Rocket Girl

by George D. Morgan

  Time passed, and then the sergeant ordered the convoy to move on. Private Galione stood up and joined two of his buddies as they resumed their march northward. Where were they going? No one seemed to know for sure. Just keep walking, and engage the enemy when you find them.

  Eventually the road petered out and the men found themselves moving cross-country with map and compass. The enormous size of the Harz mountain range, combined with the density of the thick conifer forest, triggered a thinning of the ranks. The Jeeps began having trouble finding room to maneuver and, one by one, the men and equipment of Galione's unit became spread out and separated. Their sergeant's voice could occasionally be heard resonating through the forest, ordering them to stay together, but there were too many trees, too many rolling snowfields, too many burbling creeks. Another hour of hiking through boot-sucking mud passed, then Private Galione noticed a snow berm that did not look natural, and he stepped over to take a look. Climbing the berm, he found himself standing about ten feet above a set of railroad tracks. The previous night's snow had been cleared, making the steel rails plainly visible. From this Galione suspected he had stumbled upon an active route. He was about to slide down the far side of the berm and inspect the tracks when he heard the rumble of an approaching engine. Standing downwind, he could smell the train's cargo before it pulled into view. The odor was all too familiar to Galione and soldiers like him. It was the same stinging redolence that had permeated thousands of battlefields for thousands of years. A single whiff and the genetic predisposition programmed in by a million years of evolution would make one turn their head and back away in instinctive disgust.

  The pungent stench of death.

  Private Galione hid behind a tree, and moments later a locomotive, trailing several boxcars, appeared. The young soldier knew from prior briefings exactly what he was seeing.

  “A prisoner-transport train,” he whispered to himself. He could not call out to his fellow soldiers, lest the train's personnel be made aware of their presence.

  As the engine and boxcars—their Nazi swastikas boldly portrayed—passed his position, Private John Galione watched, and realized his error. At one time it had without a doubt been a prisoner-transport train, but as the tsunami of stench washed over the forest in the train's wake, John realized the boxcars were probably carrying nothing more than corpses.

  When the last car disappeared around a bend, Galione slid down the berm and stood on the tracks.

  “Sarge—I found something!” he called out. “Hey, Sarge!”

  Galione stood quiet for a few moments, but heard no reply. He opened his field map and pinpointed his position. Oddly, there was no railroad track marked anywhere in the area. Yet there it was, directly beneath his leather boots. According to the map, nothing significant should exist there or near: no buildings, no industry, no military installations, and certainly no labor or concentration camps. And yet there was no mistaking the smell of the train's cargo. The discovery of this active, yet unknown, rail line fascinated the young soldier, and he contemplated his next move. The tracks were on a slight incline. Downhill—the direction the train had gone—was to his left. Numerous US Army units were encamped that direction, and not far away; the train and its crew would soon be discovered and captured. To his right, the tracks tantalizingly rose into the dark, snowy forest. Since the tracks were not supposed to be here, he could not help but wonder what exactly they led to. John contemplated following the tracks, but the sun was going down—it would soon be too dark for such a dangerous expedition.

  “What are you doin'?”

  John looked up to see one of his friends from the unit standing atop the snow berm.

  “Found some tracks that aren't on the map.”

  “Sergeant says to make camp.”

  That evening John sat with the small group of soldiers he had grown close to. These were the men who had watched each other's backs in battle, who had saved each other's lives more than once. They would be forever bonded in a friendship more spiritual than casual. They sat in a circle, as had become their custom, so every direction had at least one pair of eyes on watch. As the men quietly enjoyed their meager meal, John's thoughts kept returning to the railroad track. He could not get the thought out of his mind; he kept envisioning himself alone, following the tracks to wherever they led. A trainload of the dead could mean several things, but his gut told him there must be a concentration camp in the area. There are people out there somewhere who need liberating, he told himself. People who are starving, dying, and most certainly being tortured. They needed his help. John Galione had not come to Germany to kill people, though many a German soldier had been unfortunate enough to find himself in John's gunsight. No, he had come here to save people—to save lives. He looked from man to man in their close-knit circle, each face bringing forth a memory of some blood-spattered battle, some tearful comrade slowly fading from life. John could not count how many times he had looked into a soldier's fading stare and heard him say, “Tell my mother I love her.” He trusted these men beyond measure, and normally he would share his thoughts with them. But not tonight—something was different this night.

  John used a cigarette lighter to check his watch: 9:00—the men would be turning in soon.

  After washing and stowing his mess kit, John carefully checked his gear. Before dinner he had asked the sergeant for permission to break off from the unit and spend a few hours following the tracks. His argument was that the stench from the boxcars made it pretty clear that a concentration camp might be in the area. The officer immediately turned him down, telling John that it was just too dangerous for one soldier to be alone in an active war zone. John suggested he could get a few volunteers to go with him, but again the sergeant turned him down.

  “Our unit stays together,” the sergeant had insisted. “That's an order.”

  A light snow was falling at 9:30 as the soldiers began crawling into their sleeping bags. When he was sure most of them were asleep, John gathered his gear and shouldered his pack. To be certain that no one would think he had gone AWOL, he left word about his plan with one of his trusted comrades who was still awake. Then he marched off toward the tracks.

  John had no choice but to find his way in the dark. His flashlight was useless—all the unit's batteries had expired over a week ago, and they had yet to be resupplied. Fortunately, traveling in the dark was one of the skills the 104th Timberwolf had been trained for.

  It took almost half an hour of blind bushwhacking, but he finally managed to find the snow berm and the railroad track. One of his sergeant's concerns was that John would get lost in unfamiliar terrain all by himself, and then the sergeant would have to invest time and men in searching for him. But Private John Galione wasn't concerned about getting lost or being separated from his unit; he had complete faith in his army training, his compass, his map, his instinct. Besides, how could anyone really get lost when they had a railroad track beneath their feet?

  The snow flurries of the past few hours remained untouched on the steel rails, evidence that no more trains had passed through. John's thoughts were interrupted by a faraway sound, and he turned to listen. Somewhere a woodpecker was doing its tree-punching duty, creating a rat-a-tat-tat sound that many soldiers found unnerving. Sound played tricks in deep forest cover, and sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between a woodpecker making his home, or some not too distant German soldier mowing down soldiers with his Mauser-Werke MG-42 machine gun.3 I hate that sound.

  Standing in the middle of the tracks, John turned to face the uphill direction. As he took several deep breaths, the ice-cold air sent a chill from his lungs to his skin. He wanted a cigarette, but it was out of the question; he was in the open and the red embers would easily betray his position on such a dark night. Enemy soldiers were everywhere—a day never went by that his unit didn't encounter some.

  John considered for a few moments his moral dilemma; he was about to disobey orders to, ostensibly, save lives. His commanding
officer had made it very clear that he was not to go off on this mission, let alone all by himself. Disobeying direct orders was not something John Galione was known for. Since the first day of boot camp he had been the epitome of a good, obedient soldier. Yet here he was, in violation. He could not tell the others the reason for his disobedience. He could not tell them exactly what he was feeling. He could not tell them that from the moment he had smelled death that afternoon, a strange, inexplicable force had been driving him. Something he had never before felt. Urgency, like an invisible energy, seemed to be pushing on his body. Was it God, or just a gut feeling? Regardless, if he was not in camp come sunup there would be consequences.

  I'll follow the tracks for a couple of hours, then come back. Sarge won't even know I was gone.

  John checked his watch: 10:08 p.m. The moon would be up soon; he needed to take advantage of the dark. His plan was to walk as far as he could by midnight. If he found nothing, he would turn around and return to camp long before anyone had woken up. Mentally, he would chalk the whole thing up to “reconnaissance”—a common field duty for army grunts like him.

  Private John Galione took another deep breath, put one boot in front of the other, and started walking.

  “If officers from the Gestapo, or Himmler's SS, show up at your door and tell you they need to take you somewhere for your protection, that's when you know you're about to be assassinated.”

  Those were the words of one of von Braun's close associates, spoken more than a year prior. Now those were the words that went through Wernher's mind as he stood in his doorway, facing two officers representing SS Brigadier General Hans Kammler.4 They were insisting that Wernher accompany them to an undisclosed location “for his personal safety and security.” The American and Russian armies were closing in, they said, and the general was concerned that von Braun might be captured or killed.

  In the past few weeks, owing to Russian army advancements toward Peenemünde, Wernher and his men had been working day and night to move their V-2 components and equipment to a more secure underground location. Deep inside a mountain range, far from popular Allied targets, General Kammler had used forty thousand slave laborers from the nearby Dora concentration camp to dig a series of tunnels and caves out of solid rock. It was there that Wernher von Braun and his rocket engineers, along with another forty thousand slave laborers, had been relocated in order to resume V-2 production. Despite frequent Allied-aircraft bombing raids, the characteristically efficient German Engineering Machine, coupled with an almost-unlimited supply of concentration-camp workers, had succeeded in reassembling the V-2 factory in record time.

  No sooner had the underground factory resumed V-2 production, however, than Kammler's SS guards had appeared at von Braun's door. Wernher, always the good talker, tried to stall.

  “Isn't General Kammler interested in securing the safety of my colleagues as well? We have hundreds of scientists, engineers, and technicians. Allow me some time to…”

  “You are to come alone.”

  “Alone? But what about the others? Surely the general cares about their safety as well.”

  “Our instructions are to bring only you.”

  “Fine. At least allow me some time to pack a couple of suitcases.”

  “No need for that,” they insisted.

  As Wernher put on his coat, he wondered what he might have done to anger General Kammler.

  Probably nothing. One did not have to do anything special to earn a bullet to the head from the general. The last time he and Wernher had been together was a memory Wernher preferred to forget. Only three weeks had gone by, but the image would be tattooed onto his memory forever. Wernher had been seated beside General Kammler in a Daimler-Benz G4 during the evacuation. As he turned around for one last view of his beloved Peenemünde rocket base, Wernher could see many of the buildings were going up in flames. Once all the equipment and V-2 parts that were worth keeping had been removed, the German military wasted no time in burning and destroying everything that was left. Hitler was proud of the advancements his country had made in rocketry and aerospace, and he had no desire to let anything fall into the hands of his enemies. Better to destroy it than to let them have any part. Days later, Wernher began hearing rumors that all “unnecessary personnel” at Peenemünde had been shot by the SS to prevent their knowledge from falling into the hands of the advancing Russian army. Now two SS officers stood before him, demanding to escort him to “safety.” Stepping outside, he noticed the car they had arrived in was a Daimler-Benz G4. Wernher checked his watch: it was 2:00 a.m.

  Private John Galione had promised himself he would only walk until midnight, then turn around. But when midnight arrived, and the tracks had not led him to anything significant, he decided to keep going.

  Just a little farther.

  Whenever there was a curve in the tracks, John would convince himself that whatever he was looking for—whatever the tracks were leading him to—was “right around that bend.” But then he would groan or exhale with frustration as each turn produced the same result: more track, another bend, more disappointment.

  Just a little farther. Just a little farther.

  After a while, John stopped to catch his breath. Though the incline was gentle, the track was relentlessly uphill. He checked his watch. It was 2:00 a.m.

  For the past hour, the moon had been playing peek-a-boo behind puffy, swift-moving clouds. When the moon was out, he could see several hundred feet ahead. When it was obscured, the night would become as dark and lonely as a tomb. Sometimes he could not even see his feet. During those moments of intense pitch, John would guide himself by sliding his rifle barrel along one of the steel rails.

  For now, the moon was out and his visibility was good. John looked down the track, examining the way he had come. Then he looked up the track, hoping to spot some clue that his journey was at an end. Downhill was food, water, safety, a warm fire, and the companionship of his fellow soldiers. Uphill was danger, the enemy, the unknown, and death. Moral dilemmas were a daily occurrence during wartime, and Private John Galione had certainly experienced his share since arriving in Europe. Nothing quite like this, though. On the one hand, he had been well trained to be a disciplined solder, to follow orders. Besides, everyone knew the war was almost over—why take any unnecessary chances when the troops would soon be going home? On the other hand, there could be hundreds of people at some concentration camp up ahead who needed help. They could be starving, dying. If he were one of them, wouldn't he want to be rescued? John was sure of only one thing: if his insubordinate sojourn was to go undiscovered, he would have to turn around now.

  Just a little farther.

  No, I should turn back.

  A small cloud moved in front of the moon, and all went dark.

  John faced the uphill direction, trying to get his boots to move. He kept weighing the pros and cons, his mind doing battle with his conscience. A few quiet moments passed, then suddenly someone pushed him hard from behind, almost knocking him over. As he was straightening himself up, he was shoved forward again, even harder.

  Instinctively, John turned around, raised his rifle, and chambered a bullet. He held the butt to his shoulder and pointed at the total blackness behind him.

  “Who's there! Answer or I'll fire!”

  At that moment, the cloud moved away from the moon. Dim lunar light poured over the railroad tracks and the surrounding alpine forest.

  There was no one.

  During the late-night drive, von Braun kept wondering what a bullet to the brain felt like, or if one would even feel such a bullet at all. Attempting to relieve his anxiety, he had chatted up the two SS guards seated on either side of him, but they had said little. If he was being escorted to his death, they gave no indication.

  Hours later, the car arrived at the office of General Kammler. The two SS guards escorted von Braun, then stood on either side of him as they waited. A few anxious minutes passed, then the general entered the room and sat behind
his large desk. He got right down to business.

  “Dr. von Braun. We both know the war is lost—it's only a matter of time. What we have to do now is prepare for what will happen next. Germany is about to be overrun by its enemies. Each of us has to ensure we aren't hanged as a result.”

  Von Braun nodded quietly, still uncertain where the general was going with the conversation.

  “Here is what you will do: you will make a list of your five hundred very best men. We will put them on a train to a secure location under the protection of the SS. No families will be permitted. There you and your men may continue your rocketry work. The place is very isolated, so it is doubtful our enemies will find it for some time.”5

  When von Braun discovered that General Kammler had no intention of shooting him and had indeed arranged for his safety and security, he was surprised. He returned home and began preparing Kammler's requested list, wondering what fate awaited those who would be left off it. Von Braun also wondered if his own name would be removed from the list if Kammler got wind of what he had just asked his friend Dieter to do. Most likely, von Braun would be summarily executed.

  In a few years, Dieter Huzel would live a comfortable sun-drenched upper-middle-class life in a suburb of Los Angeles called Woodland Hills.6 He would work for North American Aviation in the same department as one of the company's hot new propellant analysts, Mary Sherman. But that was still several years into a murky future, a future where the prospects for survival vacillated with every passing moment.

  Dieter downshifted the truck's transmission into second gear. The gradient of the mountain road had steepened, and the engine was slowing toward a stall. He checked his rearview mirror to make sure the second truck, driven by fellow engineer Bernhard Tessman, was keeping up. On March 12, General Kammler had ordered the burning of all charts, books, and records pertaining to rocketry work in Germany.7 Von Braun, with the help of his longtime supporter Walter Dornberger, recently promoted to general, decided to disobey the SS officer's order and secretly arranged for a convoy of trucks to move the materials to an abandoned mine in the Harz Mountains. It was that convoy that Huzel now led, a convoy that made its way past numerous military checkpoints using counterfeit orders and paperwork. Huzel, Tessman, and a handful of other engineers and hired laborers were essentially risking their lives to save technology.8 For von Braun and Huzel it was personal; they had spent a large part of their lives helping to invent this technology, and they could not bring themselves to either surrender it or destroy it.