Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  Josten gathered the men together. "We'll want to get off at first light; as soon as they see our props turning, they'll start shelling.

  Don't say a word to anyone else—we can carry only the seven of us and be sure to make it off this short strip."

  It was almost eighty-thirty before the glimmer of light crept up on the horizon. Josten walked the length of the field, trying to see where the shell holes were beneath the snow. The wreckage was appalling—six Junkers, four Heinkels, and a dozen Messerschmitts, crashed and abandoned where they lay. Sprawled in the snow like land mines were the remains of supply containers that had been parachuted in. He knew he would have to start his takeoff roll at an angle, gathering speed and then straightening it out at midfield, veering around the wreck of a Stuka that stood like a signboard, straight up on its prop. The dive-bomber had cart wheeled onto its nose, bending its cranked wings into two arms of a distorted swastika, a fitting symbol for this cemetery of an airfield.

  Josten walked back along the edge of the field; he had not seen before that it was quarried with empty foxholes and dugouts, a sponge of trenches absorbing filth and despair in equal measure. Pale wraiths, swathed in everything from rags to rugs, scurried from point to point like rats, trailing rifles for tails, red eyes darting at him as if he were the enemy. In one dugout, a group of Landsers were wedged around a boiling cooking pot; when he looked in they had, as a man, aimed their Schmeissers at him. He'd moved on hastily; only later did he speculate that they were cooking a comrade. He had only heard of such things—the Italians referred to it as "casserole de la morte"—and cannibalism was supposed to be rampant among the Russian prisoners of war. But German soldiers! What had they come to?

  He felt a mild relief when he got back to the Heinkel, dingy in its temporary dirty-white winter-camouflage colors. Slow, obsolete and battle-damaged, it was still a beautiful aircraft, the only ticket to freedom. A crowd of soldiers, worse-looking desperados than any gang of Mexican bandits, surged around it—word had gotten out that they were going to try a takeoff.

  Josten thought quickly. If he jammed them in the bomb bay like cordwood, he could probably take as many as fifteen along. It was only about an hour back to Morosovskaya; they could stand that. A quick glance showed that there already were more than fifty soldiers, all armed and desperately angry. He pushed among the crowd, then clambered into the belly and up into the cockpit. He forced the cockpit side window out and told Greutzmacher, "Call the men to attention."

  The theatrics triggered some ancient rite of discipline within them, and the group stiffened into silence.

  "We can take fifteen men this trip, no more. To do even that, I'll need the rest of you to trample out another hundred yards of runway from the snow."

  A moan broke through, and Greutzmacher shouted, "Silence!"

  Josten went on: "I'll drop the fifteen off in Morosovskaya, and come back for the rest of you, as many trips as it takes. I swear! But you've got to decide right now who's going on the first load. I'm starting engines in five minutes."

  Greutzmacher had diluted the engines for a cold start, pouring gasoline into the oil so that it would circulate quickly, freeing the pistons to turn. Josten saw that the propellers were clear, and that Greutzmacher had dismantled the homemade stoves that he hoped had brought the engines to a temperature where they would start. Deliberately, anxious to avoid any mistake that would abort the process and condemn them to a rifleman's death, he began the engine-start process. Cold metal ground against cold metal in scraping anguish; then the reluctant propeller blades began to turn with glacial slowness. Rich blue smoke blossomed from the exhausts, raising the hopes of the fifty men staring at the airplane. Josten begged the engines to start. There was a bark, a cough, and then a steady rumble as the first one broke into life. The second engine started more easily, as if encouraged by the vibrations now quivering through the airframe.

  He looked out to see that fifteen men were standing in line, the rest now moving out smartly to trample the snow at the end of the runway. Greutzmacher was some talker; he should have been in politics.

  "Let's get them on board!" Josten dropped down and began helping to cram the anxious soldiers in every empty space—the forward fuselage, the bomb bay, the rear gunner's compartment. Greutzmacher even pushed some through the rear fuselage bulkhead into the empty aft section.

  "That's enough there, Greutzmacher." Too many men in the tail would throw the center of gravity off, tipping the Heinkel's nose up into an irrecoverable stall.

  The sound of the engines had brought more soldiers running. Josten ran the power up, and the Heinkel lumbered forward, gathering speed. The cockpit was crowded with bodies; he snarled until they edged back far enough that he could see out of the conical glazed panels of the nose. He had to keep a clear field of vision to miss the forlorn tail of the Stuka-swastika that marked the right edge of his makeshift runway.

  As the Heinkel grudgingly accelerated, he saw a figure run out from the side of the field to stand directly in his path. It was a blond young soldier, his neck bandaged; he held his arms up as if imploring Josten to somehow stop and pick him up.

  "Get out of the way, damn you!"

  The man stood there, arms waving as if he were a motorist asking for help. The Heinkel's speed was 140 kilometers, not fast enough to fly from the clinging snow yet, and Josten had nowhere to turn. He held the wheel forward, lifting the tail so that the soldier could drop to the ground and save himself. Josten watched in horror as the young soldier stood erect until his skull burst on the glazed nose section like an insect on an automobile windshield. The end of the field roared near and mechanically Josten pulled back on the control column, unable to take his eyes from the red smear on the canopy, cracked now, with frozen blood extruding through it like the coxcomb of a rooster.

  Flying automatically, he let the Heinkel struggle into the air, unaware that each of its landing gear struts was encumbered by a single soldier clinging limpetlike in the flash-freezing wind, risking everything to leave the hell of Stalingrad.

  Josten could sense that the Heinkel was not performing well, attributing it to tired engines and iced wings; he was haunted by a vivid impression of the man he had run over. The soldier's face had registered photographically—and it had been exactly the same face as that of the British Swordfish pilot. Had he killed the same man twice?

  Greutzmacher nudged him and Josten raised the gear. Unknown to him, as the two legs of the undercart struggled upward they dislodged the soldiers, who fell, only their unheard screams accompanying them on their lonely hundred-meter drop. Josten felt the airspeed surge as the Heinkel, free of its burden, its gear retracted, flew normally. It puzzled him that German soldiers were firing at him. They were furious that the men had dropped, but Josten assumed they were angry that someone else was escaping the trap.

  By the time he'd reached four thousand feet, the accurate Russian flak had ranged him, and he banked the Heinkel wildly, unmindful of the crush of bodies in the rear.

  Greutzmacher yelled in his ear: "We're taking hits, streaming fuel out of the right-wing tank. And we've got some wounded in the bomb bay, probably in the back, too. You better get down at Morosovskaya as soon as you can."

  It was the longest one-hour flight of Josten's life.

  *

  Karinhall/January 12, 1943

  The Russian sharpshooters had riddled the Heinkel, forcing Josten to land wheels and flaps up at Morosovskaya. Landing fast, the plane had sprayed a rooster-tail cloud of snow before lurching to a stop, just one more broken bird on an airfield headed toward disaster. Josten had been grateful that the plane had not burned, and that the impact had expunged the bloodstained canopy at his feet. The exhausted ground crews at Morosovskaya had needed more than twenty minutes to extricate the scrambled Landsers from the body of the crumpled Heinkel. Four had been killed by flak on the trip; Josten had felt less sorry for them than for those back in the pocket, whom he had had to abandon. There had been no airp
lane available for his use for a return flight and Bruno Hafner was waiting for him with orders to report immediately to Goering himself. It had been the "Iron Man" who had sent Josten to Stalingrad to report on airlift operations, and he wanted an immediate firsthand account.

  Now, a few days later, the enormity of the slaughter at Stalingrad was still with him as Josten sat in a daze at Karinhall, listening to Hafner yammer, "We've got to come out of here today with authorization for a wing of Messerschmitts, under your command. Understand? No matter what you talk about with Goering, our job is to get him to believe in the 262. You've got to concentrate, Helmut!"

  He understood, but glancing around the incredibly luxurious room, he wasn't sure he could stand the contrast of Goering's sybaritic surroundings with what he'd just seen at the front.

  They were seated on a huge couch facing a roaring fire in Karinhall's main room, an A-framed hunting lodge, decorated with enormous antlers, Gobelin tapestries, Oriental rugs, a marble Venus of Praxiteles, and old masters from Cranachs to Vermeers, looted from all of Europe. For a moment, Josten thought he was hallucinating—a lion had walked into the room, gazed without curiosity at them, and padded out.

  "Unser Hermann is an animal lover."

  Hafner saw the look on Josten's face and pleaded with him.

  "For God's sake, for Germany's sake, don't take issue with the man about things like the lion. And don't take exception to what he's wearing—he has some funny ideas about clothes."

  An adjutant came in the room, sleek, pomaded, boots glistening in the firelight. He asked if they wanted something to eat or drink, and Hafner had to lay his arm on Josten to restrain him.

  "Now, look. Germany has one chance—to get the 262 into production. We've got one chance to bring that chance about—this meeting. You're a soldier, control yourself. You're being self-indulgent. Let me tell you about this man."

  Josten had never before heard Hafner speak in an admiring tone of anyone.

  "No matter what Goering's problems are now—and I'll tell you some of them—he's the man who got Hitler into power, and he's the man who built the Luftwaffe. He rejuvenated German industry. Never forget that."

  "What are his problems?"

  "He was shot in the putsch in Munich, in 1923; he became a morphine addict then. He probably still is. But his main problem is that the barbarians at headquarters have cut him to pieces with the Fuehrer. He knows he has no prestige anymore, especially now, after Stalingrad. He's just biding his time, till we lose the war, or until Himmler nails him on some charge and shoots him."

  "If that's so, how can he help us?"

  "Because he's still Hitler's sentimental favorite, and he still has influence with the manufacturers. And never forget, no matter how much the Luftwaffe complains, no matter how they say they are going to tell him off, when Goering says, 'Jump/ they just ask 'How high?' Don't worry, he has plenty of power for what we need."

  "Glad to hear it, Hafner! Sometimes I don't think I have enough power to feed my big cats."

  Goering had glided silently into the room to stand behind them. Both men hoped he'd heard only the last sentence as Josten snapped to attention and Hafner painfully pulled himself erect.

  "I'm glad to see you are moving about, Bruno. Good. I'll have you back commanding a squadron soon."

  Hafner introduced Josten, and Goering began interrogating him.

  "Tell me the truth, Major Josten. Were our Luftwaffe people doing everything possible to supply Stalingrad?"

  "In one sense, yes, Herr Reichsmarschall. Certainly everyone was trying to do the best they could. The casualty figures confirm that. But an air-supply mission doesn't depend just on people and planes. You need warehouses, trucks, handcarts, parachutes, hangars, barracks, field kitchens, a thousand things, and most of all the right kind of supplies—sausage and bread, guns and fuel, ammunition—and these did not exist."

  "What chance is there that the Sixth Army will hold out?"

  "None whatsoever, Herr Reichsmarschall. The men are already starved and exhausted; they won't last more than another three weeks, if that. They should surrender now. It's all over."

  "That simply cannot be true."

  Goering crumpled into silence, slumping in the huge elk-skin-covered chair next to the couch, staring into the fire with an unbearable melancholy. Josten started to speak, but Hafner signaled him to be silent.

  Almost five minutes passed, then Goering suddenly roused himself.

  "Come, let's talk of something else. It's my fiftieth birthday today, you know. Let me show you what the people have sent me."

  Goering turned on his heel and walked with unexpected speed to a room at the side, motioning them to follow.

  The room had been divided into a series of aisles by long linen-covered tables. Each table was heaped with gifts, each one with a card carrying birthday wishes and a prominent identification of the giver.

  "Look at this! A golden sword from Mussolini! Can you imagine what this is worth actually? And historically? And this, a twenty-four-hundred-piece set of Sevres! What a banquet I'll give with this!"

  "I saw a man at Stalingrad make a banquet of raw horse brains. The horse's skull was the platter and his hands the spoon, no fancy porcelain for him. I guess it all depends upon how hungry you are."

  Hafner rolled his eyes upward as Goering's face flushed red.

  "Are you being insolent, Major? Don't pull your veteran's role on me. I fought at the front, too, you know, and in the streets of Germany as well."

  "I don't mean to be insolent, Herr Reichsmarschall, but men are dying of starvation right now in Stalingrad. If you were there, they would shoot you and eat you without a qualm."

  There was a blanket of silence, broken only by the gurgle of Goering's breathing, and the click of his adjutant's holster being opened.

  Hafner hissed, "My God, Josten, shut up."

  Goering stood, uncertain how to play the next round of this insane game. He could see that Josten was not dangerous, not an assassin; he couldn't shoot every messenger bringing bad news, no matter how insubordinate they were.

  "I guess I'd feed a platoon at least. Maybe that is the best thing that I can still do for poor Germany."

  His expression changed abruptly and tears poured down his cheeks. Goering slumped into a chair, pale and breathing in shallow gasps. The adjutant raced to bring him some tiny pills. When he spoke his voice was ragged.

  "It's a heart condition; not too serious, but I'm not supposed to get too excited. Or too depressed." He glanced quizzically at Josten, adding, "Or too insulted."

  Hafner tugged at Josten's arm; mechanically, the younger man bent to listen.

  "You've done it now, you idiot. Now you shut up and say nothing else, you understand? Let me do the talking."

  More composed, Goering stood and waved them back into the main lodge. He plopped himself down in a huge, oversize chair.

  "Bruno, talk to me as in the old days. You aren't here to wet-nurse this insubordinate major. What is it you want?"

  "Herr Reichsmarschall—"

  "No, I'm too tired and ill for formalities. The young man here thinks I have no feeling, that my heart doesn't ache for the people. He has no idea how deeply I feel that the Luftwaffe's failure is my failure. Let's relax, and give me a chance to recover. For tonight at least, let it be Hermann and Bruno again."

  "If we leave the new jet's development to Messerschmitt, it will be late 1944 before we get an operational unit. I can put an operational unit in the air by November of this year, perhaps earlier."

  "And what is your insolent young friend's role?"

  "He'll test it and develop the tactics; he'll pick the pilots."

  "What's the point? What can you do that Messerschmitt can't?"

  "I can get the engines running so that they don't melt down like lead soldiers on the test stand, for one thing. That's something the famous Junkers motorworks can't do. And I can build airplanes without a million changes. Hermann, remember during the
last war, when Fokker created the D VII in a matter of weeks? Now it takes five years to get a prototype flying."

  "Airplanes were simpler then."

  "Yes, but so was the bureaucracy. The goddamn staffs have gotten bigger and more complex than the airplanes." Hafner paused, then lowered his tortured body into a kneeling position before Goering.

  "I beg you, Herr Reichsmarschall, give me a chance. What will it cost you? I've already got the airframes, discarded by Messerschmitt because of design changes. I can have the engines in just a few months. We can have an airplane that will wipe the British and the Americans from the skies. Without air superiority, there will be no second front—we know that from 1940. And if they can't invade, maybe we can settle with Russia."

  "Settle?" Goering looked puzzled.

  "Yes—make a deal, get an armistice, do anything to stop the bloodletting. This is our one chance."

  "You can say that. I've said it to Hitler, and been thrown out of his office!"

  "That was before Stalingrad. He can't hide the loss of the Sixth Army from the world; he can't hide it from himself. If the British and the Americans get a beachhead next year, it's all over."

  Goering was silent, his hand thrust into a bowl. It took Josten a moment to realize that the bowl was filled with cut stones—emeralds, rubies, diamonds; he would lift them and let a cascade of faceted brilliance reflect the flames of the fireplace.

  "The Fuehrer always says that he would negotiate, but only after a victory."

  "It would be a magnificent victory to drive the English and the Americans from the skies; it would be a fantastic triumph to repel an invasion. And it would be a Luftwaffe victory, a Goering victory. Things would be as they were in May of 1940."