by Noel Hynd
Prisoners were designated as “disarmed enemy forces,” not prisoners of war. General Eisenhower made the decision in March 1945. Not classifying the captured soldiers as POWs lessened the logistical problems associated with accommodating so many prisoners of war mandated by the Geneva Convention governing their treatment.
Deaths from dehydration and exposure to the weather elements were rampant. No structures stood inside the prison compounds. Rain and cold were common, as were rot, scurvy, and questionable sanitation. The delivery of food and water was haphazard.
American guards assigned Lt. Kern to a kitchen unit where he was employed cutting carrots and potatoes. He stayed out of trouble, struggling through his tasks despite his mangled left hand. Every day the Americans came and took German soldiers suspected of being in the SS and gave them to the Russians. Often they turned over prisoners who complained or were difficult. Kern lived in daily terror.
In December of 1946, the Americans transferred him to a French camp where two guards used a hammer to knock two gold teeth out of his mouth. From the dental injuries, an infection set in that was untreated. Two days later, arbitrarily, the French jettisoned hundreds of prisoners with no explanation.
French soldiers released Kern in Leipzig with several dozen other men, all still wearing their tattered uniforms from the war. They received no money and no provisions. There were just told to leave. They did. Kern still had his military papers. He folded them carefully in a piece of scrap cloth and then placed them in the pocket of his distressed Wehrmacht jacket. The papers represented his past. He tried to not lose them, but he was just as happy to try to forget about them. He had never thought of himself as a soldier. He reasoned that his skill had been survival, the innate sense to say the right thing or be in the right place, more than actual combat.
The group of Germans dispersed in different directions. On Kern’s way through the city to where his home had once been, two East German teenage soldiers, new recruits, young men too young to have served, laughed at him and called him ein Verlierer. A loser. They spit at him, beat him, and stole his overcoat.
British and American bombers had attacked Leipzig and its factories relentlessly in 1943 and 1944. The city remained partially in ruins. But the subways and trams were running and a few street markets had opened. There was a special food stop for prisoners returning from POW camps because no one wanted them in the restaurants in their dirty uniforms and emaciated appearance. Lt. Kern talked his way into this venue. He showed the tattered shreds of his military papers. This was enough to enable him to obtain food for no money.
Kern found his way home to where his mother had lived. He came to the door of what had once been her home. Half of the building seemed to have been destroyed. He knocked.
Frau Kern opened the door and stood before her son. Both mother and son thought they were seeing ghosts. They fell into each other’s arms. She brought him into the home he had left in 1940 when he had married. There were days of tears. Kern’s father had worked at a Messerschmidt factory in Leipzig. Bombs from an American air raid had killed him in 1943.
Otto Kern slowly settled in and decompressed. He realized he had a decision to make: kill himself and join so many of his friends and compatriots in death? Or pick up the few pieces that were left to him and go on? It was not an easy decision. He spent days thinking about it.
Chapter 14
Berlin - June 1948
To the Western Allies, withdrawal from Berlin was the most attractive option. Just as Eisenhower had described Berlin as a political target, not a strategic one, many in the West were ready to hand over the city to the Soviets.
Using military force to strike back against the Soviet blockade seemed unwise. Berlin, the wisdom went, was within the Soviet sphere of influence, whether the Western Allies liked it or not. It was not an area where Stalin could back down. The risk of turning the Cold War into an actual war was enormous. So, the feelings went, let Stalin have Berlin and all the responsibilities that that came with it.
Whatever the motivations, the Soviet intent was now clear. A successful blockade of Berlin would effectively starve the Western Powers out of Berlin. There was a blemish in Stalin’s plan to isolate the city, however. Although the land and water routes had never been negotiated and depended on Soviet “goodwill,” a concept that had quickly become a self-contradiction after the war, the air routes had been thoroughly hashed out. On November 30, 1945, the victorious Allies had agreed in writing that there would be three twenty-mile-wide air corridors providing free access to Berlin. Additionally, unlike a force of tanks and trucks, the Soviets could not claim that cargo aircraft was a military threat. To keep Berlin alive and part of the city free, meant taking control of the skies.
In Berlin, General Clay looked at the situation and sought to address it as best he could.
West Berlin in the fourth week of June had little more than a month’s supply of food and six weeks’ worth of coal, the fuel that generated all the electricity in the wounded city. If the supplies could not be flown in fast enough, Soviet help would eventually be needed to prevent starvation. There was one thing for certain about Soviet humanitarian assistance: it would not be forthcoming.
General Clay contacted Secretary of Defense Forrestal who told him to talk to General LeMay. “I’ll do that today, Mr. Secretary,” General Clay answered. But before talking to General LeMay, Clay phoned his friend from the war, British Air Commodore Reginald Waite. Speaking as trusted friends on a secure line, they had a constructive conversation. It was at this time that he was also delighted to learn that the Royal Air Force had already quietly been operating an airlift in support of British troops in Berlin, the same quiet behind-the-scenes thinking that had appealed to Clay, who had commenced a similar operation. So both men had “lifts” in progress to support their military teams.
“Supplying our troops is one thing, Reginald,” Clay said to his friend. “I don’t know if you’ve ever considered it but supplying the city by air would be a different beast altogether.”
“I’ve considered it,” Waite said. “We’ve discussed it for hours on this end, always trying to be ahead the Soviets. Common sense and almost all of my staff tell me it can’t be done.”
Commodore Waite then revealed something else. Two days before the total Soviet blockade began, Waite alerted RAF Transport Command to the probability that “some form of airlift” into Berlin would shortly be required. On June twenty-third, he had submitted to Major General Edwin Otway Herbert, commander of the British Sector of Berlin, a rough plan for an Anglo-American airlift to sustain the city.
General Herbert listened politely and rejected the idea as “impossible.”
There was a pause on the line as the two men weighed the variants and unpredictability of the current situation
“Reginald, does anything or anyone else tell you something different?” Clay asked.
“Yes,” Commodore Waite answered after a moment. “My guts! My guts tell me it’s not as impossible as it might appear. Let’s speak again late tonight. I want to get out and about by auto and get a gander at Berlin with my own eyes.”
“Excellent idea,” General Clay said. “I’ll do the same.”
The men rang off. After the call, Waite summoned an unmarked open Jeep and driver. He strapped on a pistol, pulled a civilian mackintosh over his uniform. His driver was a six-foot-four British sergeant who also carried a weapon and wore civilian gear. On a rainy Berlin afternoon, they toured the city.
Waite personally saw the effects of the closed canals. Through the rain showers that swept the city that afternoon, he saw that the empty Berlin to Hanover autobahn had been so thoroughly shut down that the Western Sectors of Berlin had been severed from the Allied Zones. They drove past the ruins of the opera house where young prostitutes approached American and British soldiers in uniform and past Brandenburg Gate where homeless beggars congregated. He saw masses of people gathered at the train stations because passenger trains ha
d been stopped. He stepped out, didn’t identify himself, and spoke to average Berliners about what was happening and who was to blame. The Soviets had already begun to spread their lies that the British and the Americans were cutting off food and heat out of spite from the war.
Waite knew that there had been eighteen freight trains a day from the West that brought some coal and equipment to the city. Now they were shut down, too. The Soviets had then embargoed the rest of the needed coal, which had been supplied from the Russian Zone of Eastern Germany. On the streets, the British and the Americans took more blame than Moscow.
Waite returned to his office. He assembled everyone who worked for him. “How many weeks of reserve inventory do we have?” Waite asked his staff. “All of you. Come back with numbers from your departments.”
An answer came back within half an hour. “Three weeks, sir.”
Waite sat up all night with a slide rule and his limitless knowledge of aviation and the aircraft available to him. He calculated the theoretical availabilities of transport aircraft, cargo priorities, fuel availability, pilot access, and load factors. The next day he returned to General Herbert with a more detailed plan filled with figures. He persuaded the General to get him ten minutes with the British Military Governor, Brian Robertson. Waite may have been the top man in the British Sector in terms of military presence, but Robertson reported to the prime minister.
Robertson looked the plan over and said he still thought it impossible, but he agreed to discuss the proposals with General Clay. Waite had won a crucial victory but knew that the British and the Americans had to be on the same page if there was to be an attempt to rescue Berlin by air. An MP courier in a Jeep quickly brought the written study from the British headquarters to the American headquarters.
General Clay read through Waite’s project. He liked what he saw. He also discovered that his counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, was ready with some concrete numbers. Commodore Waite had calculated the resources required to support the entire city of Berlin. Thus, by the final week of June, at least eighteen days' supply per major food type, and in some types, much more, had been stockpiled. The inventory provided time to build up the ensuing airlift. In the summer, an airlift just might work. And even if it didn’t, it would push back any retreat from the Soviets and give Western diplomats more time to address the situation in Berlin.
“Would you then be kind enough, Lucius,” Waite asked, “to get on the phone with General Robertson to help me sell him the idea.”
“Sure,” said Clay.
Clay went to work on Robertson to support Waite’s concept of a larger airlift. Waite began to refer to the April lifts as “the Little Lifts.” Now they and their taxpayers were ready for something larger.
Waite and Clay made a cogent case, summoning up much resentment from all parties on the methods the Soviet Union was using to convince Berliners that the Allies were going to abandon them and let them starve and freeze. Not only did the Allies want to move in the humanitarian direction but calling the Soviet bluff would be a bonus. Finally, General Robertson went silent on the phone. Then he said to General Clay, “Okay! I’m with you!”
He telephoned his troops and ordered them to get busy. Then Clay phoned Curtis LeMay. Clay asked General LeMay if it was possible to airlift heavy supplies.
“How heavy? What the hell sort of item?” LeMay asked in his distinctively gruff voice through his usual cloud of stogie exhaust.
“Coal,” said General Clay.
“Coal!” exclaimed LeMay. “What the hell you talking about?”
“Coal to provide electricity to the city. Ivan the Red might want the city dark, but you and I don’t. And I don’t think the American people do either. What do you think, General?”
For a moment, LeMay considered it. Then, “Goddamn! Screw the Russians! We’re American aviators. We can haul anything!” LeMay thundered.
This time, LeMay just may have been right.
Chapter 15
Cambridge – June 1948
It didn’t take long for Cochrane to be lured into matches of darts with his new acquaintances. He became quite good at it, though there were Englishmen there who had been throwing for their entire lives and could defeat him very easily, often taking great glee in doing so.
Once, shortly after arrival, Cochrane allowed himself to be foolishly goaded into an extended match and quickly seemed to be off his game. One of the opponents was a man with a Soviet star on his cap, the type of fellow Cochrane might otherwise have avoided. Bill bought him a pint each time the man won. As the evening progressed, Cochrane’s adversary was drinking for free and only grew louder and more loquacious.
Cochrane’s enthusiasm for his new sport appeared to give way to his common sense after two trips to the gentlemen’s loo and a fifth pint of lager. As it happened, it was a Wednesday. Laura was present that night, having left Caroline in the watch of Mrs. Cameron-Butler, as they did midweek and Sundays. Laura ended up helping Bill home.
Dutifully on the walk, Laura scolded him. He vowed never to again indulge in such youthful foolishness. Secretly, Laura was amused. “Five lagers!” she said to him as they turned the corner onto Orchard Street and were into a few paces of their stroll home. “So unlike you, Bill. What on earth were you thinking?”
He began to laugh. “More than you might imagine,” he said.
Laura suddenly made a realization. “You’re stark sober, aren’t you?” she said.
“Of course, I am. Did you see that fellow I was shooting darts against?”
“Of course, I did. Difficult to not see him.”
He laughed and gave her hand a squeeze.
“That was Egon Henkel, whom our landlady used to lease to,” Cochrane said. “I spotted him last week, sitting off to the side, expounding about Schopenhauer or some other such nonsense. I decided to take an up-close look at him. Draw him into my orbit and some conversation. There’s something wrong with him but I don’t know what it is just yet.”
They reached the front steps to 30 Orchard Street.
“Do you think you can stop working?” she said. “Maybe just once?”
He shrugged. “I’d sure like to try.”
A few days later, Cochrane took Laura and Caroline to lunch again at The Hero of the Thames. As they settled into their table Cochrane saw Edward at the bar in the next room. Once they ordered from the waitress, Cochrane rose to go in and say hello to his new best friend. Edward’s head popped up when he saw Cochrane and his expression changed quickly to one of alarm. Edward followed this with a beckoning gesture of the hand, luring him down to the farthest section of the bar where they might speak without being overheard.
“Are you all right, sir?” Edward asked.
“I’m fine. Is there a problem?” Cochrane answered.
“There was a man looking for you,” Edward said. “Big fellow. Rough. Had a Middle Eastern face. Dark eyes. There was a meanness to them, that and a sly glint. Looked like a security gorilla of some sort.”
“British? American?” Cochrane asked.
“American,” Edward said. “Accent. A strong one like you hear in those Leo Gorcey movies with the young hooligans. Docks of New York and all that.”
“A New York accent?”
“That might have been it.”
“Friendly? Hostile?” Cochrane asked.
“Inquisitive more than anything. A snoop. Asked about you by name. Bill Cochrane. That’s you, correct, sir?”
“That’s me,” Cochrane said.
Cochrane opened his mouth to speak again when Edward beat him to it. “This man says he needs to make contact. He checked Cambridge phone directories and you have no listing.”
“That part’s true. I’ve given my number only to those whom I wish to have it.”
“He said he’d check back with me,” Edward said, getting a little breathless now. “And he said something unusual that he said you’d understand.”
“And what was that?”
“He said you’re ‘a meatball.’”
Cochrane winced, grimaced, and felt a tumbling sensation deep in his gut.
“I know whom we are talking about,” Cochrane said. “Sturdy fellow. A formidable physique. He was once a bodybuilder in Brooklyn. Sound like the man?”
“Yes, it does, sir.” A pause, then, “He said the business was ‘urgent,’ sir.”
“When he returns tell him that he can meet me here. Anything he has to approach me about he needs to discuss in front of my wife.”
“Any danger, sir? We can take precautions as needed.”
“We’ll be fine, Edward,” Cochrane said. “Obviously, the gentleman has some business to discuss. Perhaps you could hold one of the more discreet corner tables.”
“I’d be happy to,” Edward said.
Cochrane turned and surveyed the layout of the bar and the dining area. He pointed to a table in a far corner. “Perhaps that one,” he said, indicating. “That will allow me to sit with my back to the wall, watch the bar and the door, and any other activity in the room.”
“Good choice, sir,” Edward said.
Cochrane returned to the table that he shared that evening with Laura and Caroline. He settled back into his chair. “Your barkeeper friend seemed rather animated,” Laura said, having missed little. “What was that all about?”
“I had a visitor.”
“Uh oh. Who?”
“Irv Goff,” Cochrane said.
Laura nearly choked. She set down her glass. Irv Goff and her husband had been part of a dicey operation in Berlin in 1943 to extricate a person of interest from that city well in advance of the inevitable fall of the city to the Red Army.
“Who’s Irv Goff?” Caroline asked.
“An old friend,” Cochrane said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“‘Old friend’? Ha!” said Laura. “Nothing to worry about, ha again!”
The barmaid was passing. Laura flagged her down and ordered another scotch, this one a double.