by Noel Hynd
“My own opinion is that Soviet aggression needs to stop here and now,” Cochrane began. “Berlin is the flash point, but the airlift is working, as are the countermeasures the current administration has taken. The Russians can’t get replacement parts for their factories. We counter-embargoed them. We’re hurting them. Or more accurately, their own belligerent policy is hurting them. From what I see in the independent world press, they’re taking a beating in worldwide public opinion. Everyone here at Tempelhof is working his or her backside off. Look at the attention Lt. Halvorsen gained for this entire unit and, for that matter, for our country. In terms of public relations, we’re winning this. And most Berliners want us to stay.”
“What if they shoot down one of our planes?” Forrestal asked.
“They won’t do it,” Cochrane said.
“What if they shoot down one of our planes?” Forrestal repeated.
“They would have done it by now, Jim, if they were going to do it.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“We’d then be obliged to shoot down one of theirs. But I don’t think they’d do that.”
“Based on what?” Forrestal demanded.
“Based on the strategic bombers we have in England,” said the spy. “Based on the fact that we have the big bomb, and they don’t. Yet. Based on the fact that their radar set-ups have lapses in eastern Europe. Some of our planes have flown off course into the Soviet Zone across the Baltic Sea, almost to Finland, and they don’t even get buzzed. Our long range bombers could hit Moscow and Stalin knows it. If they were going to shoot down one of our planes, they would have done it by now.”
Forrestal looked to General Clay. Clay looked back.
Cochrane, seeking to lighten the conversation but still punctuate his thoughts properly, continued. “The Russians also think General LeMay is a madman. They may be right. But he’s our madman and, for better or worse, they know what he did to the Japanese.”
Forrestal, Cochrane knew, had studied the intellectual underpinnings of the Russian Revolution. He was convinced that the Soviets were driven by an ideology to attempt world domination. Now he was hearing what Cochrane believed and what he wanted to hear.
Silence held the room.
Forrestal grimaced, Cochrane’s words sinking in. He turned to Clay.
“General,” he asked, “is there anything ‘Major Lewis’ here is saying that you take exception to?”
Clay shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing.”
“We’re all on the same page here then?”
“We are,” Clay responded.
Forrestal looked back to Bill Cochrane. “What would you say to Americans who feel that Berlin is none of our business and we should walk away from the city?”
“I would say that we are doing something heroic here and I’m proud to be part of it.”
Forrestal considered it for a moment. “May I tell President Truman exactly what you said?”
“Absolutely,” Cochrane said. “Please! I hope you do.”
“Then we’re finished here, Bill,” Forrestal said. “Unless there’s something else.”
“There is one thing,” Cochrane said.
Clay and Forrestal waited.
“My original mission here, to extract a wartime partner and bring her to England, has become more complicated. May I ask our intelligence chief here for what I need?”
“You’re not going to go overboard, are you, Bill?” Forrestal asked.
“Not if I can help it. Should I detail what I have in mind?”
“Give me a hint,” Forrestal said.
“I may need to bring more than one person out. And one might be an abduction. A friendly one, but an abduction, nonetheless.”
Forrestal shrugged.
“Want to know more?” Cochrane asked.
“No. Use your good judgment. You always do. If I don’t know what you’re doing, I can honestly deny knowing about it.”
“True enough,” said Cochrane.
“Arrange it through Major Pickford,” Forrestal said. “He’s the intelligence chief here, right? If Bob Pickford is good with it, I am also.”
General Clay stayed clear of it though the secretary of defense glanced his way. Forrestal’s dark hard eyes came back to Cochrane.
“Don’t kill more than a dozen Russian Communists, Bill,” Forrestal said facetiously. “I’ve had my fill of congressional hearings.”
“I’ll try to contain myself,” Cochrane said.
“Good luck,” said the secretary of defense.
“You, too, Jim,” Cochrane answered.
Cochrane stood. He shook hands with Forrestal and departed.
Chapter 67
Berlin - August 1948
Cochrane, Kern, and Roth returned to the Club Weimar on the next night it was open, the following Thursday. Kern again stayed with the Opel while Roth made himself useful as a lookout in the bar. Cochrane had no trouble finding Bettina. She was at her usual perch one flight above the floor of the club, watching, watching, watching; something she did so well.
Cochrane settled into the empty chair next to her as she eyed the stage, the management, and the ledgers.
“You’re back again?” she said to him. “I’m honored.”
“So am I,” Cochrane said.
“What’s on your mind this time?” she asked.
“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said.
“Really? Then you should take it,” Bettina said.
On the stage was a lewd male clown, surrounded by two German girls in nothing but high black stockings. They were making jokes about a swastika that the girl had painted on her left buttock. Bettina was not amused and neither was Cochrane. But the Russians in the audience thought it was hilarious.
“It’s not my opportunity, it’s yours,” he said.
“Do tell,” she said. She smiled and sipped a brandy.
“I ignored what you said to me as a warning about that Russian down there,” he said, indicating Kovalyov. “I didn’t come to Berlin to be intimidated by a thug or not get my job done.”
“Continue to tell,” she said.
“Horst Schmid was taken by the Russians to help administer a factory in the northeast of the Russian Sector,” Cochrane said. “I’ve seen the deportation records. He was seized in late 1946. It’s a forced-labor camp.”
He watched her smile disappear into something more somber and fearful.
“The people I work with have sources in that camp,” he continued. “From what we know, Herr Schmid is alive. His health, his condition, we cannot be sure of. The people I work with also have what we call a ‘remote unit.’ They are men from Southeastern Europe. These are people who can find a person of interest to us and bring them to us. Safely.”
She picked up the brandy again. She drained the glass.
“My God,” she said. Her hand trembled as she sat down the glass.
“My superiors across the sea feel they owe you something. Or that your knowledge and memory may prove valuable in the future. I don’t know. They don’t tell me. I don’t ask. Secrets are best kept when fewer people know.”
He paused, almost tired of listening to himself, even though his voice was low and barely audible above the laughter, the female squeals on stage from the girlie show, and the hokey music from an off-stage piano.
“In any case,” Cochrane said, “if you give the word, I will pass the word along. The laborers are kept in a guarded barracks, but they are on grounds that can be penetrated. A remote team can go in and abduct Herr Schmid and bring him to Berlin. If that happens, you and he must agree to leave immediately. The same day perhaps. The same hour that you are reunited. You may never see Germany again. Same for Horst. That may be for the better, of course. Just look around. Soviet Communism is here and is not going away anytime soon.”
She folded one hand into another and turned fully to face him.
“What do you want me to do or say?” she asked.
“I want you
to agree, to say yes,” Cochrane said. “Be ready to travel. Have a small bag packed and have it here at the club. The next time you see me, which could be as soon as two days from now, we will either have failed to rescue him or you’ll need to travel immediately.”
Bettina didn’t answer.
“Is it a yes?” he asked.
“I have no papers for travel. The Russians took them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. Then, with a wry smile, he added. “We have our own airplanes.”
She said nothing. A distant look crossed her face. Slowly, she reached down to a bag she kept under the table. Her hand came up with a second brandy glass, then with a small bottle. She poured a drink for both of them.
“It’s yes,” she said. “Of course, it is. Just don’t get him killed. A heart can break only so often until the spirit breaks with it.”
They drank together. Then Cochrane stood, gave Roth a look to indicate his business was finished for the night. Then they were out the door.
Chapter 68
Berlin - August 1948
Dale Halverson kept dropping candy. But now he had an audience. Crowds at the landing field in Berlin had become so large waiting for Pilot Wobbly Wings that other pilots now jettisoned gentle parachutes of Butterfingers and Hershey Bars as they approached Tempelhof. The Little Lift expanded. Pilots made drops at hospitals, schools, churches, and playing fields, if not by low flying aircraft, then by Jeep. They dropped some for the children of East Berlin, too, till the Soviets howled in protest.
The howls didn’t do much good. Halverson the Candy Bomber was suddenly an international hero, making the Americans and British look humane and generous and the Russians look cold and treacherous, an image which wasn’t far from the truth.
The army gave Halvorson a small staff to deal with his mail and the press. Eventually, the army brought him back to the United States for two weeks of interviews on radio and in the large-circulation newspapers. Other forces were at work, also. The American CARE relief organization engaged aviators to drop one hundred balloons in the shape of a “Shmoo”, a popular and upbeat American cartoon character. The balloon captivated the kids but it was also redeemable at CARE headquarters in Berlin for a package of food and kitchen supplies.
Berliners sent letters to base commanders or had cockpit crews slip them onto airplanes where flight crews could read them. Some Berliners fashioned toys out of scrap metal for pilots to send home to their own children. Above all, they thanked the men and women of The Big Lift for bringing hope down from the sky and past the ring of military forces that surrounded them.
Things had changed. Tommy Olson and Glenn Taylor returned one evening to the restaurant where several Berliners had rudely walked out when they had first ventured in wearing their pilots’ uniforms with American flags on their shoulders. Olson and Taylor took their place at a table. They noticed that they were surrounded by many of the same people.
The men at the nearest table recognized the Americans. There was a brief discussion, punctuated by sidelong glances at Olson and Taylor. The foursome slowly got to their feet, conferred with other diners, and the others rose to their feet with them.
“We’ve been recognized,” Taylor said, looking back to Olson.
“Sure enough,” Tommy said. “I guess they’re going to heave us out in person.”
“Just let them try,” Taylor said.
“If you’re not going anywhere, Glenn, I’m not either.”
A waiter appeared and placed menus before them. By this time the diners, most of them, had reassembled at the bar. The man behind the bar busily filled several steins of beer. Moments later, a waitress, pushing through the crowd, made her way to the table where the Americans sat. She placed two steins on their table.
“Compliments of your new friends,” she said and quickly withdrew.
Olson and Taylor, as confused as they had been previously, looked to the bar where their adversaries had turned into admiring friends, lifting their steins in a salute, and then singing something that vaguely sounded like The Star Spangled Banner, or at least a stanza of a pleasantly corrupted version of it.
The point was clear, however. The Americans had transitioned from foreign conquerors to accepted friends.
Chapter 69
Berlin – August 1949
Orphaned children have special needs and special fears. Orphaned adults, the sole remaining members of families, react in a similar way. They react differently to strangers, sometimes with greater fear, sometimes with easier acceptance, and this affects their ability to forge new relationships. So it was with Anna.
The man who appeared at the Club Weimar and showed a special interest in her was a German, tall and good-looking. He said his name was Peter and she could call him that. He had served in the war and did not come across as a brute or a Nazi. But he did have a certain strength, mental and physical. Anna sensed that right away.
And he had money. Money from somewhere. Reichsmarks. Deutschmarks. Best of all, a fistful of hard Western currency: American dollars. At a place where so much malfeasance went on like the Club Weimar, that personal power and the handfuls of cash amounted to something special.
Peter approached her before her Thursday show. They talked at the bar. They both kept an eye on Kovalyov down on the lower level with his klatch of goons. They kept another eye on Ilse where she sat watching everything from her perch on the top right corridor.
The new man monopolized her and drove other men away. He protectively hung around her until she went on stage, then was there for her when she came off stage after the show. He had brought along a small box which he handed her at the end of the evening.
The box contained food, she found out when she went home and opened it. Dehydrated milk, some dried fruit, bread. Two American chocolate bars. The chocolates were the same type that the American pilot was dropping. The bad side of her wondered if Peter had stolen them from children or muscled them away from kids as the candies fell in their little handkerchief parachutes.
But she didn’t ask. The candies brought a smile to her face. That was unusual. She was not, till now, a woman who smiled a lot. Tragedy and brutality had done that to her.
Peter returned on Friday and stood with her again in the bar. A Russian came over and tried to pull her away. She resisted and Peter moved quickly between them. Rebuffed, the Russian became vulgar and insulting as the Russians in the club often did. The troublemaker wasn’t a soldier, he was a black-market hood. When the Russian made a vulgar remark in Russian about her body and how he wanted to abuse it, Peter switched forcefully into Russian, pushed him, and told the intruder to apologize and shut up.
The Russian retaliated by sneering, making an offensive remark about how the Hitler-worshippers had lost the war, accentuating the insult in Russian by grabbing Anna’s left breast and squeezing it.
With controlled fury, Peter picked the Russian several inches off his feet, moved him five feet through the air, and slammed him against the side of the bar. The shove brought the coccyx and lower part of the Russian’s back against the steel edge of the bar. The Russian’s face exploded in pain, and that was before the German brought his knee up into the man’s testicles, and it exploded in even more pain.
Peter could have broken the man’s nose, jaw, and skull with his powerful fists, but he didn’t. Instead, he picked him up and sent him sprawling back to his group of friends. Peter showed a certain mercy or was leaving something in reserve. Anna didn’t know which, but she liked what she was seeing. Two of the other Russians made initial gestures to come after Peter but Peter glared them down. The Russians wanted no part of him. On the floor, Peter’s victim gagged and nursed his wounds, physical and mental.
Peter stayed with Anna again till she was on stage and then off stage. He asked for nothing except permission to call her by her name. She would have given him much more, she would have gone to bed with him, but he didn’t seek it. He stayed till closing time and made sure she returne
d safely to the one-room bunking quarters she shared with seven other women in an adjoining building.
Peter appeared on Saturday, too. He dared to come in alone. Other men glared at him, but no one wished to engage. Rumor was that he carried a gun, but no one wished to find out. At one point, someone, a mischievous Pole, ratted him out to Kovalyov’s security people, but no one wished to engage with the dangerous German. By the end of Saturday evening, the other men steered clear. In three nights he had staked out his turf and his special interest.
Anna finally summoned the nerve to pose a question.
“How do you know how to speak Russian?” she asked.
“I was a prisoner of war in an NKVD camp.”
“Where?”
“On the Eastern Front. Near Silesia.”
“Have you heard of a town named Demmin?” she asked. “In Pomerania.”
“I’ve heard of it,” he paused. “I know what happened there.”
“That’s where I’m from. My family was murdered.”
“So you’re alone?” he asked.
“I’m alone.”
“Not anymore,” Peter said. He touched her hand.
When the club closed on Saturday, he remained there to watch over her, as he had the previous evenings. He had become her protector. Then Peter had a final surprise. He invited her outside.
He did not stray too far away from her but at one point took several steps away and went to a battered, two-door Opel that was parked against the curb. He went to it and opened the door on the passenger’s side.
Seeing the handsome man smile at her and hold the door open, she accepted his invitation and climbed in.
Heinrich Peter Roth had American dollars and plenty of them, so it was not difficult for him to rent a clean room in a respectable, small hotel in the American Sector. Anna went with him and spent the night there.
They slept together. He left early to work as a cargo handler, but she was still there when he returned late in the day. They had dinner together and she stayed for another night. They talked about the war and the many things they discovered that they had in common. He did not speak easily of the time he had spent in a prisoner of war camp but when he spoke to Anna, it came pouring out. Similarly, she felt comfortable enough with him to talk about Demmin, what had happened there, how her family had been murdered, and how the man most responsible had turned from being an ex-soldier into a gangster and ran the black markets and the clubs.