by Tom Young
The corporal grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back up to a standing position. Frisked some more until he found Albrecht’s wallet. Found nothing but a family photo. The corporal examined the photo, flipped it over.
Karl felt his heart start to pound. What if Albrecht had written a date—or anything else—on the back of that picture in German?
Apparently, Albrecht had not. The corporal tossed away the photo and shook the wallet.
“Where is your identification?” the corporal asked.
“I lost it when I jumped out,” Albrecht said in English.
Bailed out, Karl thought. You mean you lost it when you bailed out. Didn’t think to cover that.
“But I got my dog tags,” Albrecht added. Lame attempt at an American accent.
But apparently it was good enough. When Albrecht fished the tail gunner’s dog tags from around his neck, the corporal seemed satisfied. Albrecht glanced over at Karl, met his eyes. Karl tried to remain expressionless.
The Storch growled overhead, waggled its wings. Flew so near that Karl could see black wisps of exhaust swirl from the cowling. Two of the SS men waved. Yeah, Karl fumed, they found us, you bastard.
“March them to the road,” the hauptscharführer ordered. “We’ll turn them over to the Volkssturm. They’ll be in a stalag by nightfall.” Then he turned toward Karl and Albrecht. “I do not need to tell you that if you try to run, we will cut you down.”
One of the SS troopers moved around Karl and shoved him from behind. Pushed him back in the direction from which he’d just fled. Karl couldn’t quite judge the attitude of these goons. Were they elated to capture American airmen? Or were they disappointed not to arrest deserters? Had they wanted to satisfy their bloodlust with a summary execution? No matter. Karl decided not to waste time wondering what made an SS killer’s day.
“Don’t look so sad, Yank,” the hauptscharführer said. “Your war is over. If it were up to me, I would shoot you right here, but Göring wants you fliers taken alive. Now move.”
Karl began trudging through the forest. Looked at the boot prints and dog tracks in the snow, wondered if he could have done anything differently. We should have left the cabin earlier, he thought. I was so tired, I wasn’t thinking straight.
In the end, though, maybe it didn’t matter. It was a miracle to have evaded capture even this long. And at least the SS had bought Albrecht’s story about being a navigator. For now.
But what would happen to Albrecht in the middle of a bunch of Allied aviators in an air prison? It would take a real B-17 crew dog about fifteen seconds to realize Albrecht’s story didn’t add up.
Can’t do anything about that now, Karl thought. We’ve lived through the last ten minutes. Just gotta take this one crisis at a time, make it up as we go along. Improvising on the verge of disaster.
At the road, three trucks waited. Engines idled. Dogs growled. Troopers lit cigarettes. Some of the SS men sneered at Karl and Albrecht. With a loud clang, one of them dropped a tailgate.
“Get in,” the hauptscharführer said. One of the goons prodded Karl between the shoulder blades with the barrel of a Mauser. Karl sighed and hauled himself aboard the truck. The truck smelled of gun oil and wet German shepherd. Karl wondered how many of Hellstorm’s crew had experienced a moment like this. He hoped most of them had. It was better than hitting the ground at a hundred miles an hour with a failed parachute—or getting beaten to death by a mob.
Albrecht climbed in behind Karl. Just after an SS trooper slammed the tailgate closed, Karl heard the hauptscharführer bark orders: “Call division. Tell them they weren’t deserters. They were two American airmen, and we’re bringing them in.”
PART III
31
Kriegies
Wilhelm’s gut still ached. The SS goon had knocked the wind out of him. The truck rumbled and vibrated, and every bump and pothole sent needles through his midsection. Pain radiated upward into his ribs, which remained tender from the bomb blast back at Bremen. The plan for him to playact as a Yank aviator had worked, but Wilhelm now believed it had bought him only a day or so of life.
I cannot possibly fool the SS for long, he thought, and I will drag Hagan with me into doom. He sat beside Hagan in the back of the truck and felt himself sinking into oblivion like a U-boat, powerless and darkened, descending to crush depth.
He lost track of time; one of the SS men had taken his watch. How long before the goon noticed it was a Kriegsmarine watch? Just one of a thousand things that could give away Wilhelm’s identity at any moment.
After a long drive, the truck rolled to a stop. The hauptscharführer opened the tailgate. One of the SS men prodded Wilhelm with a rifle barrel, and he and Hagan rose from their wooden seats. Wilhelm’s eyes had become adjusted to the darkness inside the truck; he emerged blinking into daylight.
Perhaps, Wilhelm thought, this is the scene of my execution.
They had stopped at a crossroads in the middle of a forest. Pines with reddish bark lined the highways. A second military truck idled at the crossroads; four uniformed men stood beside it, milling about as if they had been waiting a long time. Wilhelm looked more closely, and he saw that two of them were boys in their teens. Acne and eiderdown on their cheeks. The other two were gray-haired pensioners more suited for retirement home chess games than military operations. These were the Volkssturm, a new militia made up of old men, children, and desperation.
Every sinew in Wilhelm’s body released tension. So this was not an execution, but a prisoner transfer.
The hauptscharführer addressed the Volkssturm pensioner, who appeared to be in charge. The SS man spoke brief words Wilhelm couldn’t quite hear. Waved his hand dismissively. Stalked back to his vehicle with a look on his face as if he’d just sipped sour milk. Everything about the hauptscharführer’s manner radiated contempt for the Volkssturm.
The old man angled his Mauser toward Wilhelm and Hagan. He pointed toward the Volkssturm truck. He seemed to assume neither of his prisoners spoke German, and Wilhelm did not wish to disabuse him of that notion.
Wilhelm and Hagan climbed into the truck. The two boys joined them in the back of the vehicle, and the old men took their seats in the cab. The engine clattered. The truck heaved and swayed onto the road. Wilhelm exchanged glances with Hagan, and the American shrugged. His manner suggested he felt relieved to be out of the hands of the SS.
Yes, Wilhelm thought, better the Volkssturm than the SS. But he knew his flimsy ruse as an American flier could still shatter at any moment.
The truck rumbled along for half an hour, and the two boys gaped in silence at Hagan and Wilhelm. One of them tried to look tough, pointing his rifle at Wilhelm’s torso. Wilhelm noted the boy’s trigger finger. Good—he held it across the trigger guard and not inside it.
The truck stopped, turned, and accelerated. The ride grew smoother. Wilhelm wondered if they had merged onto one of the new autobahns—and he wondered which direction they traveled. No matter. Navigation was no longer up to him. Nothing interrupted the trip except one urgently needed stop for urination along the shoulder of the road. They were indeed on an autobahn; a signpost read FRANKFURT 132 KM. Wilhelm recalled trips to Frankfurt with his parents for shopping or concerts. Now he moved as a stranger in his own land. Sunset reddened the tiled roofs of a distant village.
Darkness fell and the truck rumbled on. When it finally stopped, shouts and barks sounded from outside. Someone pulled open the tarp above the tailgate. Crisscrossing searchlights pierced the night. Guard towers loomed above coils of concertina wire. Rows of barracks stretched into the darkness; Wilhelm could not tell the size of the camp.
“Out,” a man ordered in English. He wore the uniform of a Luftwaffe sergeant.
Wilhelm instinctively took offense. Part of him wanted to shout, “Is that how you address a naval officer, you cretin?” But you’re no longer a naval officer, he reminded himself. You are a fugitive, an outlier. And you had better start thinking like a Yankee
flier. This instant.
The two Volkssturm boys held the tarp aside for Hagan and Wilhelm to exit. The younger one nodded by way of good-bye, perhaps acknowledging some thin bond forged during their road trip. Hagan jumped from the tailgate. When Wilhelm hesitated a moment, the Luftwaffe sergeant grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down.
Trying best as he could to imitate Hagan’s lazy vowels, Wilhelm said in English, “Get your hands off me.”
Though Hagan made a deliberate effort not to look at Wilhelm, the Yank appeared to smile.
Wilhelm saw nothing to smile about. At any moment, he expected to feel a pistol barrel at the back of his neck. Somehow word of a deserting naval officer would have filtered through the system, and he would be discovered.
But instead of taking Wilhelm away for execution, the guards led him and Hagan to a holding cell.
* * *
The room looked little bigger than a boxing ring, with thirty men crowded inside. Some stood mutely. Many sat cross-legged on the floor. A few leaned against the walls. Most of them wore the winged star sleeve insignia of the United States Army Air Forces, though a few wore Royal Air Force badges. They ranged in rank from sergeant to lieutenant colonel. Half were hurt, though none seriously.
Wilhelm saw bandaged hands, burned cheeks, scraped noses. Injuries from bailouts, presumably. Evidently, the fliers with broken bones and worse injuries had been taken to hospitals. All of the inmates needed a shower; the holding cell smelled like a cattle pen.
“Are you boys Americans?” a man asked. He wore the silver bars of an American captain.
“Yes, sir,” Hagan said. “Air Force.”
“Where are your uniforms?”
“We ditched ’em. Tried to blend in. It worked for a little while, but not long enough.”
“Nothing works long enough to keep you out of here.”
“You ditched your uniforms?” another man said. “Bullshit.” A sergeant sitting on the floor. Hollow eyes. Stubble from days without shaving.
“What?” Hagan asked.
“How do we know you ain’t some kind of plant? Like a Nazi spy or something?”
“Aw, shut up, Deke,” a third voice called. “If they was spies, the Nazis would give ’em American uniforms that looked better than yours ever did.”
“Hmph,” the sergeant said, looking at Wilhelm. “Then who won the World Series this year?”
“The Cardinals beat the Browns at Sportsman’s Park,” Hagan said. “And I’m not wearing rank, but I’m a lieutenant. The next time you talk to me, you start with ‘sir.’ ”
The hollow-eyed sergeant did not respond. In the Kriegsmarine, any petty officer would have bolted upright and barked apologies upon learning he’d shown such insolence to an officer. But the man’s suspicion worried Wilhelm more than his insolence. Were all these Yanks so attuned to those in their midst who might not belong? What if Hagan had not been so close with a ready answer about American sporting events?
I’ll be lucky to make it through the night, Wilhelm thought, let alone weeks or months of captivity.
“Sir,” Hagan asked the captain, “how long have you been here?”
“Couple days. This is what they call a dulag luft. A transit camp. I don’t think anybody stays here long. They separate the officers from the enlisted and send us somewhere more permanent.”
“They gonna feed us?”
“Yeah, they’ll be along pretty soon with some grub. But it ain’t exactly haute cuisine.”
“Grub”? Food, apparently. “Ain’t”? What kind of word was “ain’t”? Not a contraction of “is not” or any other English phrase. Why couldn’t I have fallen in with a British pilot? Passing as an upper-class Brit would have been so much easier. Wilhelm resolved to listen closely to this American slang—and to speak as little as possible.
He had another problem to consider as well: What should he do with the dog tags of Carlton Meade, the flier whose bones they’d found in the B-24 wreckage? The tags had served a purpose—they’d gotten him past the SS when first captured. But now that Wilhelm was in the stalag system, if he posed as Meade, that name would get reported through the system—and to the American command as well. Meade’s wife would be told her husband was alive and well.
I cannot permit such a cruelty, Wilhelm told himself. But when and where can I lose these identification tags? Mein Gott, we did not think this through. No matter what course he steered, every bearing led to depth charges and mines.
After half an hour, the cell’s steel door swung open and two Luftwaffe guards pushed in a pair of rolling carts. The carts carried sliced loaves of black bread, pitchers, and tin cups.
“Chow time,” someone said.
“Ja, chow time, kriegies,” one of the guards replied. Obviously, he’d dealt with Americans long enough to learn some of their banter.
But what did he call the prisoners? “Kriegies ”? Ah, yes. Kriegsge-fangenen. Prisoners of war.
The guards left the carts in the room. As the Luftwaffe men departed, Wilhelm heard the slide of a bolt as they locked the door. The prisoners passed around the bread and tin cups in a fairly orderly manner. To Wilhelm’s relief, these Allied fliers retained enough discipline not to rush at the food and fight over it. When he received his portion, he found himself with two slices of stale bread and a cup of tea already cooled to room temperature.
Wilhelm sat down and ate while staring at the concrete floor, hoping to avoid talking. But a chatty Yank forced him into conversation.
“So, what’s your story, Mac?” the Yank stranger asked.
Sweat began to pop from Wilhelm’s pores. Here came the first test. He took a large bite of bread. He wanted to look hungry, and at the moment, that required no playacting. And he hoped that talking with his mouth full—something very American—might cover his accent.
“Not much to say,” Wilhelm said, chewing. “Got blown up by the Krauts. Bad luck.”
“You got that right. Me, I had only four missions to go before getting home to my dame.”
What was it with these Yanks and their endless, yammering small talk? This man was worse than Hagan. Wilhelm examined his would-be friend. Red hair and freckles. Perhaps twenty years old. Forehead singed by fire: a raw, oozing streak. Wilhelm noted the man’s insignia and tried to remember American ranks: This was a second lieutenant.
“How about you?” the lieutenant continued. “You got a girl at home?”
Wilhelm took a sip of tea and shook his head.
“Oh, I get it. You don’t want to talk about it. Maybe she sent you a Dear John letter. Our radio operator’s fiancée did that to him, too. Bitch. Shacking up with some draft dodger. She’s gonna feel bad when she finds out he’s dead.”
The lieutenant did not seem suspicious like the insolent sergeant a few feet away. If there was no avoiding conversation with this babbling Yank, then perhaps it presented a training opportunity. Listen to the slang, Wilhelm thought, and try to learn a little. Careful, now.
“Yeah, she sent me a Dear John letter,” Wilhelm said. What in Neptune’s name is a “Dear John” letter? Something bad, apparently.
“Sorry about that, Mac. It happens.”
Wilhelm looked at Hagan, who was following the conversation with great interest. Hagan nodded as if he approved.
The lieutenant babbled on about “dames” and their infidelities, his hard luck, the World Series and how those St. Louis Browns were a bunch of bums. Wilhelm managed one- or two-word answers to inane questions:
“Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“What did you fly?”
“B-17.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ah, Meade. Thomas Meade.”
That must have sounded American enough; the yammering lieutenant immediately began addressing Wilhelm as “Tommy.”
“Good talking with you, Tommy,” the lieutenant said. “Heck, maybe Patton will spring us out of here by Christmas.”
Wilhelm dec
ided to venture a question. Not just for practice; he really wanted to know.
“When will they let us out of this crowded room?”
The answer gave Wilhelm another threat to worry about.
“They say they’ll let us into regular barracks after they take us to interrogation.”
32
Hangar Flying
On Karl’s third day at the dulag luft, a guard ushered him into a windowless room. The room contained only a steel desk, a desk chair, and a wooden stool. The guard motioned for Karl to sit on the stool. As Karl took his seat, the guard exited and locked the door from the outside.
Figures, Karl thought. They want me to sweat. Shove me in here and plop me down on a low stool. Then give me time to imagine what kind of ogre might come in here to grind my bones to make his bread.
If they wanted Karl to sweat, it worked. Though he recognized a psychological game when he saw it, he could not help but worry about what was coming. Would they use torture? He hadn’t heard of that happening to American POWs, but he couldn’t be sure.
Physically, Karl felt a little better than on the night of his arrival at the transit camp. His arm still hurt from the dog bite, but at least it hadn’t become infected. A Kraut medic had cleaned and bandaged the wound. The Germans had let him shower and shave, and—to his surprise—they’d replaced his filthy welder’s jumpsuit with a USAAF gabardine shirt and a set of G.I. trousers, all supplied by the Red Cross. Over the shirt, he wore an infantry field jacket. The shirt and jacket bore no insignia and hung a little too loose across his shoulders, but at least he looked like a soldier again.
Now, however, he was a soldier with much on his mind. How hard would the Krauts lean on him for information? Would they beat him up? Would they put a gun to his head, pull the trigger if he didn’t talk? Thus far, he’d experienced no worse abuse than the occasional shove. But he was in enemy hands, and the enemy could always change tactics.
And what about Albrecht? Would his flimsy cover story hold up under a questioner who might have interrogated hundreds of downed airmen?