Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences

by Frederic Martini

  Fred later recalled little about the troop ship voyage other than the fact that it was a rough Atlantic crossing, and since he was totally immune to seasickness (one of the lucky few on the voyage) the galley was his to command. For 11 days, he spent extended mealtimes in the mess area, with the cooks happy to give him as many eggs or steaks or scoops of ice cream as he desired. By the end of the voyage, his stomach had stretched to near normal proportions, although he was still much skinnier than normal. It would take another three months for Fred to regain his normal weight.

  Troop ships arriving in New York City docked at midday, and arriving RAMPs were given a hero’s welcome. But when the ship delivering Fred, Ed Ritter, and several other Buchenwald airmen to Boston reached port at 2200 on 11 June 1945, the docks were deserted. The RAMPs left the ship in darkness, and scattered as their orders directed. Fred’s orders were to go to the train station and take the first available train to the Army Processing Center in Dover, Delaware, a distance of roughly 375 miles. Fred boarded the train in the wee hours and arrived in Dover on 12 June 1945, one year to the day after the downing of Crashwagon III. After he was logged in and provided with new uniforms — Fred was surprised to find he had been promoted to tech sergeant — he was handed a 60-day pass. At the end of that liberty period, he was to report to the Army Separation Center in Newark, New Jersey, for further instructions.

  As soon as he got his pass, Fred went to the phone and called Lucille to say that he was OK, in the States, and heading for Brooklyn. It was a very animated conversation. In the early evening, Fred, his new duffel bag slung over his shoulder, headed back to the train station for the ride home to New York City.

  Lucille already knew Fred was coming home. But the first official communication Lucille had received about Fred’s fate caused his family more worry, rather than less. On 15 May 1945, Lucille received a letter from the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot, Army Effects Bureau. It said:

  Dear Mrs. Virgilio:

  Thank you for the information furnished to the Army Effects Bureau, to enable disposition of personal effects belonging to your brother, Staff Sgt. Frederic Martini. I am returning the letter which you submitted.

  I am enclosing a money order for $50 payable to you, which was received with his effects, and a check for $40.50, representing funds belonging to him. The remainder of the property is being forwarded in one carton and should reach you in the near future

  My action in transmitting the property does not of itself, vest title in you. The items are forwarded only in order that you may act as gratuitous bailee in caring for them, pending the return of the owner.

  When delivery has been made, I shall appreciate your acknowledging receipt by signing one copy of this letter in the space provided below and returning it to this Bureau.

  For your convenience there is enclosed an addressed envelope which needs no postage.

  Lucille had Fred’s belongings, but where was Fred? If they had sent his belongings, did that mean he was dead or that he was coming too? She wished the letter had contained more specifics. Then on 24 May, she received Fred’s terse telegram, and things suddenly looked a lot brighter. Lucille quickly spread the word to the family that Fred was coming home. Her first official confirmation that Fred was returning from the ETO was a terse telegram from J. A. Ulio, the Adjutant General. Sent on 30 May, it told her that Fred had been liberated on 29 April 1945.

  She also received a letter from Sam Pennell’s mother, dated 3 June, which said that Sam had called home from New York, and she wondered if Lucille had heard from Fred. Sam had been shipped out on a troop transport while Fred was hunting traitors in Normandy, and as a result, he had arrived more than a week before Fred. Then on 7 June, another telegram arrived saying that Fred would be returned to the US “in the near future,” and that he would be in touch on arrival.

  When Fred arrived in Brooklyn at long last, he moved into a spare bedroom in the house with Lucille, Eddie, and their sons, Edward Jr. and Frederic. He was, in their view, different from the Fred they had known before the war. Some of the differences were physical — he walked gingerly and didn’t like to stand for very long. There was also the matter of the chunk missing from his ear and the bulk missing from his frame.

  But the big changes were in his personality. He was certainly glad to be home and happy to talk with everyone, and he enjoyed playing with the kids. But he was jumpy and nervous, and at times they found him staring off into space with a bleak expression on his face. When asked about his time overseas, he told a few jokes about events in England, and mentioned the Raulins and his other friends in France, but those stories were relatively brief, and he didn’t want to talk about his time as a POW, other than to say it was OK and that he had survived.

  Ed and Lucille were sure that there was more to the story. At night, they were frequently awakened by the groans and cries from his room, and they suspected that the nightmares were related to his POW period. But they figured they would wait him out, hoping that he would eventually provide the details. For the time being, they were simply happy to have him back and in one piece.

  For the first couple of weeks, Fred stayed in his room most of the day, emerging for meals or when visitors came calling. He was having some trouble adapting to life as an American civilian. He found he couldn’t bear to tell them what had happened to him. If they believed him, they would be horrified, and they would want to do something for him, although there was nothing to be done. He wasn’t sure he wanted to expose them to the realities of Nazi Germany. How could they deal with that information, from a vantage point so far removed both physically and culturally? And if they didn’t believe him, he wasn’t sure he could deal with being “Crazy Uncle Fred.” Besides, he wasn’t totally clear about what he could or couldn’t talk about after signing that Security Agreement.

  In mid-June, Loren Jackson called Lucille to let Fred know that he and Alice would be coming through New York the following week on their way back to Arizona. Fred’s sister Betty was available, so the two of them met the Jacksons in town, did tourist things together, and had a great dinner in the city. It was just a little awkward, because Loren’s perspective and experiences as a POW were so very different from Fred’s, even though both had been in Stalag Luft III and Stalag VIIA. Loren told Fred that he would be staying in the Air Corps and making it a career, while Fred wanted nothing more than to forget the Army and the war as quickly as possible.

  Lucille had stored Fred’s belongings from Great Ashfield in a footlocker in the guest room closet. In late June, Fred worked up the energy to face the memories, and he opened it up and went through the contents. It contained Army issue clothing, including his monogrammed leather bomber jacket, plus toiletries, souvenirs from London, and personnel files and papers he had accumulated while at the 385th BG. There was also a large packet of mail that Lucille had tossed into the locker for him. All of the letters were bound together by a ribbon, and they all had stamps indicating NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS. His eyes were wet; here was all of the mail he had longed for. Untying the ribbon, he laid the letters on the bed, sorting them into chronological order before carefully reading them. This was a great way to catch up on the year he’d lost.

  Among those letters from Lucille and Liz, he found one with a return address he didn’t recognize. The name was vaguely familiar — Betty Hover — and typed rather than handwritten. It said:

  Dear Fred,

  I’m starting this letter off with no idea in mind but the desire to write to you. I must have started it a couple of dozen times, but each time I got stuck for something to say. I know Betty must’ve told you all the family news that you’re interested in, and I certainly can’t add to her extensive knowledge. All I know is, you’re pretty far from home and I want to write to you, so here I am. Just to enlighten your memory, which can’t be very clear on the subject, I’m the character known as “Boop” to your loving sister and associates — I know all her friends think that’s really my name and at t
his late date I’ve finally given up trying to explain that I wasn’t really christened “Boop” and/or it isn’t my last name either. It’s a little weird, but after a while you get used to it. You may remember vaguely meeting me in Florida that year we all spent the winter there. I remember those palm trees with love and longing up here where the snow’s becoming deeper with each passing week. I know your remembrance of me must be shadowy — if I remember correctly, you were pretty well occupied with Murphy at the time. However, after living with your sister so long, being stared at by your picture on the dresser every morning and night, and listening to the tales about your early life with which I am regaled every so often by Betty & Lucille, I feel as if I knew you almost as well as they do. Do you mind very much? We’ve been having lots of snow this winter, much more than I remember in a long time (I’m from New Jersey, so I should know what to expect). The other night when it snowed like mad, Betty and I walked from 50 St. to 70 St., back to 66 St. and around the block again, with the powdery snow sifting happily around our ankles. It’s a wonder we didn’t get pneumonia, especially Betty, who didn’t even have rubbers on. We seem to live rather a charmed life; neither of us gets sick from doing things that make other people violently ill; even the bags which should certainly be under our eyes are mysteriously missing. We can’t understand it, but we don’t question it. No doubt it will catch up with us soon enough. Hope you are feeling well and that we’ll be hearing from you soon. I’ll write again if you can stand it. Best of luck, Betty (“Boop”)

  The letter had been sent overseas to Stalag Luft III on 28 January 1945. It was amazing that the letter had been returned. Lucille had probably been visiting their apartment when it came back, and she had kept it for him, hoping that he would someday be able to read it. When he went to bed that night, he found himself thinking about that letter a lot. There was something about it that appealed to him. He knew “Boop” was still rooming with his sister. Maybe once he felt a bit better he would look her up and thank her for writing. It was the least he could do. That night his dreams were free of nightmares.

  130 Lt. Loren Jackson, Fred’s pilot, was one of them. He went to a 3rd Army kitchen and collected sacks of food that they dragged back into SL VIIA.

  131 The tent cities were called cigarette camps, and named after the tobacco companies that shipped free cigarettes to US military personnel.

  132 The security policies were pretty slack, as nobody thought the French posed a threat. The main problem was discouraging the young girls who were flocking to the cigarette camps in search of parties and easy money.

  133 He was ultimately betrayed by his wife in 1949 and executed by firing squad. His last words were “Heil Hitler.”

  134 There is no record of the name of the ship. For unknown reasons, in 1952, the US government ordered the destruction of all passenger lists and troop transport records from WWII and the period immediately following the end of the war.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Spoils of Victory

  THE MITTELWERK

  AS THE WAR WOUND TO a close, Major Hamill was following LtC. Toftoy’s orders, busily crating up the components for 100 V-2 rockets on flatcars for delivery to Antwerp and shipment to the US. It was a labor-intensive process, but the work was done by former slave laborers who were, for a change, treated well and paid decent wages.

  Hamill had still been unable to find any documents, schematics, or instruction manuals, so he tried to take everything rather than take a chance at leaving behind some critical widget. On 22 May 1945, trains began leaving for Antwerp. More followed each day, with the last departing on 31 May, only hours before Mittelwerk and the surrounding area was turned over to the Soviets. The accumulated rocket bodies, engines, and other components were soon on their way to White Sands Proving Grounds, near the Army base at Ft. Bliss, Texas.

  Major Staver had left Major Hamill to deal with the packing and shipping of V-2 components so that he could focus on tracking down members of the Nazi brain trust hiding in the Nordhausen area. On 12 May, he located Karl Otto Fleischer, who had not been taken to Oberammergau. Fleischer, who may have felt slighted by his exclusion from the party, agreed to help Staver find others in the area. He led the US team to Eberhard Rees, another engineer, and Rees in turn led them to Walter Reidel, who was high on LtC. Toftoy’s shopping list. Reidel was actually glad to be located, as he was already in Army custody. Mistaken for a scientist working on biological weapons, interrogators had beaten him severely and knocked out several teeth.

  Major Staver was frustrated by the inability of interrogators at Garmisch-Partenkirchen to get anyone to talk about where he could find technical documents concerning the V-2 program. Like those interrogators, Staver felt certain that the Germans were holding out on him. So he started pressuring the lower-level staff to see what they knew, telling them that Wernher wanted them to tell him where the paperwork had been taken. After several failed attempts and some false comraderie, Major Staver convinced Karl Fleischer that he was telling the truth about von Braun authorizing the release of information. On 19 May, Fleischer finally admitted that he had heard from Tessmann and Huzel about the documents being placed in an abandoned mine in the Harz Mountains, although he didn’t know the precise location.

  On hearing this, Major Staver took off like a rocket and began searching the entire area with a contingent of troops. He was eventually able to locate the mine, clear the passageway, and load the crates into waiting trucks. The trucks then raced for the American zone, arriving just as the British formally took over jurisdiction and control of the area on 26 May. (Although the British were Allies of the Americans, the British and the French were both trying to get their hands on advanced German military technology, and the US was afraid that the information they obtained would not be freely shared.) The intelligence coup was nearly as important as the rockets themselves, for the documents established the theoretical basis for the design, the design modifications done over time, and the plans for future enhancements. There was no particular reason to mention the recovery to the German rocket team, but it confirmed the fact that the “volunteers for America” were keeping secrets and withholding information, despite their protestations to the contrary.

  GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY

  Well before the war ended, the intelligence arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Intelligence Committee, had established a subcommittee called the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency. The JIOA was similar to the CIOS, but it was restricted to military intelligence personnel — the OSS, FBI, and British intelligence services were excluded. The JIOA had developed plans to bring key Nazi scientists to the US where they could be supervised while they revealed their secrets. LtC. Toftoy advised the JIOA on missile and rocket technology, and made lists of candidates for importation. Army Intelligence (G-2, Exploitation Branch) was responsible for monitoring and maintaining security.

  Less than two weeks after Germany surrendered, LtC. Toftoy smuggled the first of the German scientists on his wish list, Dr. Herbert Wagner, into the US. Wagner had developed radio-controlled guided missiles that the Army felt had great potential for use against Japan. There was no way to bring him in legally — he was a committed Nazi and a member of the SA (a bona fide “storm trooper”) — so the Department of State wasn’t notified, no visa was requested, and Wagner was flown in aboard a cargo plane with blacked-out windows.

  Toftoy had similar plans for von Braun’s rocket team, but the situation was complicated by the fact that it involved a team rather than a single individual. Von Braun and Dornberger were obviously key members of that team, but the rockets were so complicated that many specialist engineers were required for successful production. They needed a better idea of the workings of the team before they could decide who to take, but as the daily round of interviews continued, it was apparent that no one was willing to provide the necessary information. Days turned into weeks without a breakthrough. Each of the members of the rocket team was interrogated separa
tely and at length by intelligence officers from multiple agencies. It was slow, boring, and repetitious. The questioning yielded glimmerings and bits of technical information, but no major breakthroughs. The Germans didn’t want to reveal too much until they knew what kind of a deal they would get.

  After an interrogation on 10 May, Wernher felt that things weren’t moving along as quickly as he would like. So he shifted into salesman mode, and on 15 May he presented a detailed memo to CIOS interrogators that touted a glorious future in which rockets developed from the V-2 would revolutionize civilian life as well as warfare. He described supersonic rocket-powered airliners, rocket-based surveillance programs, and space stations. Wernher’s propaganda treatise had its intended effect, and serious discussions got underway to bring him and his associates to the US. It did nothing to reduce the frequency of interrogations, though, and in fact it may have increased them. He was questioned repeatedly through the rest of May and early June. He probably didn’t mind, now that he was again being treated as a prime catch and an honored guest rather than as a suspect SS-major. The setting was grand, the hotel facilities superb, and Wernher and Dornberger put up with their daily interrogation sessions and spent the rest of the day enjoying the hotel services.

  On 12 June, Lt. Walter Jessel, an American intelligence officer, reported that Dornberger had expected that the group would quickly be transferred to the US, and when they weren’t he had told everyone to hold back information and say as little as possible until a deal was made. The rest of the report gave a rather negative view of the group as a whole. Arthur Rudolph was considered a Nazi fanatic (“100% Nazi, dangerous type. . . . Suggest internment”), and the others were loyal Nazis dedicated to the Hitler regime and to winning the war.