“Helmstedt Area Control, South American Airways Zero Zero Four.”
“Go ahead, Zero Zero Four.”
“Helmstedt, be advised that South American Airways Zero Zero Four, at ten thousand feet and indicating three-fifty airspeed on a course of forty-eight-point-four, is departing the American zone at this time. Acknowledge.”
“South American Zero Zero Four, Helmstedt acknowledges you making three five zero at ten thousand on a course of forty-eight-point-four and departing American zone. Be advised that both American and Soviet fighter aircraft are operating along your route. Exercise appropriate caution. When possible, contact Tempelhof Area Control on Air-Ground Channel Four.”
“Zero Zero Four understands Air-Ground Channel Four.”
Frade then experienced a feeling that for a moment he didn’t recognize. And then he did.
It was the same emotion he had experienced flying out of Fighter One on Guadalcanal—when, although he couldn’t see anything at that moment, he knew that the enemy could appear at any time.
With the great big difference being that then I was flying a Wildcat and could defend myself.
Now I’m flying an aerial bus with absolutely nothing to defend myself.
“All things considered,” von Wachtstein announced, “and apropos of nothing at all, I love the Connie. But right now I’d rather be flying a Focke-Wulf. Or even what Archie and his guys are flying.”
“Oh, come on, Hansel,” Clete said, then looking out ahead blurted, “Oh, shit!”
Three rapidly growing black dots were headed straight for them.
“What are they, Hansel?”
“YAK-3s,” von Wachtstein said.
Frade radioed: “Archie, where the hell are you?”
And then they saw something else.
Three P-38s appeared in front of the Constellation, moving so fast that Clete knew they were coming out of a full-power dive, with their airspeed indicator needles pointing to the red tape that meant If you go any faster than this, the wings will come off.
The three P-38s lined themselves up with the incoming YAK-3s.
What the hell are they going to do, play chicken? Frade thought, then said, “Jesus, I hope those Russians blink first!”
Suddenly, coming from the rear on both sides of the Connie, there was a burst of tracer fire—four red lines arching across the sky—and then another, and finally a third, single line of tracers, brighter than the first two.
“Ach du Lieber Gott!” von Wachtstein said.
“Not to worry, Hansel,” Frade said. “What they’re doing is testing their guns.”
“For Christ’s sake, I know tracers when I see them,” von Wachtstein said. “What was the last single burst? The bright one?
“That came from the Hispano-Suiza 20mm machine cannon,” Frade said. “The parallel tracer lines came from the four .50-caliber Brownings. You didn’t know that?”
Frade looked out his side window. The P-38 pilot who had tested his guns had pulled up next to them. He waved and grinned cheerfully.
Clete could see enough of the YAK-3s now to know that he had never seen one before. He looked at the leading edge of their wings waiting for the flashes of their weaponry.
They never came.
All of a sudden, the noses of the Russian airplanes lowered and they dived, quickly becoming smaller and smaller dots.
“I think the decision was made not to shoot us down,” von Wachtstein said softly.
“They would have had to go through Archie and his guys to do that. I wasn’t worried.”
I was scared silly, is what I was.
Terrified. About to wet my pants . . .
Frade reached for the radio control panel and switched to Air-Ground Channel Four.
“Tempelhof, this is South American Airways Zero Zero Four.”
“Double Zero Four, Tempelhof. I read you five by five. How me?”
Thank you, God!
“Five by five, Tempelhof. We are approximately sixty miles out at ten thousand, indicating three-fifty. Request approach and landing.”
“Double Zero Four, maintaining present course, begin to descend to five thousand feet at this time. Report when you have the field in sight.”
“Understand descend to five thousand and report when I can see you.”
“Affirmative. Be advised there have been reports of Soviet aircraft operating on your course.”
“Tempelhof, be advised my Little Brother and his pals chased the bad birds away. Beginning descent to five thousand at this time.”
“Tempelhof, Zero Zero Four. At six thousand and I have the field in sight.”
“South American Double Zero Four, maintain present altitude until over the field. Then commence descent in ninety-second three-sixty-degree turns. Report when at fifteen hundred.”
“Understand when over the field, commence ninety-second circular descent to fifteen hundred.”
“Double Zero Four. Affirmative.”
“I’m surprised anybody’s still alive,” Clete said as they slowly descended over the rubble of what was once the German capital. “Jesus, this is worse than Cologne or Frankfurt.”
“I don’t think Frankfurt or Cologne had as many thousand-bomber raids by the Americans in the daytime, followed by English thousand-plane raids at night,” von Wachtstein said matter-of-factly. “Hamburg is supposed to be even worse.”
“Tempelhof, South American Zero Zero Four at fifteen hundred.”
“Tempelhof clears South American Zero Zero Four as Number One to land on Runway Two Seven. Wind is at five from the north. Be advised there is an antiaircraft half-track and an M-4 Sherman tank parked near the threshold.”
“Understand Number One on Two Seven.”
“Flaps to twenty, gear down,” von Wachtstein ordered.
“Flaps at twenty, gear down and locked,” Clete replied after a moment, then said: “Try not to bend the bird, Hansel.”
“Jesus, that’s enormous,” Clete said as their landing roll brought them close to the terminal building.
“It’s supposed to be one of the twenty largest buildings in the world,” von Wachtstein said, and then added, “The last time I saw it, I came in here dead-stick, with oil all over the windscreen of my Focke-Wulf. When I finally touched down, my left gear collapsed.”
“I know the feeling, Hansel. You operated out of here?”
“No. So far as I know, we never used it for military operations. When they pulled me out of the Focke-Wulf, a guy asked me if I didn’t know I was not supposed to land here.”
Frade saw that there were only three aircraft under the arc of the huge building, all of them Piper Cub L-4s and all with the Second Armored Division insignia painted on the fuselage. The engine of one was running, and as von Wachtstein brought the Constellation to a stop and shut it down, that L-4 began to taxi toward the runway.
“There’s Mattingly,” von Wachtstein said, pointing.
Colonel Robert Mattingly was standing in front of the welcoming party—three other officers and half a dozen soldiers—all of them wearing the triangle patch of the Second Armored Division. Behind them was a small fleet of three-quarter-ton trucks and jeeps.
A strange-looking vehicle appeared from behind the trucks and jeeps and drove up to the rear of the Connie’s fuselage.
Von Wachtstein unstrapped himself and then—not without effort—put his head through the small window and looked out.
He pulled his head back in and reported, “It’s a hydraulic stairs. I wonder where they found that?”
He took another look, then announced, “Mattingly looks like he’s going to come up the stairs.”
Clete unstrapped himself, walked through the passenger compartment, and opened the door.
Mattingly loudly announced in Spanish: “Good morning, Captain. I am Colonel Oscar Hammerstein, the civil affairs officer of the United States Second Armored Division. May I address your passengers, please?”
“Yes, of course,” Frade said,
equally loudly.
The name Oscar Hammerstein rang a bell, but Frade couldn’t put a face or anything else to it.
Mattingly came onto the Connie, moved past Clete, stood in the center of the aisle, and loudly said, “If I may have your attention, gentlemen?”
When he had it, he went on: “I am Colonel Oscar Hammerstein, the civil affairs officer of the United States Second Armored Division. I have the privilege of being your escort during your short visit to Berlin.
“On behalf of General White and the officers and the troopers of Hell on Wheels, permit me to welcome you to Berlin.
“You will now please disembark. You will be taken to the Argentine Embassy under the protection of the Second Armored Division. Your luggage and the supplies will shortly follow. The aircraft crew will remain here at Tempelhof. There is absolutely nothing to fear from the Russians, as we have every reason to believe, despite what you may have heard, that they will respect your diplomatic status.
“I’m sure your diplomatic personnel here will be able to answer any questions you might have before they leave for home, probably about oh-nine-hundred hours—that’s nine A.M.—tomorrow.
“I look forward to getting to know those of you who will be staying.
“And now, please begin to debark. Be careful! That ladder was a little unsteady as I came up here. Thank you for your kind attention. Once again, welcome to Berlin!”
Mattingly then quickly made his way up the aisle to the cockpit. Gonzalo Delgano quickly followed him, and on his heels came Vega and Peralta. Frade got there last, and closed the door to the passenger compartment behind them.
“There’s a hotel here,” Mattingly began, “and—”
There came a knock at the door.
Clete opened it.
Rodolfo Nulder stood there.
“If you don’t mind,” Nulder said, more than a little arrogantly, “I’ve got some questions for Colonel Hammerstein. Several, as a matter of fact.”
Mattingly said: “And you are, señor?”
“Rodolfo Nulder. I am, so to speak, the person in charge.”
“No, Señor Nulder. I am the person in charge, and I just told you to debark. Please do so.”
“I protest!”
“Duly noted. Now either stop delaying the movement or sit down and make yourself comfortable. You can spend the night on this aircraft.”
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Colonel Hammerstein!”
“It’s Hammersmith, Felix Hammersmith. I suggest you submit any complaints you might have in writing to SHAEF, after we—if we—get you safely out of Berlin. Which is it to be, Señor Nulder—are you going or staying?”
Nulder looked around the cabin. “You all were witnesses to this!” he said, primarily to Delgano, then turned and walked quickly down the aisle to the line of passengers at the door.
Delgano pulled the door closed and said, “Well, at least they’ll have something to talk about at the embassy tonight.”
“What I really think will happen at the embassy tonight is that your people who were here are going to give a detailed report of the rape of Berlin. Believe me, that will take everybody’s mind off Colonel Hammerstein, or Hammersmith, whatever name I used.”
“What happens to us now?” Delgado said.
Mattingly looked at Siggie Stein.
“I realized about thirty seconds ago, Siggie, that I should have asked this question yesterday. It is alleged by Mr. Dulles that you are one of the rare people who know how to make a Collins 7.2 work. True?”
“I know the 7.2 pretty well, Colonel.”
“Good. We brought one on the C-54. It is now in Admiral Canaris’s house in Zehlendorf. Just as soon as the diplomats have driven away and everybody can change into their officer equivalent civilian employee uniforms, we’ll go there and you can set it up.
“I suspect everybody from Ike down at SHAEF is wondering how things went this morning, and I don’t want to make that report in the clear—the Russians might be listening—over General White’s somewhat limited radio network.”
“Everybody goes?” Delgano asked.
“Good question, Colonel,” Mattingly said. “As I was saying a moment ago, there is a hotel here in the terminal building. Not very damaged. Adequate. It has a mess, which we have also put into operation. They don’t serve Argentine beef, of course, but the mess is adequate, too. What I would like to do is put the crew in it overnight, except for one of your officers, your choice, who I suggest should come with us to keep everybody in the loop.”
“Mario,” Delgano said. “You go. I’ll stay here with the others. I’d like to keep an eye on the airplane.”
“Sí, mi coronel,” Peralta said.
“Colonel Delgano,” Mattingly said, “as you climb down that wobbling ladder, you may notice two half-tracks, each mounting four .50-caliber Browning machine guns. They will help you keep an eye on the Ciudad de Rosario.”
[TWO]
357 Roonstrasse, Zehlendorf Berlin, Germany 1335 20 May 1945
The convoy—a M-8 armored car, three jeeps, two three-quarter-ton trucks, and a trailing M-8—had been wending its way slowly through rubble when it suddenly came into a residential area that appeared just about unscathed.
Here and there, some of the large villas and apartment houses showed signs of damage, but most of the buildings were intact.
“Welcome to Zehlendorf,” Mattingly announced.
He was driving the first jeep, with Frade sitting beside him and Boltitz and von Wachtstein in the backseat.
“Why is this . . .” Clete wondered aloud.
“. . . not bombed into rubble?” Mattingly picked up. “I suppose for the same reason the I.G. Farben building still stands in Frankfurt. Somebody decided we were going to need it and told the Eighth Air Force to leave it alone.”
On a side street, they came to a very nice two-story house—as opposed to the preponderance of large, even huge, villas in the area—and stopped. An American flag was hanging limply from a flagpole over the door, and a jeep with two GIs and a pedestal-mounted .50-caliber Browning in it was sitting at the curb.
On the right side of the house, a gaunt man in his sixties was pushing a lawn mower over the small patch of grass that separated Admiral Canaris’s house from its much more impressive neighbor.
“That’s surreal,” Frade said, pointing at him. “That’s absolutely surreal!”
As everybody looked, the old man pushed the lawn mower out of sight around the rear of the house.
Tiny Dunwiddie came out the front door of the house and, sounding more like a master sergeant than an officer-equivalent civilian employee, bellowed the suggestion to his men that getting their asses out of goddamned armored cars and helping unload the three-quarter-ton trucks might be a wise thing to do.
Enrico Rodríguez, who had ridden in the third jeep, smiled approvingly as more than a half dozen Second Armored Division troopers erupted from the M-8s and began to carry cartons and crates from the trucks into the house.
“Come on, Siggie,” Boltitz said. “I’ll show you where to set up the 7.2 before Mattingly starts screaming like that at you.”
Stein looked at him, then said, “That’s right. You worked for Canaris, didn’t you? You’ve been here before?”
“Yes, I’ve been here before. The last time just before I became the naval attaché in Buenos Aires.”
When Clete, trailed by Enrico, went in the house, he smelled coffee and followed his nose into the kitchen. There Clete found another elderly German man, this one setting out cups and saucers to go with the coffee.
They nodded at each other.
When Dunwiddie walked into the kitchen a minute or so later, Frade saw him take a quick, if thorough, look at Enrico, and then smile at him.
Jesus, how do these guys recognize each other on sight?
“Master Sergeant Dunwiddie, Sergeant Major Rodríguez, retired,” Clete said.
Dunwiddie offered his hand.
“Y
ou always carry a riot gun, Sergeant Major?”
“Only when I think I may have to shoot somebody,” Enrico replied.
“Welcome to Berlin.”
“I have been here before, when my colonel was at the Kriegsschule,” Enrico said.
“No shit? Small world, isn’t it, Sergeant Major?”
“My name is Enrico.”
“Tiny,” Dunwiddie said, offering his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Enrico.”
“I hate to interrupt the mutual admiration society,” Clete said, “but who are these guys? This one and the one cutting the grass?”
Dunwiddie looked a little uncomfortable.
“Colonel, they knocked on the door just about as soon as I got here. They said they used to work here and would do anything that needed to be done in exchange for food.”
“So you put them to work?”
“I never minded shooting the bastards, but watching them starve to death is something else.”
“Just so they don’t turn out to be some of those Nazis Morgenthau is looking for,” Clete joked.
That possibility was immediately put to rest when Boltitz, also following his nose, walked into the kitchen and saw the man setting out coffee cups.
“Gott in Himmel!” Boltitz said. “Max!”
The man setting out the coffee cups popped to rigid attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän.”
“Why do I think they know each other, Dunwiddie?” Frade asked. “Herr Kapitän, are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
“Max was the admiral’s chief bosun’s mate when he commanded the cruiser Schlesien,” Boltitz said.
“And the other one?” Frade asked.
“What other one?”
“The one pushing the lawn mower,” Clete said, and pointed out the window.
Boltitz looked, then opened the kitchen door. He barked, “Egon!”
The elderly, poorly dressed old man in the backyard walked quickly—almost ran—to the kitchen door, popped to attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän!” as if he was having trouble using his voice.
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