Silver Wings, Iron Cross Read online

  TOM YOUNG

  SILVER WINGS, IRON CROSS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART I

  1 - Your Target for Today . . .

  2 - Predators Become Prey

  3 - Aerial Armada

  4 - Suicide Order

  5 - Cruel to Be Kind

  6 - Landfall

  7 - Bomb Run

  8 - Dire Thunders

  9 - The Butcher Birds

  10 - The Clothes of a Dead Man

  11 - Shell Shock

  12 - Sailing Alone Around the World

  13 - A Sailor Home from the Sea

  PART II

  14 - Truce

  15 - Hunted

  16 - Amber Waves

  17 - Heil Hitler

  18 - Hares and Hounds

  19 - Knights-errant

  20 - Silent Running

  21 - The Geometry of Dying

  22 - Fishing Instructions

  23 - Mercy, Unaffordable

  24 - Executioners

  25 - Cold Mercy

  26 - Breakdown

  27 - A Warning Branch

  28 - The Future Doesn’t Belong to You

  29 - Machines, Wounded and Bleeding

  30 - Improvising on the Verge of Disaster

  PART III

  31 - Kriegies

  32 - Hangar Flying

  33 - Length, Beam, and Draft

  34 - The New Europe

  35 - Hell, Fenced Off

  36 - Climb and Confess

  37 - Eric Sevareid, CBS News, London

  38 - The X Committee

  39 - The Biscay Cross

  40 - Courage Is Contagious

  41 - The Edge of Endurance

  42 - Train to the End of the World

  43 - Ivory-handled Pistols

  44 - The Least Bad Option

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Tom Young

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2019953651

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-3043-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-3043-7

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: June 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-3045-9 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-3045-3 (ebook)

  In memory of Brigadier General V. Wayne “Speedy” Lloyd

  PART I

  1

  Your Target for Today . . .

  In the 94th Bomb Group’s briefing room, at the ungodly hour of 0400, Lieutenant Karl Hagan watched the S-2 officer reveal the map for the day’s mission. A length of red yarn depicted the planned flight. The yarn stretched from the 94th’s base at Rougham Field in Bury St Edmunds, England, across the English Channel, and into Germany. Pins stuck in the map at turn points angled the yarn through course changes en route to the primary target: Bremen. Karl felt ice form in his chest.

  On this, Karl’s last assigned mission, the U.S. Eighth Air Force was ordering him to bomb his family. Although his parents had lived in Pennsylvania since leaving Germany at the end of the Great War, Karl still had relatives who worked in the factories and shipyards of Bremen, turning out aircraft and U-boats for the Third Reich. Those relatives included Karl’s uncle Rainer and aunt Federica.

  As pilot and aircraft commander of a B-17 Flying Fortress, Karl had always known this could happen. But for thirty-four missions, he and his crew had struck targets far from any Hagan home: the submarine pens at Saint-Nazaire, the former automobile plants at Antwerp, the airfield at Beaumont-le-Roger. All the while, Karl hoped the war would end before his crew opened a bomb bay anywhere near his extended family.

  Karl eyed the framed photographs on the wall in the briefing room: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower. The S-2’s words sounded distant and hollow; Karl could barely listen. This war presented so many ways to make people suffer, to force them to do unspeakable things, to face impossible decisions. Thus far, Karl had focused single-mindedly on his duty. If I do that, he figured, I can’t go wrong. Duty had become the magnetic north on his moral compass.

  But now the compass spun, showed no direction.

  I cannot do this, Karl thought. But I have to do this.

  The S-2 stood with his hands on his hips, the very picture of military bearing in his Ike jacket and tie. “Your target for today, gentlemen,” he said, “is the Focke-Wulf aircraft factory in Bremen. I don’t need to tell you how the Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts have taken a toll on us. Your alternate target is the submarine facility on the River Weser. As you know, German U-boats have played hell with our merchant fleet. Whichever target you hit, now’s your chance to get payback.”

  None of the two hundred men in the Nissen hut hooted or growled in bravado, and Karl knew why. Yes, payback was sweet, but the aircraft plant and sub pens would be heavily defended. This mission was no milk run to an easy target in occupied France. On this mission, German fighter planes and flak gunners would exact a toll. Statistics promised that some of the men sitting to Karl’s left and right, dressed in their leather A-2 jackets and flying coveralls, would not come back.

  “They’re gonna make us pay for our ticket home,” Adrian whispered, sitting next to Karl.

  Adrian Baum had flown as Karl’s copilot for his entire tour. Son of a Bronx rabbi, Adrian fought and flew as if the survival of his people depended on him. He seldom went to London on pass. Instead, he spent most of his free time studying flight manuals, poring over aircraft performance charts, reviewing training films, and writing his parents. He spoke often of New York’s attractions, and he’d promised to show Karl the sights when they got home.

  For Karl, Adrian, and the rest of their crew, this—their thirty-fifth mission—would end their war one way or another. Eighth Air Force regs said fliers who completed thirty-five bombing raids could go home for permanent Stateside duty. Crews reaching that goal joined “The Lucky Bastard Club,” and they celebrated with a send-off party, usually soaked with English ale and Scotch whisky. They received unofficial certificates with these words under their names:

  . . . who on this date achieved the remarkable record of having sallied forth, and returned, no fewer than 35 risky times, bearing tons and tons of H.E. Goodwill to the Fuehrer and would-be Fuehrers, thru the courtesy of Eighth Bomber Command, who sponsors these programs in the interest of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

  Karl looked forward to joining the Lucky Bastard Club as much as anyone. But why did his price of membership have to be a raid on Bremen? He despised what Adolf Hitler had done to his parents’ homeland and took pride in his small role fighting Nazism. But dropping bombs on Bremen could mean dropping bombs on uncles and cousins, some of whom did not support National Socialism. Letters from Bremen had stopped coming, but Karl knew his uncle Rainer had been fired from his job at Bremer Vulkan AG for political reasons. Karl did not know the details, but Adrian had told him there were rumors of slave labor at German factories.

  “If your uncle is the mensch you say he is,” Adrian had said, “maybe he got into trouble speaki
ng out against forced labor at his company.”

  A good guess, Karl supposed. He appreciated Adrian’s analytical mind and cool competence, both on the ground and in the air. Karl’s copilot was his right-hand man, quite literally.

  As the briefing continued, the S-2 discussed mission details: formation type, assembly point, route, initial point, bombing altitude. He displayed a reconnaissance photo of the Focke-Wulf plant and surrounding area.

  When the S-2 finished, the weather officer took the podium. “You can expect good VFR for takeoff and over your target,” the weatherman said. “Forecast for this morning here at Rougham is scattered clouds at five thousand feet, light and variable winds. CAVU for northern Germany—ceiling and visibility unlimited.”

  Not good, Karl thought. If we can see the target, the flak gunners can see us.

  To the left of the weather charts, another board listed the aircraft and crews on today’s mission, arranged by their places in the formation. A tail number and an aircraft commander’s name represented each airplane. Karl found HAGAN 632 at the number-five position in the low squadron. Call sign, Fireball Able. At least he had a good ship to fly: 632 meant Hellstorm, an F-model with a reputation for luck.

  Hellstorm had taken more than her share of battle damage, but none of her crew members had ever been seriously hurt. She had undergone five engine changes, and the sheet metal guys had given her an entirely new rudder and vertical stabilizer. All the maintenance work reminded Karl of the old joke about the hundred-year-old ax: It’s had only two new heads and five new handles. But Hellstorm was still Hellstorm; you just felt it in the way she flew. Airplanes might not have souls, but they sure had personalities.

  “Stations time is 0615,” the S-2 announced. “Aircraft commanders, take charge of your crews.”

  With a scraping of chairs, the men stood up and set about their tasks. Karl’s waist gunners, Sergeants Chris Ryan and Thomas Firth, along with tail gunner Morgan Anders, checked with the armament shack to make sure Hellstorm had a full supply of .50-caliber ammunition. The gunners then joined Karl and the rest of the crew to wait in line for personal flight equipment. The men stood outside in the early-morning darkness, arms folded over their chests against a chilly breeze. As they talked, their breath became visible in the cool November air.

  The crew consisted of ten men. In addition to the two pilots, two waist gunners, and the tail gunner, Karl’s team included navigator Richard Conrad, bombardier Billy Pell, ball turret gunner Dick “The Kid” Russo, flight engineer and top turret gunner Joe Fairburn, and radio operator Steven Baker. At nineteen, Russo was the youngest. Twenty-eight-year-old Fairburn was the oldest. Karl and Adrian were twenty-three.

  They emerged from the flight equipment shop loaded with leather flying helmets, throat microphones, goggles, Mae West flotation devices, and parachute harnesses. Karl wore a standard-issue .45 pistol, Colt model M1911, under his jacket. A pouch in a lower leg pocket of his flight suit contained an escape kit with a silk map, candy and gum, razor blades, water purification tablets, and parachute cord. By the time the men clambered aboard jeeps and trucks to ride out to the hardstands, the first rays of sunrise painted blood-colored streaks across the east.

  The bustle of activity—the rumble of the fuel trucks, the flutter of the wind sock, the mechanics pinning engine cowlings—refreshed Karl like a tonic. He felt he played a role in something vastly bigger than himself, that even if he made an utter mess of the rest of his life, he had already justified his presence on the planet, established a right to the air he breathed.

  And yet . . . he could not forget his kin, across the English Channel, across lines on a map. If not for his father’s choices, Karl might live in Germany now. Would he have joined the Luftwaffe? Would he have become a hapless draftee in the army? Perhaps he would have remained in the civilian labor force. On this very morning, he might have risen for work at a factory, unaware that his workplace had finally made the target list.

  The dawn illuminated scores of bombers bristling with guns and propellers, their lines sharp and hard and lethal despite the whimsical names and topless girls painted on their noses: Bouncin’ Annie, Lush Thrush, Passionate Witch. Underneath the names, swastikas represented German fighters downed by gunners, and orange bombs stood for completed missions.

  Hellstorm’s nose bore four swastikas and twenty bombs. Another marking read: U.S. ARMY B-17-F, AIR FORCES SERIAL NO. 42-24632, SERVICE THIS AIRPLANE WITH 100 OCTANE FUEL. The truck groaned to a stop in front of Hellstorm’s left wing, and Karl jumped off the tailgate, inhaled the cold morning air and fumes of gas and oil. His crew disembarked behind him. The men lined up, and Karl inspected them for proper gear. After he found everything in order, he tried to think of stirring words for them—something along the lines of the St. Crispin’s Day speech, or perhaps the poem “Invictus.” He did the best he could, but he felt he came up short.

  “We’ve gone to hell thirty-four times,” Karl said. “We’ve had each other’s back for every mile and every bullet and every bomb.”

  He paused, too distracted to think of something better. “One more time, fellas,” he said finally. “One more time.” The men cheered, clapped, and turned to their duties.

  “Let’s get it done,” Pell, the bombardier, said.

  Karl hoisted his parachute bag from the truck and set it down at the B-17’s forward access hatch, under the nose of the aircraft.

  “Pell,” he said, gloved fingers spread wide for emphasis, “I need you to drop ’em right down the pickle barrel this time.”

  “You know I always do,” Pell said. “Anything special about today?”

  Karl hesitated, considered what to tell the bombardier. “Ah, well, no,” he said. “I just want our last one perfect.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Not as easy as Pell made it sound, Karl knew. The Norden bombsight, a highly classified gyroscopic instrument that could be coupled to the airplane’s autopilot, allowed bombing with greater precision than the old vector sights. Flight tests showed a much smaller circular error with bombs dropped by Norden-equipped airplanes. But in combat, that circle widened. Flak-rattled crews, smoke over the target, and shifting winds aloft created more variables than a bombardier could crank into the adjustment knobs. Technology could not clear the fog of war.

  Karl did a walk-around inspection as his crew boarded the B-17. Normally, the walk-around fell to Adrian and the ground crew chief, but Karl did it occasionally, and today he had a special motivation. Part of him hoped to find something wrong—some reason Hellstorm couldn’t fly, some excuse to sit this one out. Yes, Karl knew, that Focke-Wulf plant needed to go. So did the shipyards and submarine pens in the area. To think civilians wouldn’t die was self-delusion. Bombs had to fall on Bremen in this autumn of 1944; there was no getting around it. But, he asked himself, do they have to fall from my airplane?

  He checked the tires: no cuts in the treads, no leaks from the brake lines. Good pressure on the gear struts: Both showed an inch and a half of the shiny silver inner cylinder. Karl spun the supercharger wheels on all four engines, checked the linkage on the wastegates. The Wright R-1820 engines showed normal oil seepage, but no bad leaks. Props looked good; there were no dings or cracks. At the trailing edge of the left wing, Karl found just the right amount of play in the aileron trim tab. Nothing about Hellstorm looked even remotely out of sorts.

  Karl made his way back to the forward crew access hatch and shoved his parachute bag inside. Then he reached up to the sides of the hatch and pulled himself through. The hatch offered no steps or boarding stairs: The Flying Fortress was built for agile young men.

  Inside the Fort, a familiar smell filled Karl’s nostrils: that oil-and-gunmetal odor of a military aircraft. He climbed into the cockpit and settled into the left seat. Adrian was already strapping himself into the right seat. From down below in the Plexiglas-tipped nose section, Karl heard the bombardier and navigator take their positions.

  Through the winds
creen, Karl saw other crews manning their ships. A weapons carrier with a load of bombs rolled past, splashing through oily pools of water on the taxiway. Atop the cubical control tower, the cups of the anemometer spun in the light breeze. Officers lined the tower’s iron-railed balcony, observing the 94th gird for battle. Karl checked his watch: almost time for engine start.

  “You guys ready?” he asked.

  “Born ready,” Adrian said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Fairburn, the flight engineer. Fairburn stood behind the pilots’ seats to monitor gauges during engine start. He handed Karl the maintenance document, Form 1-A. Karl checked the fuel and bomb loads, noted the status mark—a red diagonal. That symbol meant the aircraft had only minor maintenance write-ups, nothing to prevent flight. Karl signed the form and passed it back to Fairburn.

  “Let’s get the checklist started,” Karl said.

  Adrian reached for a checklist stored in a plastic sheet protector. “Gyros,” he said.

  Karl checked the artificial horizon and the heading indicator. “Uncaged,” he replied.

  “Fuel shutoff switches.”

  “Open.”

  “Landing gear switch.”

  “Neutral.”

  “Mixture levers.”

  “Idle cutoff.”

  The singsong routine of checklist procedures had always comforted Karl. It put him in mind of a train rolling along a track, rails locking the wheels onto proper course. Each crew member became a moving part in a greater machine aimed at a common purpose. Nearly all aviators found reassurance in teamwork. Karl knew a navigator in his squadron who walked behind the airplane and threw up before every mission. But once you got him on headset and talking, he did okay.

  Today, however, routine brought Karl no comfort. Now the train thundered toward a place he did not want to go. He could find no justification to stop the process: Nothing was wrong with the airplane. He flipped on the master and ignition switches. Checked batteries one, two, and three separately, then turned on all of them. Switched on the inverters, and the instruments hummed to life.