Foo Fighters

by Daniel Wyatt

  What was next? Berlin? As if it had not been hard hit already.

  Zeller remembered, with a cringe, what a major bombing was like, when parts of Peenemunde were razed by British RAF Lancasters in August, 1943. Eight hundred died. Many of the V-2 facilities were destroyed, forcing the government to move much of the operation to other parts of the country, mainly underground. Then the meddling started. Days after the bombing, Himmler had wrestled all production and deployment of the V-2 rocket out of the hands of von Braun’s immediate superior, Walter Dornberger. The following spring, von Braun was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Stettin for declaring that his main interest in developing the V-2 was for space travel rather than a Nazi military weapon for winning the war. Only Munitions and Armaments Minister Albert Speer had enough influence to release him. Oh, how Zeller hated Himmler. How could he lock up the greatest scientific mind of the century?

  Rain began to fall. They walked each other nearer to the Fuehrerbunker’s entrance. Bormann stopped the scientist well back of the sentry. “For security reasons, it’s best we do not pledge our support of the Order as brothers in the great cause.” Bormann studied Zeller from head to foot in one quick glance. “Keep a stiff upper lip, as the British say.”

  Zeller was unmoved by Bormann’s humour. “What is there to look forward to, Herr Reichsleiter?”

  “Plenty,” Bormann smiled. “Plenty. Will you dine with us this evening at the Fuehrerbunker?”

  “Us, Herr Reichsleiter?”

  “Yes. My dear friend, Manja, will be joining me soon.”

  You devil, thought Zeller. Cheating on your wife, again. Some things never change. “Sorry, Herr Reichsleiter. I cannot. I am due back at Peenemunde. There is much to do.”

  “I’m sure there is.”

  Then the rain began to fall with a vengeance.

  Antarctic

  The two men threw themselves to the snow upon hearing the first sound of the aircraft over the rocky cliff. On their stomachs, their white suits blending with the snow, they observed the four-engine monster climbing into the mist covering the northern peninsula.

  “Do you think they saw us, old chap?”

  “Not a chance.” He pulled a pair of binoculars from his bulky backpack and held them to his eyes, adjusting the focusing ring with his thick mittens. He watched the aircraft bank and turn away from them, a good half-mile in the distance. Then he caught the markings. No armament. Polar camouflage of white-blue sky. Churchill called it, “the scourge of the Atlantic.” The Focke-Wulf FW 200c Condor had a range of almost 3,000 miles and had disposed of or crippled tons of Allied ships in the Battle of the Atlantic.

  “German?”

  “Bloody damn right, old boy,” the man with the binoculars replied. “She’s a Condor. Jerry is around here somewhere, just as we suspected. We had better inform London.”

  The other man nodded, delighted that their three-day expedition was successful. Back to base at the far end of the peninsula.

  London

  The young couple found their way to MI-6 headquarters the next morning and arrived at 9 o’clock sharp. In a smoky conference room on the second floor, they met two men, Wesley’s horseface boss, Jack Dorwin of the OSS, and Roberta’s superior, Colonel Raymond Lampert of MI-6, section head of Enigma Operations, involved in the breaking of the German ciphers since 1941.

  Wesley Hollinger extended his hand to Lampert. “Colonel, it’s been some time. Good to see you again.”

  The couple pulled up chairs around a polished, circular table, Roberta neatly tucking her dress under her legs.

  Lampert nodded, a smoking pipe in his mouth. “Good morning, Wesley. How have you been, lad?”

  “Hanging in there. You? I thought you were going to retire last month.”

  “Too busy.”

  Dorwin lit a new cigar and began the briefing. “I want to read to the both of you an Associated Press article found in the New York Tribune, January 2, 1945. ‘Now it seems, the Nazis have thrown something new into the night skies over Germany. It is the weird, mysterious ‘Foo Fighter’ balls, which race alongside the wing of Beaufighters flying intruder missions over Germany. Pilots have been encountering this eerie weapon for more than a month in their night flights. No one apparently knows what this sky weapon is. The balls of fire appear suddenly and accompany the planes for miles. They seem to be radio-controlled from the ground, so intelligence reports reveal.’ Etcetera, etcetera. You can read the rest for yourselves. Here.”

  Hollinger took the newspaper from his superior. “Thank you.”

  “This Nazi secret weapon has come to Allied attention,” Dorwin continued. “It is serious enough to open a joint Anglo-American file on it. Effective immediately, your job — the both of you — will be to monitor all information pertaining to this... weapon. And keep it classified.”

  “The two of us? Together?”

  Dorwin nodded. “Yes, Wesley.”

  “A combined Allied operation,” Hollinger said.

  “A little overly dramatic. But, yes.”

  “Why us?”

  “MI-6 and the OSS want someone the two organizations feel is qualified and can trust to work together. Compare notes, that sort of thing.”

  “Just as you two have done in the past,” Lampert added.

  “But can we trust each other?” Roberta grinned.

  Hollinger turned to his wife. “It’s come to this, has it? The secret is out. Now they know why I married you. To get ahead in the Intelligence world.”

  “Oh, do shut up,” she replied.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Of course,” Dorwin said, “we will take into consideration Roberta’s delicate condition.”

  “I beg your pardon. I wouldn’t show any favouritism just because she’s great with child,” Hollinger laughed.

  “You’re asking for it,” Roberta snapped.

  Dorwin turned to Lampert. “Were they always like this when they were in MI-6?”

  “Worse,” Lampert replied. “But we got used to it.”

  “What kind of weapon are we referring to, sir?” Roberta asked Lampert. “What do we know about it?”

  “A new high-speed fighter, faster than anything before.”

  Hollinger suddenly remembered the president’s words on the same subject. “Is it a jet or another rocket fighter like the Me-163 Komet... or what?”

  “We don’t know. It might even be a new ground-to-air missile. It’s your job to find out. Some airmen have already seen it in combat. We will provide you with names. It would be wise to interview them. Roberta the RAF. You, Wesley, the Army Air Forces.”

  Hollinger handed back the newspaper. “Foo Fighters, huh? How’d they get a kooky name like that?”

  Dorwin spoke up. “As near as we can figure, it’s derived from a Smoky Stover comic strip. Someone in it had said something like, where there’s foo, there’s fire.”

  “Cute,” Hollinger said.

  “When do you want us to start on this new assignment?” Roberta asked.

  Lampert and Dorwin glanced at each other.

  “Immediately,” Dorwin answered.

  Hollinger said, “Of course this means we need a codename.”

  The others agreed.

  An idea suddenly mounted in Wesley Hollinger’s mind. “How about... the Foo File?”

  “Brilliant, Wesley,” Lampert smiled. “I do like that. Yes, I do.”

  “What a mind. That’s why I married him,” Roberta said, shaking her head. “How do you come up with these things on such short notice?”

  “Just comes natural,” Hollinger frowned with a hint of a smile.

  EIGHT

  Birkenhain — February 18

  Himmler felt betwixt and between when he received his instructions from Hitler in Berlin to move the entire Peenemunde complex underground to the Werra region in the Thuringia Mountains, near the remote-controlled V-4 assembly line.

  Mittlewerk was the prime suggested location. Himmler thought ab
out it for a moment, dropping the telephone receiver into its cradle. Fine. It made sense. The Russian Red Army was less than one hundred miles to the east of Peenemunde. The top secret projects had to be kept away from the Russians. What would that pig Goering think of this latest development? His pet — the pilot-controlled V-4 — would have to go too. Where? To the same sector? If so, the projects would be too far from Himmler’s command post. That part he didn’t like.

  The second option — a Hitler suggestion — was worse. Destroy the evidence. Himmler wouldn’t even consider it. They couldn’t do that! Time was running out. He thought of the Order. To hell with the Order, whoever they were, and whatever their purpose. If it was earlier in the war, he’d follow it up. Not now. No time. One of his agents had heard the name in passing in a Berlin tavern, anyway. Oftentimes what one hears in a tavern over a few drinks doesn’t mean anything. Himmler had more important things on his mind. It was up to him to make things happen for himself. He had no choice now. His own skin was at stake. He had put it off too long. Surely Eisenhower or Montgomery would listen? Only Nazi secret weapons would do it. They were the collateral.

  Himmler pressed the button on his intercom.

  “Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer,” his adjutant answered from the next room.

  “Two things. First, I want a line open to Doctor von Braun at Peenemunde. Immediately.”

  “Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer. The other?”

  “Contact Count Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross in Stockholm by cable.”

  “With what instructions, Herr Reichsfuehrer?”

  “Tell him that I wish to speak to him — in person — at his earliest convenience.”

  “As you wish, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”

  Peenemunde

  When Karl Zeller burst into Wernher von Braun’s office in Haus 4 of the V-2 compound at noon, von Braun already had the news.

  “I just got off the phone with Goering,” von Braun explained. “He will be arriving in two days. So will samples of this titanium discovery. There will be an all-out effort to construct the new V-4 prototype.”

  “Heaven help us.”

  “That’s not all. They’re moving the V-4 testing from Peenemunde West.” Von Braun walked to the window and swept the grounds through tired eyes. The sixty to eighty-hour work weeks were taking their toll on the human manual on future space travel.

  “Where to?”

  “The same general area as the V-2 equipment. If it goes.”

  “What do you mean, if?” Zeller joined his friend by the window.

  “Politics. Need I say more?”

  “Will it still be under Luftwaffe control?”

  “Yes. Goering wants it to go after the V-2’s. That... might not be possible, with how things are moving along. What did Himmler say to this transfer of the V-2’s?”

  “Not very much, to me,” Zeller replied.

  “Me neither. Except—”

  “You? I’m confused.”

  “Relax. I’ve spoken with both Himmler and Goering this morning. Himmler must know then. He’s caught in the middle, like I am.”

  “Wernher, please, tell me what’s happening?”

  “I’m faced with a predicament, Karl.”

  “What kind of predicament?”

  “I have received two different sets of orders from two different high-ranking people in the SS. Himmler’s appointee, V-2 Director General Hans Hammler has ordered me to move everything relating to the missiles south.”

  “That’s correct. That’s the news I have. So?”

  “The SS Gauleiter for Pomerania, which includes Peenemunde, ordered me not twenty minutes ago to blow everything up so it wouldn’t fall into Russian hands. He is probably on the phone to Berlin as we speak, trying to convince the Fuehrer to such a course of action.”

  Zeller was shocked. “That’s absurd! All this technology, all these years of work up in smoke!”

  Von Braun raised a finger. “I don’t intend to see that happen. The V-2 and the V-4 will be spared the trash heap.”

  “I know you. You have a plan. What are you going to do?”

  “For two weeks, Dieter and Bernhard have made mimeographed copies of all V-2 and V-4 documents.”

  “They have?”

  “Yes. They intend to hide them in an abandoned mine in the Harz Mountains, and blast the entrance shut.”

  Zeller flashed a smile. Dieter Huzel and Bernhard Tessman were two of von Braun’s trusted aides. Good men. The best. “Excellent plan. But what then?”

  “Then, Karl, we would seek out our old friends, the Americans.”

  “Ah. I like that part the best.”

  “I thought so. The Americans, I’m sure, will help us once more. And why not. ITT shipped us parts for our V-2’s. The American military wants what we have. Look over there. See those trucks arriving at the gate?”

  Zeller drew a breath and saw a long line of one-ton trucks roaring across the grounds. “What is this?”

  “I’ve taken it upon myself to begin the move myself.”

  “By whose authority?”

  “Heinrich Himmler, of course.”

  Zeller folded his arms, his eyes on the driver of one truck approaching one of the buildings. “So, for some strange reason, Himmler wishes to see Projekt Equinox and the V-2’s continue.”

  Von Braun agreed. “That is for certain, my friend. Uncle Heine is up to something.”

  “Wernher?”

  “Yes, Karl?”

  “I know I’m sounding like an echo, but will you please reconsider and join the Order? It would be for your benefit.”

  “Never. I told you that before! Politics does not interest me in the least.”

  East Anglia, England — February 19

  Art Tooney seemed embarrassed at first to be interrogated in the small room on his bomber base by this well-dressed American with the custom suit and silk tie who was of age to be in the service and wasn’t. This, especially after the gunner had just returned from a horrendous bomber mission to the Ruhr Valley, where he saw four planes in his group shot out of the sky. He was exhausted, dehydrated, and a little annoyed. And he wanted to sleep for a day.

  The man asked, “Sergeant Art Tooney?”

  “Yeah. Who might you be?”

  The handsome man had pocket identification and slapped it on the table. “Wesley Hollinger is my name. OSS.”

  “Really?” The airman sat up, rubbing his eyes and forehead. He was unimpressed. “American Intelligence? That right?”

  “Right.”

  “Swell. Is this about that new fighter the Jerries have?”

  Hollinger grinned, as he pulled a file from his briefcase. This would be the first of his Foo File interviews. “As a matter of fact, it is. Let’s start from the beginning,” he said, reading from the top sheet. “I’ll be quick. I know you want to hit the sack. You’re a... B-17 ball gunner with 445th Bomb Group. That right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. The 99th squadron.” Tooney looked around the room, running his hand through his matted hair. “You’re not going to laugh at me, are you? There’s enough people laughing at me already.”

  “I promise I won’t laugh. I’ll hear you out. That’s why I’m here. To get the true story. Can I get you a coffee?”

  “No thanks. I had a damn good stiff shot of whiskey at debriefing.”

  Hollinger knew that the liquor was used to loosen the tongues of the bomber crews after trying conditions for the sake of obtaining information for future Eighth Air Force missions. Hopefully, Tooney would still be talking. “Tell me about this,” he paused, “Foo Fighter. When did you first see it?”

  “So, you know the name?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “All right.” The sergeant gave it heavy thought. “It was January the seventeenth. On a mission to Magdeburg. Our group had crossed the German coast. Jerry FW-190’s came up to greet us. Then shortly after that, I saw something going in and out of the clouds.”

  “A Foo Fighter?”
/>   “Yeah, I guess.”

  “How far away was it?”

  Tooney appeared to judge the distance in his mind by shutting his eyes briefly. “Two hundred yards, I guess.”

  Hollinger began to take notes on a pad. “Describe it.”

  “Small.”

  Hollinger pondered the Me-163 Komet for a moment. It was not a big fighter. “How small, exactly?”

  “Well... not as big as a regular German fighter. Half the size, I’d say. Son of a bitch, was she moving.”

  “How fast would you estimate?”

  “Too hard to tell. Faster than the other fighters.”

  “How fast?”

  “I’d say... maybe... twice as fast, flat out.”

  Hollinger put down his pencil. “Twice as fast!”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Maybe more. I can tell you this, mister. It flew by so damn quick that I’m still wondering if it even happened or what.”

  “Anybody else in your crew see it?”

  “Yeah, the tail gunner. All he saw was a chunk of metal whiz by. So he said.”

  Hollinger looked strangely at the nervous young boy with the pasty hair, freckles, and air force hat clutched in his hands. Twice as fast as the other fighters meant somewhere over six hundred miles per hour. Hell, he’s talking about an aircraft faster than the speed of sound. “What else can you tell me about it?”

  “It didn’t have any wings. It was round.”

  Wesley stared at the ball gunner. “Round!”

  “Yeah, round. And that’s a fact.”

  Hollinger leaned back in his chair. “Round.”

  “You’re just like the rest of them. You don’t believe me.”

  Wesley recovered, and said, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not insinuating that. You mean round... say... like a ball.”

  “No.”

  “No? What then? I don’t get your drift.”

  Tooney played with his hands to describe the object. “Round like a plate... or the lid of a tin can. It was like the top of a tin can with a stump on it. Kind of like a spinning top.”