“But what was this waste of time those Krauts were working on?” he asked.
As she began her explanation, they were wandering among some abandoned German aircraft still on the Eschborn ramp. When she first used the term atomic weapon, they were standing next to a derelict jet: an ME-262, just like the one he’d shot down on that final mission with Vukonikov.
Then she described what an atomic weapon was capable of doing.
“Holy shit,” he said. “That’s got to be the real super weapon that’s got everybody scared shitless. You should hear Sean talk about the stuff they came up against—jets like this one, super guns, super tanks. But they don’t hold a candle to this. A bomb that could wipe out a whole city. Holy shit…”
“Remember, Tommy, this is all top secret. You can’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry, Syl. I know the drill.”
“Good,” she replied. “But the thing I wonder most about is how your Americans were so confident the Boche atomic data was no good, how they couldn’t make a working bomb from it. How would they know that, unless they already have one that works?”
“I see your point,” he said.
They walked farther along the ramp. Now they were among American ships.
“I’m sorry you lost your airplane, Tommy.”
“I didn’t lose it, Syl. It was stolen from me.”
“Be thankful that’s all that was stolen from you,” she replied.
The way she said stolen—it seemed so personal, as if she’d been wounded so deeply by something unknown to him, something far worse than the loss of a mere machine.
When he asked what was on her mind, she told him of her banishment from French 1st Army Headquarters. There was no shame in her voice, no regret, just the bottomless disappointment of a woman who had given everything to a country which no longer had any regard for her sacrifice.
Now Tommy understood that her comment about leaving France and coming to the States wasn’t the liquor talking. It was her broken heart.
He told himself, But there has to be a way to fix this.
So he tried.
“What about your uncle?” he asked. “Didn’t he get you into Affaires Civiles in the first place?”
She just shook her head. “He was the first to show me the door, Tommy.”
“But with all your ties to the maquis…surely there’s someone.”
Sylvie didn’t bother shaking her head this time. “The maquis doesn’t exist, Tommy. To de Gaulle, it never existed.”
He had an idea. “I know,” he said. “Why don’t we try to get you a job here with us Americans? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She looked decidedly unimpressed. Her voice cold and sarcastic, she replied, “You mean as a secretary or translator? Or maybe I can join your Red Cross and serve donuts to your pilots. How exciting that would be.”
“So what do you want to do? Will you go back to France now?”
She just shrugged.
He felt helpless. A few hours ago, when he was with Sean, everything had seemed so clear. He knew what he had to do, and he’d assumed Sylvie would be there, somehow. But the world had shifted beneath her feet. She was on the outside looking in now, a woman whose wartime deeds could put most soldiers to shame, yet a woman no one wanted.
Except him.
“Dammit, Syl…tell me what I can do,” he said.
“You can start by not asking so many questions, Tommy.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around him as they started walking again, weaving their way through the flying war machines being armed and fueled for their next mission.
* * * * *
About The Author
William Peter Grasso’s novels explore the concept change one thing…and watch what happens. Focusing on the WW2 era, they weave actual people and historical events into a seamless and entertaining narrative with the imagined. His books have spent several years in the Amazon Top 100 for Alternative History and War.
A lifelong student of history, Grasso served in the US Army and is retired from the aircraft maintenance industry. These days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying radio-controlled aircraft.
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More Novels by William Peter Grasso
Fortress Falling
A Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure
Book 2
France, October 1944: Fort Driant may be a 19th century anachronism, but it proves itself an impregnable obstacle to Patton's forces as they fight to seize the city of Metz, a gateway to Germany. Another fortress—a Flying Fortress—may be the key to the fall of Fort Driant. The Moon brothers are in the thick of the battle as Tommy volunteers for Operation Aphrodite, a gambit that turns unmanned heavy bombers into radio-controlled flying bombs of enormous power. But as zero hour for Aphrodite approaches, his brother Sean is trapped in the tunnels of Fort Driant, with the Germans just inches away behind armored doors. It's a race against time for the GIs to take Driant—or escape before the Flying Fortress falls.
Moon Above, Moon Below
A Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure
Book 1
France, August 1944. In this alternate history WW2 adventure, American and British forces struggle to trap and destroy the still-potent German armies defending Normandy. But the Allies face another formidable obstacle of their own making: a seething rivalry between generals leads to a high-level disregard for orders that puts the entire campaign in the Falaise Pocket at risk of devastating failure—or spectacular success. That campaign unfolds through the eyes of two American brothers—one an idealistic pilot, the other a fatalistic tanker—as they plunge headlong into the confusion and indiscriminant slaughter of war.
Operation Fishwrapper
Book 5
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
June 1944: A recon flight is shot down over the Japanese-held island of Biak, soon to be the next jump in MacArthur’s leapfrogging across New Guinea. Major Jock Miles, US Army—the crashed plane’s intelligence officer—must lead the handful of survivors to safety. It’s a tall order for a man barely recovered from a near-crippling leg wound. Gaining the grudging help of a Dutch planter who has evaded the Japanese since the war began, Jock discovers just how little MacArthur’s staff knows about the terrain and defenses of the island they’re about to invade.
The American invasion of Biak promptly bogs down, and the GIs rename the debacle Operation Fishwrapper, a joking reference to their worthless maps. The infantry battalion Jock once led quickly suffers the back-to-back deaths of two commanders, so he steps into the job once again, ignoring the growing difficulties with his leg. When his Aussie wife Jillian tracks down the refugee mapmaker who can refine those fishwrappers into something of military value, the tide of battle finally turns in favor of the Americans. But for Jock, the victory imparts a life-changing blow.
Operation Blind Spot
Book 4
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
After surviving a deadly plane crash, Jock Miles is handed a new mission: neutralize a mountaintop observation post on Japanese-held Manus Island so MacArthur’s invasion fleet en route to Hollandia, New Guinea, can arrive undetected. Jock’s team seizes and holds the observation post with the help of a clever deception. But when they learn of a POW camp deep in the island’s treacherous jungle, it opens old wounds for Jock and his men: the disappearance—and presumed death—of Jillian Forbes at Buna a year before. There’s only one risky way to find out if she’s a prisoner there…and doing so puts their entire mission in serious jeopardy.
Operation Easy Street
Book 3
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Port Moresby was bad. Buna was worse.
The WW2 alternative history adve
nture of Jock Miles continues as MacArthur orders American and Australian forces to seize Buna in Papua New Guinea. Once again, the Allied high command underestimates the Japanese defenders, plunging Jock and his men into a battle they’re not equipped to win. Worse, jungle diseases, treacherous terrain, and the tactical fantasies of deluded generals become adversaries every bit as deadly as the Japanese. Sick, exhausted, and outgunned, Jock’s battalion is ordered to spearhead an amphibious assault against the well-entrenched enemy. It’s a suicide mission—but with ingenious help from an unexpected source, there might be a way to avoid the certain slaughter and take Buna. For Jock, though, victory comes at a dreadful price.
Operation Long Jump
Book 2
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Alternative history takes center stage as Operation Long Jump, the second book in the Jock Miles World War 2 adventure series, plunges us into the horrors of combat in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. As a prelude to the Allied invasion, Jock Miles and his men seize the Japanese observation post on the mountain overlooking Port Moresby. The main invasion that follows quickly degenerates to a bloody stalemate, as the inexperienced, demoralized, and poorly led GIs struggle against the stubborn enemy.
Seeking a way to crack the impenetrable Japanese defenses, infantry officer Jock finds himself in a new role—aerial observer. He’s teamed with rookie pilot John Worth, in a prequel to his role as hero of Grasso’s East Wind Returns. Together, they struggle to expose the Japanese defenses—while highly exposed themselves—in their slow and vulnerable spotter plane. The enemy is not the only thing troubling Jock: his Australian lover, Jillian Forbes, has found a new and dangerous way to contribute to the war effort.
Long Walk to the Sun
Book 1
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
In this alternate history adventure set in WW2’s early days, a crippled US military struggles to defend vulnerable Australia against the unstoppable Japanese forces. When a Japanese regiment lands on Australia’s desolate and undefended Cape York Peninsula, Jock Miles, a US Army captain disgraced despite heroic actions at Pearl Harbor, is ordered to locate the enemy’s elusive command post.
Conceived in politics rather than sound tactics, the futile mission is a “show of faith” by the American war leaders meant to do little more than bolster their flagging Australian ally. For Jock Miles and the men of his patrol, it’s a death sentence: their enemy is superior in men, material, firepower, and combat experience. Even if the Japanese don’t kill them, the vast distances they must cover on foot in the treacherous natural realm of Cape York just might. When Jock joins forces with Jillian Forbes, an indomitable woman with her own checkered past who refused to evacuate in the face of the Japanese threat, the dim prospects of the Allied war effort begin to brighten in surprising ways.
Unpunished
Congressman. Presidential candidate. Murderer. Leonard Pilcher is all of these things.
As an American pilot interned in Sweden during WWII, he kills one of his own crewmen and gets away with it. Two people have witnessed the murder—American airman Joe Gelardi and his secret Swedish lover, Pola Nilsson-MacLeish—but they cannot speak out without paying a devastating price. Tormented by their guilt and separated by a vast ocean after the war, Joe and Pola maintain the silence that haunts them both...until 1960, when Congressman Pilcher’s campaign for his party’s nomination for president gains momentum. As he dons the guise of war hero, one female reporter, anxious to break into the “boy’s club” of TV news, fights to uncover the truth against the far-reaching power of the Pilcher family’s wealth, power that can do any wrong it chooses—even kill—and remain unpunished. Just as the nomination seems within Pilcher’s grasp, Pola reappears to enlist Joe’s help in finally exposing Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the passion of their wartime romance rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher down before becoming his next victims.
East Wind Returns
A young but veteran photo recon pilot in WWII finds the fate of the greatest invasion in history--and the life of the nurse he loves--resting perilously on his shoulders.
“East Wind Returns” is a story of World War II set in July-November 1945 which explores a very different road to that conflict's historic conclusion. The American war leaders grapple with a crippling setback: Their secret atomic bomb does not work. The invasion of Japan seems the only option to bring the war to a close. When those leaders suppress intelligence of a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the invasion forces, it falls to photo reconnaissance pilot John Worth to find the Japanese device. Political intrigue is mixed with passionate romance and exciting aerial action--the terror of enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire, mechanical malfunctions, deadly weather, and the Kamikaze. When shot down by friendly fire over southern Japan during the American invasion, Worth leads the desperate mission that seeks to deactivate the device.
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 33