists blamed for those disruptions, which would result in a heavy-handed response by de Gaulle and the fools around him.”

  “Indeed,” said Himmler, again pleased by Skorzeny’s intelligence.

  “As to delivering a human package to the Reds, would the package have to be still living, or even intact? For instance, would just a head be satisfactory?”

  The field marshal turned away in disgust while Himmler beamed. “We will check on that, now what about the bombs?”

  “How large, Reichsfuhrer?”

  “Assume five tons each.”

  Skorzeny whistled. What on earth could weigh that much? “When and where?”

  “Several months, and let’s assume Moscow and New York,” Himmler said. Von Rundstedt looked surprised.

  “It can be done,” Skorzeny said. Nothing surprised him anymore. He was confident about delivering a bomb to Moscow, but New York? Despite what he’d just said, he would have to think about it.

  “Then go and work on it,” Himmler said and dismissed the scarred colonel, who saluted and left them.

  “I wasn’t aware that Heisenberg was that far along with his work,” Rundstedt said when they were alone. He was thinking of Varner’s last report on the matter.

  “He isn’t, but he will be. He is too much of a scientist with his checking and rechecking until everything is perfect. He will be informed that he must race to completion and if that means taking shortcuts, even dangerous ones, then so be it. If he loses some of his precious physicists in the process, then they will be casualties in our war. Heisenberg can no longer think of himself as working in a lab. He must begin to realize that he is a soldier in the trenches and the enemy is coming at him. He must stop them now, and not a year or two from now when everything is perfect and he can say ‘eureka’ and astound the scientific world, perhaps winning a second Nobel Prize. He will also understand that he and his family will be forced to pay the price of his failures should he not succeed.”

  Rundstedt nodded silently. He wondered if Heinrich Himmler had any idea just what the hell he was talking about.

  ***

  Jessica heard the groans while she was still out in the hallway. She paused and was tempted to go somewhere else while Monique and Master Sergeant Charley Boyle completed their usual noisy mating ritual. Nuts, she thought. She was tired and, besides, her money was paying for the apartment.

  She quietly entered the apartment and tiptoed past Monique’s bedroom. The door was open and she stopped. Boyle was on top of Monique. He was a stocky man with reddish hair on his back. She wondered if Jack had a hairy back. Monique’s legs were wrapped around her lover’s waist. He was thrusting inside her while his hands grabbed her breasts. Monique’s hands were on Boyle’s buttocks, pushing him ever deeper inside her while they both groaned and sighed.

  Jessica tore her eyes from the scene and quickly went to her room, quietly closing the door behind her. She took off her dress, and cleaned her face, arms, and shoulders from a bowl of water. She thought about what she’d just seen. Vive la France, she thought. Jessica had never before seen people making love, if that’s what it really was. A few years back, she’d had the chance to see a smutty movie that cousin Jeb had gotten from his friends, but had passed on it. He’d later admitted it involved some foreign people and the film quality was really bad.

  “And the people were ugly, too,” he’d added.

  My education is sadly lacking, Jessica concluded. She wondered about Jack’s and thought she knew about Jeb’s. He’d bedded several of her friends who had told her what a wonderful experience it was. These comments had led her to let Jeb take a few liberties with her until they’d both called a halt to it.

  Monique knocked and walked in. “My beloved sergeant is gone, if you haven’t noticed. Did you enjoy the view?”

  Jessica was not abashed. If Monique had wanted privacy, she should have closed the door. “It was intriguing.”

  Monique laughed. “Intriguing? Now you sound like an Englishwoman. It would have been truly intriguing if you’d brought your Jack Morgan up here and romped on your bed, with the both of you squealing with pleasure like Charley and I did. You should have, you know. Life is too short and sometimes people make it too damned complicated. There’s a war going on and we’d all better enjoy it while we can.”

  Jessica and Monique had had this conversation before and Jessica had explained that, first, she wasn’t ready to have sex with Jack or anyone else for that matter, and, second, American women didn’t usually jump into the sack with someone they’d just met. Monique had said that was a shame because they were missing so much
time and pleasure. She’d then gotten Jessica to admit she’d never gone all the way, and that some reasonably heavy petting had been about it. Monique again thought that was a terrible waste.

  “You’re lovely and you have a wonderful figure, why don’t you use it?” she’d said. “Someday you’ll be old and wrinkled and no one will want you. Use it now, while you can still enjoy it.”

  Why not indeed, Jessica had thought, although she figured she had more than a few years to go before she’d be old and withered. But Monique had a point. Jack could be dead at any time, and bombs were falling around Paris although, so far, its status as an open city had been sustained and kept it from damage even though the Allies now occupied it.

  It was time to change the subject. “What do you mean about complications?” Jessica asked.

  “I told my sergeant to go away and not come back,” she said sadly. “That was a farewell lay.”

  “Good grief, Monique, why?”

  “Because he is a thief and a crook and is going to get arrested. And that means anyone close to him might be arrested as well.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah, indeed. Recall all the food and other things he got me, much of which I sold and sent back home to help with my son? Well, all of it was stolen. I thought as much, but I closed my eyes to it. My sergeant and a bunch of others are stealing from the U.S. Army and now the MP’s are investigating it. He is debating turning in others in return for a light sentence and came to me to tell me to get rid of what I might still have and be ready to answer some questions. He will doubtless lose his stripes and probably have to go to jail. He may be dishonorably discharged, but he may also be sent to a combat unit as a private. Either way, he is dead to me. I will miss him. He was a competent lover and a great purveyor of luxury items.”