“One man missing,” whispered Sergeant Glover. “Laughton.”
Landry nodded sadly. He could not dwell on it. Maybe Laughton would get lucky and hit land somewhere else, or maybe he’d be swept downriver and die of exposure. It was out of his hands. He had a job to do.
They opened their bags and slipped into what they hoped would pass for German uniform tunics in the bad light. The same held true for the M3.45 caliber submachine guns they carried that were commonly referred to as ‘grease guns.’ In the dark they had a passing resemblance to German weapons.
They would not skulk or hide. That was another sure way to attract attention. With bravado he didn’t feel, Landry led his men through the streets of Sarnia and onto the approaches of the Blue Water Bridge, passing several tent cities where Wehrmacht units slept soundly. Landry shook his head. Didn’t they know there was a war on? He wondered how many Canadians were looking at his squad and were totally unaware that their lives were about to change dramatically.
The Blue Water Bridge had been built in 1938 and had two lanes of traffic along with sidewalks for the brave who wanted to walk across. It carried heavy truck and car traffic to and from the U.S. and Canada.
It was also wired for demolition.
Landry and his men marched boldly up to what he’d been told was the German engineers’ headquarters on the bridge. Intelligence, this time probably through the OSS, said that the engineers in charge of blowing up the bridge waited with their hands on the plunger that would send the cantilever truss bride into the deep, cold St. Clair River. Similar situations awaited Americans if they tried to cross over the Ambassador Bridge or through the tunnels further downriver at Detroit. The Blue Water Bridge had been chosen for assault because it was roughly sixty miles from the Detroit crossings and it was hoped that the enemy troops there might not be as attentive.
As they approached the German’s building, Landry signaled and two pairs of his men peeled off and ducked under the bridge. Their job was to look for wires and cut them.
A guard finally noticed them. He’d been looking in the wrong direction. He turned and, seeing an officer, snapped to attention. Landry’s sergeant went right up to the man and jammed a knife into his throat. The rangers ran to the building, kicked the door open and stabbed the three men inside. Landry grabbed the detonator that would have destroyed the bridge and ripped out the wires.
Jesus, he thought, have we actually gone and done it?
He gave an order and a flare raced into the sky. Now the German troops near the bridge were alert. Landry heard shouting and then gunfire. His men returned fire and continued to rip out detonator cord and toss dynamite into sticks into the river
“I sure as hell hope the cavalry’s coming,” muttered Sergeant Foley as the shooting intensified.
A ranger screamed and fell, clutching his belly. Blood and intestines tumbled out. A second ranger fell and Sergeant Foley took a bullet in the face, ripping off his jaw. He screamed and fell backwards. Landry and the others tore off their fake German uniforms. If they were caught in enemy uniforms, they’d be shot. This way they might just be kept as prisoners. If not, they would die as Americans.
Heavy machine gun fire pierced the air and cannon boomed. Landry grinned as the first American tank rumbled by. It was quickly followed by a score of others with infantry desperately running along the sidewalks that led into Canada. More 75mm tank guns fired into where the Germans were bivouacked. Men could be seen running in panic from the sudden assault. Landry wondered just what the good people of Sarnia were thinking. The United States hadn’t invaded Canada since the War of 1812, and back then it was to fight the British. Now it was to fight the Germans. Poor Canadians were always in the middle.
However, we did it, thought Landry as he looked on the bodies of his companions and the ruined face of Sergeant Foley. Hell of a price, though.
FDR was livid. “Just who the hell gave this Patton fellow orders to invade Canada?”
General Marshall returned his glare. “May I remind you, sir, that we are at war and a good commander doesn’t need orders to attack the enemy when the opportunity arises. Or did you think that the Germans would simply up and leave Ontario without our doing anything? And by the way, you should recall that Patton is one of our best and most aggressive generals. I think the American public is going to be thrilled at his actions.”
Roosevelt recoiled from Marshall’s anger. “Of course,” he managed. “I would just like to be kept informed.”
“So would I, sir,” said Marshall with a wan smile. “General Patton seems to feel it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard that before,” Roosevelt said, acknowledging that whatever rift between them had just been healed.
They were in the White House Map Room. “May I assume that Patton will sweep down the river and clear out the Germans?”
“Indirectly, yes. Apparently he has decided to try and cut off the Germans and is heading towards Chatham, or even a place farther east along the Lake Erie shore.”
FDR looked at the map of Canada and saw a possible choke point near Chatham. “That would be wonderful indeed. Especially since Herr Hitler is as angry about the attack on Sarnia as I once was. Ultra says that he has ordered von Arnim to hold Windsor at all costs. Fortress Windsor, he calls it. If he insists on that, we stand a chance of bagging a large number of Germans.”
Marshall shook his head. “That won’t happen, sir. We believe the Germans are already withdrawing from the river line. We believe they will form a defensive line around London, Ontario, after reinforcing the divisions pulling back from Windsor.”
“Hitler will be furious,” said Roosevelt, “but he will soon have other things to occupy him.”
Marshall nodded and almost smiled. Ultra intercepts had also informed them that the Nazis spring offensive against the reduced Soviet Union would begin in a matter of days. Should they warn the Russians? Of course not. That would give the Soviets knowledge of Ultra. Besides, he rationalized, the Reds probably knew about it already.
FDR sighed. “I suppose I will have to talk to their hideous Ambassador Gromyko, though. I will let him know that we are allies once again and that Lend Lease will begin flowing just as soon as possible.”
Marshall was silent. Didn’t the president know that there were no good routes into what remained of the Soviet Union? The Russians had retreated so far east that there were no ports that could handle a good sized freighter and, besides, it was all subject to attack from German air and naval units. No, the only way to the Soviet Union was by land through Iran and then north. It would take months to set up the route and it would take weeks for each truck to make it to a destination.
Perhaps when Japan surrendered they could send supplies by rail from Vladivostok. Unfortunately, that Russian port lay right in the Sea of Japan and was threatened by Japanese forces in Manchuria; some were only a few miles away.
For all intents, Lend-Lease shipments were not a viable option. Still, Gromyko would want results yesterday and would blame delays on America’s capitalist distrust, even hate, of the Soviet Union. Marshall quietly wondered if his German counterparts had similar problems.
Chapter Thirteen
Sergeant Major Farnum was his usual grim self. “Sir, I have information, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Try me,” said Grant.
He had sent Farnum to the State Department to check on the status of the detained German diplomats and other embassy personnel. After discussing what Alicia had thought she’d seen, he had sent Farnum instead of someone more senior so that nobody would be overly intrigued by the army’s concerns. The sergeant had been asked to get a list of all detainees so it could be checked against known German military personnel. It seemed reasonable and unthreatening, and it worked out that way.
“Sir, the kraut diplomats are being kept in a hotel in Virginia and it’s much nicer than they deserve. When I asked for a list, the S
tate Department said they didn’t have one so I drove out to the hotel. At first both the State Department guys guarding the hotel and the krauts said they didn’t have a list, but one of the guards was a retired NCO I knew and he really cooperated. He even lined up the krauts so I could inspect them, which really pissed them off, but I figured tough shit. I told them the guards just wanted an excuse to beat the crap out of them and that made them decide to cooperate. I compared their IDs to a list of personnel State Department had suddenly discovered and found that three of the pricks were missing.”
“Was Stahl one of them?”
“Yes sir, so Alicia, I mean lieutenant Cutter, could easily have seen him. One of their people managed to whisper to me that he’d left during the bombing attack and hadn’t been seen since. The two other missing guys are low-level clerks and that same guy thinks they were in New York on some vacation and will probably show up. He also said the he thought the two guys were queer. My source seemed afraid of Stahl. Said he was dangerous.”
Dangerous and missing, thought Grant. What an unbeatable combination. He and Downing would dump the information upward to Truscott and the general would probably inform the FBI. Tom wondered if Stahl had specific instructions, or would he simply take on targets of opportunity. God only knew there were enough of them around.
General Heinz Guderian had to admire the way that von Arnim had distributed his forces and hid them from prying eyes, especially those looking down from the sky. He had done the same with his limited and dwindling Luftwaffe units. They were in bad shape after attempting to bomb American targets. At least twenty per cent of all German planes had been either shot down or had been damaged and were being repaired.
He also admired the way von Arnim had stood up to Hitler’s crony, Field Marshal Keitel. Keitel, as always, was Hitler’s mouthpiece. The order to hold the town of Windsor had been absurd and, if obeyed, would have meant that nearly forty thousand men would have been trapped and out of the war. It was about five hundred miles from Windsor to Toronto. The German army could trade for time and space and preserve lives until the relief force arrived from Europe.
What relief force, Guderian snorted. He really doubted that there would ever be a fucking relief force and he was reasonably confident that von Arnim knew that. Their job would be to delay and bleed the Americans as they advanced into Canada. But for how long could they do that? In order to relieve them, Germany would have to launch a number of protected convoys and send them to Halifax. Yet what would they protect the convoys with? The Kriegsmarine was a speck compared to the combined might of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy. Only in the area of submarines did the Reich have any advantage and he wondered just how long that would last. Messages from Germany to Halifax admitted to the loss of ten U-boats. If that’s what they admitted to, he thought wryly, what the hell were the real numbers?
Sirens went off, interrupting his thoughts. He did not think either he or anyone around this innocuous building was in any real danger. If bombers were indeed coming they would be heading for the army camps north of the city. Even those, however, were emptying as von Arnim moved troops, at night of course, south towards their fortified positions along the Niagara Line and west towards the city of London. How ironic, he thought. Germany controlled this small city of London in Ontario while the great one in England still held out. He wondered how much longer before one of Britain’s major food sources, Canada, was cut off. Or would von Arnim allow shipments to continue?
Someone yelled and pointed skyward. Yes, there they were. Guderian counted more than a hundred bombers in this flight and they were escorted by scores of fighters. He saw a young lieutenant with binoculars.
“What the devil are they?”
The lieutenant offered the binoculars to Guderian who declined. The younger man’s eyes were doubtless sharper than his.
“General, the bombers are their B17s and the fighters are P47s and a handful of P51s.”
Guderian thanked him and walked away. The American attack force was a relatively small one. Soon, their response would become massive and overwhelming. Von Arnim would be forced to use his planes to defend his position and they would be destroyed, leaving the army helpless. The B17 was a long range heavy bomber and the Luftwaffe had no equivalent. German bombers were defined as mediums at best. The so-called Flying Fortress could carry up to four tons of bombs on short runs, and everything in and around Toronto was close to the border. The American fighters were the equal of their German counterparts and the Germans would be outnumbered by thousands.
The North American Luftwaffe was doomed.
He laughed harshly. So too was the entire Wehrmacht in North America unless something miraculous happened. Hitler wanted to end the war once and for all this year of 1944. Soon, massive German armies would cross the Volga and destroy what remained of the Red Army. At least that was the plan.
Guderian had vehemently argued against continuing the war against the Soviets, but had been shouted down by Hitler and banished to Canada for his sins. He wondered if von Arnim shared his doubts, or was he afraid of that Gestapo shit, Neumann? He thought it likely that von Arnim shared his dismay at Hitler’s decisions and disgust with the coterie of asses who surrounded him.
In the distance, he heard he crump-crump of explosions. The Americans had found a target. He thought he would have to get used to both the fact and the sound.
A motorcycle with an empty sidecar roared up to him. The driver looked hard at him. “General Guderian?”
“Yes.” Who the hell else could it be, you ass, he thought.
“The driver swallowed. “Sir, General von Arnim requests your presence immediately. It’s urgent.”
Guderian climbed awkwardly into the side car. What the hell else had gone wrong?
Captain Tommy Jenks was in a roaring good mood and why not. He was leading a dozen American tanks in pursuit of an enemy they’d handily defeated in and around Sarnia. The Nazis were in full retreat and his orders were to keep them that way. He was to chase them, catch them, and kill them. Patton wanted tanks in the rear of the Germans and he wanted them there yesterday. Patton was his kind of general, and, even though he’d never met the man, he liked his fire.
Jenks and his men had been working hard since their Indiana National Guard unit had been activated several months before. They no longer considered themselves weekend warriors, a term they’d always considered an insult and cause for a fight in a bar down in Bloomington, Indiana. They were well trained and loaded for bear and their M3 Grant tank, in their opinion, was the best tank in the world. It had a crew of six and a big 75mm gun as its main weapon.
They’d all heard the rumors that the 30-ton beast was already obsolete but dismissed them. They were confident that they could take on and smash any armor the Germans threw at them. Jenks considered the reports that the Germans made better tanks and guns to be so much bullshit. Thanks to GM, Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Studebaker and others, the U.S. made the best vehicles in the world. He’d heard that the Russians hadn’t wanted American tanks and thought that was dumb and probably why the krauts had kicked the crap out of them. Someone even said that the fact that the hull was riveted made it dangerous. If hit, the rivets would break loose and become lethal projectiles in the hull. Jenks had an answer for that — don’t get hit! Newer versions of the Grant were welded, not riveted, but that concerned him not at all.
Even though the tank was fairly spacious, the presence of six good sized men sweating and farting made for a need to open the hatches and air the thing out.
There was a small turret and a high velocity 37mm gun on top of the hull and that’s where Jenks liked to be. High up and with the hatch open, he could see for a very long ways. Some said that the tanks height was a disadvantage, but he didn’t see how. After all, he could see so much more from up there.
The big 75mm was mounted in what was called a sponson which meant it couldn’t traverse all the way like a turret could and Jenks did admit to that being a drawb
ack. A new tank, the M4 Sherman, was supposed to replace the M3s and he considered that a shame. He liked the Grant.
Jenks opened the hatch and took a deep breath of good fresh air. He looked around and saw upwards of forty American tanks rumbling across the Canadian landscape at ten plus miles an hour. Even though the ground was relatively flat, the tanks lurched and wallowed like drunken sailors and Jenks had to hang on to keep from getting hurt. They were outdistancing their infantry support that was trying to follow along in trucks, but trucks didn’t travel cross-country very well. Well, he thought, tough shit. If they ran into Germans, they’d either kill them or hold them until the infantry arrived.
Neither Jenks nor the majority of his men had ever been to Canada and it had proven a surprising and pleasant experience. The houses and farms were sturdy and neat and could have been anywhere in a prosperous agricultural section of the U.S. Of course, a couple of idiots in his unit professed surprise that the Canadians spoke English. He hoped they were kidding, but, considering the sources, decided they probably weren’t.
Jenks was about to comment on a particular farmhouse when the tank next to him exploded, sending a column of flaming gas and debris into the air.
“Ambush!” Jenks yelled and tried to see where the shot had come from. Or maybe they’d run over a mine? No, he saw a flash of light in the distance and a second tank shuddered to a halt with black smoke pouring from it. He turned the tank in the direction of the flash, now wishing he’d had a turret instead of having to move the whole damn tank.
The Grant’s big gun fired and the shell hit well short of where Jenks thought the shot had come from. A third tank was hit and started to burn, and then a fourth. Up and down the line, tanks were burning. Machine gun fire ripped through the American column. Behind him, a truck full of infantry was hit and rolled over, spilling men onto the ground. His tank’s 37mm gun shot in the general direction of the Germans who were now firing heavily and rapidly. Worse, their fire was accurate and lethal. The American armored column was being cut to pieces.
North Reich Page 22
