1945

by Newt Gingrich

  "Those were great days." Rommel laughed, breaking his own train of thought. '"Fun in the sun,' as the Americans might say. How have your men acclimated to this very different climate? Are they fit?"

  After a silent moment spent contemplating the incongruity of that "fun" appellation as applied to the experience, Bayerling replied: "We are fit enough. And eager to go home. You know, that is where we thought we were headed when they pulled us out of the line in North Africa. Instead, they sent us up to this icebox to freeze our stones off. We fought the Brits in Africa for three years, then we spent eighteen months on the armistice line—and now here. Do I sound bitter? I promise you the men are bitter."

  Bayerling shook his head, then continued. "It just doesn't add up. My men gave good service in Africa—and then they get shipped from that hellhole to this godforsaken place. Morale is at rock bottom, and I don't blame the men for that one bit."

  "Perhaps there was a reason for sending you here."

  "Punishment is all I can think of. But what could it have been? We were the best. I keep coming back to that. It must have been sheer bad luck."

  Rommel smiled. "No my friend, it wasn't luck, good or bad, and it wasn't because you or your men screwed up in some special way."

  "Why then?'

  "Because you are the best. And because you are mine."

  His major general looked at him incredulously, too sure Rommel was leading up to something to be angry at his drollery.

  "Don't you like it here?" Rommel asked innocendy, exacting a small revenge for the pointless ceremonials.

  "Like it here? We fought the Brits for three years on a shoestring. If we'd gotten just ten percent of what they were pouring into Russia we would have been on the Suez. But we didn't get piss, and we didn't get Suez. So the Heroes of Russia are cycled back home and we get sent off to this ice cube as ... as what? Honorary Italians?-Now I find out you did it, and you ask me if I like it here! Would you mind telling—"

  Rommel held up his hand. "Because I wanted a unit in this location that I knew I could depend on absolutely."

  "Depend on for what? In two weeks we go home!" A flicker of doubt passed over Bayerling's face.

  Sure enough, Rommel's next words were, "Not directly home. You have a little side trip first."

  "Where to, Madagascar?"

  "No. Scotland."

  Bayerling looked speechlessly at his old commander.

  "Last fall the Führer decided to knock England out once and for all. This time we won't be playing games out on the flanks. It will be a drive straight into their island. Your division will be part of the landing force that strikes near Edinburgh. That's why I wanted you and the men conditioned to this abominable climate and, more importantly, positioned for the strike without drawing notice."

  Rommel ordered his driver to pull the car over to the side of the road. When it had stopped he got out and his once and present division commander perforce followed. Though it was late afternoon, below them the city and its harbor basked in the light reflected from the high mountains to the west.

  "Your men will load onto their transports as planned.

  The ships, however, are to be combat-loaded — and I expect all equipment to be operational."

  Bayerling nodded phlegmatically. One of the reasons Rommel had chosen him and his division was that he could be sure that however bitter they might be, as a killing machine they would be in perfect working order.

  "With the exception of your own staff, with whom you may discuss matters on the eve of embarkation, you will brief no one, no one, until the fleet clears the harbor on the nineteenth. The 6th Mountain Division will ship out of Trondheim the day before and rendezvous with your flotilla. Together you'll proceed down the coast as if heading for Hamburg. On the evening of the twentieth, just after dusk, the fleet will turn and make a high-speed run across the North Sea to arrive off Edinburgh at dawn. The 196th out of Oslo will come in as the second wave behind us."

  "Three divisions? That's it?"

  "Five more will be sealifted over the following two weeks."

  Bayerling looked dubious. "They promised us the same thing in Africa. All we ever got was a trickle. I hope they do better this time. Once this show starts the Brits will come pouring out of Scapa Flow like wolves."

  "Doenitz will commit everything we have to blocking them. There'll be a cordon of U-boats and destroyers securing our sea lane, backed up by the fleet's three carriers and the Tirpitz. We'll have air-lift capacity as well. Also, the 1st Airborne will drop as we land. The 22nd will follow up on the second and third days."

  Bayerling kicked at the dirty snow bank lining the side of the road. "And the Luftwaffe?"

  "—has a previous engagement."

  Bayerling grunted and asked no further questions. Even German military informality had limits. "Our mission objectives?"

  "Two-fold. Our first priority is to secure a line from Edinburgh to Glasgow by the end of the second day, and landing fields for the 5th Luft Flotte, which will be mad up of ground support Fw-190s and Ju-88s, a limited number of He-277s configured as medium bombers, and for air superiority, Me-262s and Do-335s, all of which will be under my operational control.

  "On the second and third days of the operation, elements of the 3rd Airborne will secure several airfields within range of Scapa Flow, their main naval base. Unfortunately the constraints imposed by other operations make it impossible to achieve complete surprise by performing all the drops simultaneously. Over the following week the 6th Mountain will swing north to relieve them. As soon as we have secured the bases, we will proceed to make Scapa Flow untenable."

  "By the time we do that, they'll have every division from the Midlands north on us."

  "That's part of the intent," Rommel replied. "We want to draw them north. After securing the Glasgow-Edinburgh line, our next wave, another division and two regiments of the 10th SS Panzer, will have arrived from Hamburg."

  "What the hell do we need those SS bastards for?"

  "Their presence is intended to convince the British that we are the main invasion. We are to advance to a line from Newcasde-on-Tyne to South Shields, as a move to threaten the industrial Midlands. At the end of the second week we'll have six divisions on a line moving south. They'll commit to stop us—they must or we'll just keep on going —and then the main invasion will hit on the south coast."

  "So we are just a diversion then?"

  "The British navy will not think so. But as to the second part of our mission, yes."

  Bayerling shook his head.

  "And your plans?"

  "If we should happen to take Liverpool and York, I won't mind."

  That might happen—if we get the support we need."

  "This won't be North Africa," Rommel said confidendy.

  For a while his old staff officer said nothing as he looked back out to the harbor below. Then, "No. Of course not. But again we are to be the sideshow."

  April 14 The Pentagon

  Admiral William "Bull" Halsey's face turned to stone as he recognized the other person awaiting him in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff. When he'd been summoned from half a world away to attend this meeting with George Marshall, he hadn't dreamed he would on arrival be facing his old adversary, General Douglas MacArthur.

  MacArthur stood with the regal air of an earl who had decided to be polite to a baron. Smiling, he extended his hand. "Good to see you, Halsey."

  Halsey suffered the handshake in silence. Unlike MacArthur, he was not one to put on silly airs, nor to pretend for decorum's sake that things were other than they were. Both men had nurtured a deep and abiding hatred of each other ever since the bitter debates in the first year of the war on how best to close in on Japan. Over Halsey's strenuous objections, MacArthur had successfully argued for first retaking the Philippines rather than going straight for Okinawa and Formosa. As far as Halsey was concerned that avenue had had absolutely nothing to recommend it other than soothing the MacArthur ego by punishing
those who had had the temerity to kick the MacArthur butt—and Halsey had not been shy in sharing his analysis. Wasted men, wasted ships; the Philippines would have fallen like rotten fruit after the Home Islands surrendered.

  "How was your flight, Admiral Halsey?" George Marshall asked, gesturing him to the other chair arranged on the carpet directly before his desk. MacArthur, noblesse oblige accomplished, had already resumed his.

  "Other than the fact I haven't slept in over a day, no complaints."

  "Sorry to drag you in here like this, Admiral," Marshall "but it was imperative that the three of us sit down together. Now, gendemen, before we go any further, I want both of you to understand something: I tolerated a great deal from both of you last time out. This time I will not.

  MacArthur started to interject.

  "General MacArthur, please just sit quietly until I'm finished."

  MacArthur, his smile barely flickering, leaned back in his chair.

  "We might be talking about nothing here. This whole thing could blow over, but if it doesn't, I expect both of you to follow my orders and those of the President to the letter or, by heavens, I'll fire either or both of you on the spot, publicly, in utter, career-blasting humiliation. Is that understood? And my first order is that the two of you cooperate with each other like fellow officers. I will tolerate nothing less."

  Halsey looked over at MacArthur. He agreed with Marshall that the pair of them were a marriage made in Hell, and he was tempted to ask why the devil they were being teamed in the first place. There were other admirals, other generals. The look on Marshall's face warned him to reconsider. He remained silent.

  "What's the problem then, General?" MacArthur finally asked. "Germany?"

  "I met with the President three days ago. There have been some disturbing indications from that direction, and he asked me to bring the two of you into the picture."

  "You mean the Brits and their alert?" MacArthur asked.

  Marshall nodded. "That, and other things. The President still believes that the blow will fall on Russia, and a lot of our intelligence points in that direction. But he also wants us to quietly start preparations."

  "Using the Black Seven plan?" Halsey asked dubiously.

  "General Marshall, I can tell you right now that plan is worthless," MacArthur interjected.

  Halsey nodded.

  Marshall looked at Halsey. "Admiral, you agree with him for once?"

  Halsey felt a flicker of resentment, as if he'd just been cast as MacArthur's front man. "Sir, you must know that plan is obsolete. The last full review of Black Seven was just after the British agreed to terms. They were in arms and we were at full mobilization against Japan. We had over eight million men in uniform. Part of Black Seven called for keeping at least four active divisions in reserve in the States as a reaction force if Germany should try to invade England, along with a light-carrier task force to provide support. Roosevelt made it clear to the Germans that he wouldn't tolerate an invasion of England. He meant it, and they knew he meant it. Since England had gotten the upper hand in the submarine war, within days of a German attempt on England we could have shipped those divisions out of their depots and started moving them across. Not one of those assumptions holds true now."

  MacArthur nodded in agreement.

  "On the other hand, we won't be committed on two fronts," Marshall replied.

  "In a way we still are," Halsey said. "We've got thirty-eight carriers. But of that number ten are committed in the Pacific, four are stationed off China supporting the Nationalists, fifteen are in mothballs, and the others are in varied states of readiness. Is the President willing to pass down an order right now mobilizing the reserve fleet to active status and pull the mothballed carriers out?"

  Marshall shook his head in negation.

  "May I ask why not, sir?" MacArthur said quietly.

  "The President feels that would be overreacting. Germany has no reason at this time to renew the conflict. It's still trying to digest all that it swallowed in the last war.

  Maybe three or four years from now the picture will be different, but the President believes that if Germany has a concern at this time, it's over Russian rearmament."

  "And do you believe that?"

  "That's neither here nor there. My job is to carry out the orders of the President of the United States. Your job is to carry out mine."

  MacArthur smiled to himself at Marshall's forcefull dodge. "But things have changed, sir. Last year's budget gutted us. The boys I'm getting out in China now are confused children, brand-new draftees who hardly know which end of an Ml to point downrange. It will take nine months to a year to restore our forces to wartime levels. We are not ready to face Germany."

  "Next year must take care of itself, General. For now, think about the next forty-five days.

  "Do you have hard information on that?" Halsey asked.

  "Just unconnected warnings, but too many of them."

  "We should have been more worried a year ago," MacArthur commented as he tamped tobacco into his trademark corncob.

  "Perhaps true. But that's in the past," Marshall said grimly. "We have to deal with the present, with the resources we have available in the present." He paused for a moment, as if going down a list. "What we have, fully operational, is the 1st Infantry, the 3rd Marine, the 82nd Airborne, and the 3rd Armored. Additionally, the Canadians have undertaken to supply an infantry division."

  "It's getting them there—wherever 'there' is—with the capacity to fight that's the real problem," Halsey said.

  That's what I want you two to look at."

  "And the plan itself," MacArthur interjected. "It's not just that it assumes nonexistent resources. That's obvious enough for anybody to see." Halsey bristled, but Mac-Arthur didn't look his way. "Black Seven is obsolete conceptually. It's just plain wrong."

  "Regarding what?" Clearly Marshall did not disagree; he was prodding for more information. Just exacdy how much could he depend on these men for understanding?

  "The main thing was the landing areas, disembarking our troops at Plymouth, Bristol and Liverpool. If the Germans have air superiority it will be a slaughter, and I doubt the Navy could hold them back."

  "The Navy will do its job," Halsey said sternly.

  MacArthur shook his head. "You just said you doubt you'll be able to mobilize the carriers in time."

  Halsey looked over at MacArthur, exasperated "Maybe I spoke too soon. I'll get them there, but I want room to maneuver; I'll be damned if I'm going to put them inside that bathtub of an Irish Sea the way the plan says. I still prefer the variant on the old plan, Plan Black Five: go straight up the Channel, charge right in, meet them head on."

  MacArthur look at him sidelong. '"Hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle.' Just like in the Pacific, huh? Listen, even with carrier support—"

  Marshall's hand slapped the table. After a long moment of stony silence he finally said, "Gendemen, perhaps I did not make myself sufficiently clear. The President of the United States wants his two victors from the Pacific War available to bring him victory in the North Atlantic if Germany does indeed try something. That is why you're both here. But the President has also made it clear that at the slightest sign of insubordination—and that is exacdy how I will view any absence of comity—I can rid myself of one or both of you. And that is just what I will do." Marshall paused for a moment to let either of them reply. Neither chose to do so.

  In the silence, Halsey realized as he calculated the consequences of defiance that he'd never actually seen George Marshall angry before. For him, normally a man of the most extraordinary formality and politeness, the foregoing had been the equivalent of a small volcanic eruption that might or might not presage a Vesuvian eruption.

  Marshall continued: "Now gendemen. Can you work together? Will you work together?"

  Neither Halsey nor MacArthur met his gaze. After a moment they simultaneously looked at each other and nodded an understanding. Both would let bygones be bygon
es, or at least try to.

  "Yeah, we can work together, right... Doug?"

  "Sure, Bill," MacArthur said with friendly ease. "No sense in giving up a leading role in the biggest dust-up in human history over an old spat."

  Both men pasted sincere-looking smiles on their faces.

  Marshall sighed. As long as they took this attitude he had no choice but to keep them—and MacArthur, for all his glamour, was a very fine general. "All right. The first thing I want from you is consensus-reviews of Black Five and Black Seven. Get them to me within the next ten days, complete with mutually agreed-on modifications to bring them up to date."

  Halsey looked over at MacArthur and the pair nodded.

  Marshall leaned back in his chair for a moment, then said, "General MacArthur, please supply me with a review of what troops we can get moving within ten days of a full alert. We can airbridge the 82nd, maybe even elements of the 1st, if the Brits can keep their airfields open. But the heavy equipment, including at least one armored division, has to go by sea. I want them ready for embarkation."

  "I'll need logistical staff support."

  "You've worked with General Eisenhower before. Right now he's my adjutant. I'll assign him to you. Nobody better for this kind of work."

  "Ike's a good man. How's he doing?"

  "General Eisenhower is doing very well. He is still unhappy that he didn't have a command last time, of course."

  MacArthur chuckled. Too skilled a paper pusher for his own good."