Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  "How do you recognize it?"

  "It's easy! It feels like you're flying through boulders, and the controls stiffen up, feel like they're reversing on you. We've got some dive flaps coming along that may solve it, but for now—don't dive too steep."

  Three days later, Bandy had completed the syllabus of ground instruction and flying that Burcham had specially created for him and felt perfectly at ease in the aircraft.

  The visit with Kelly Johnson proved to be unsettling. First, he was so young, only thirty-three, and so self-assured. Bandfield sensed he was in the presence of a great man who wasn't too happy with him.

  "Would I be too inquisitive, Colonel Bandfield, if I asked if you were following the progress on jet engine development?"

  Uh-oh, Bandfield thought, he's heard about McNaughton's problems.

  "Not at all. I've been briefed on as much as we know about the German developments. We know that the British have flown an experimental jet, not a fighter. And as you probably know, we've been doing some work on it, too."

  Johnson was quiet-spoken, taciturn, but determined.

  "Let me show you a few drawings."

  He turned the pages of a sketch pad showing a very clean, low-wing single-engine aircraft, air intakes tucked on the side of its nose, jet exhausting from the tail.

  "We'd like to get in the jet business, Colonel. General Caldwell hasn't been very encouraging. He says he needs the P-38s and the bombers we make too badly to let us try."

  In the end, Bandfield said that he'd press Lockheed's case with Caldwell. He left confident that if the McNaughton jet did fail, Johnson was clearly a man to be depended on to deliver a jet from Lockheed on time.

  *

  Stockholm/April 13, 1943

  It was truly a world at war. Distant countries as unthreatened—and unthreatening—as Bolivia, Ethiopia, and Iraq had declared war on Germany. In Sweden, the mood was shifting. The German invasion that loomed so large in its thinking in 1940 no longer seemed so imminent, but a balanced decision still had to be made: did Sweden wish to be surrounded by German-or Russian-controlled land? The truth was neither; the unspoken best solution for Sweden was an endless conflict in which both countries bled themselves to death, buying plenty of war materiel in the process.

  On the surface, Sweden still danced to Germany's tune. More than 10 percent of Swedish rail traffic was employed in transporting German troops and materiel, and Swedish naval vessels escorted German ships through coastal waters. In the previous March, six hundred thousand tons of Swedish ore had been funneled into German blast furnaces, and dozens of Swedish "fishing" ships had been sold to serve as German minesweepers. Most blatant of all, Swedish vessels under contract served as tankers to fuel German U-boats.

  Yet Lyra sensed the fundamental change in Swedish attitude toward Germans as soon as she arrived. Helmut's rank and Knight's Cross had entitled him to fly on the previous day's German courier plane. She had been fortunate to be able to get a seat on the Swedish airline Aerotransport's silvery Junkers Ju 52 Vikingaland. When they landed at Bromma Airport, she found that the porters were their normal eager selves with the few Swedish passengers but ignored the Germans. The same applied to everyone, from the hat-doffing doorman to the surly taxi drivers. And where in the past the customs officials had been courteous to the point of negligence in their inspections of papers and baggage, they now acted like Gestapo agents.

  It was true in the restaurants as well; service was now slow and surly, even worse if a foreigner from an Allied country was sitting nearby.

  Nonetheless, she was glad to be in Stockholm working at the German Legation, devoutly glad tonight to have Helmut lying at her side, and glad to be married. It was so bizarre. She was drifting further and further from a man she once had truly loved. Yet when she realized that she was pregnant, everything had changed. Daring enough to spy on her adopted country, she was too conventional to have an abortion or an illegitimate child. When Helmut, touchingly grateful that she was pregnant, had insisted on marriage, she accepted gladly.

  It was an emotional paradox. Once she'd been in love with him, reveling in their intimate physical bonding, even after she'd made a decision to work against the regime. But in the last year Helmut had changed dramatically. He was totally absorbed in his work, trying so desperately to win the war in the air that he no longer objected to the methods the Nazis were using. She no longer loved him—but she didn't want their baby to be a bastard.

  God knew, she was certainly entitled to be with child, given their tempestuous lovemaking. If she had counted right, the child had been conceived in November, before Helmut had gone to Stalingrad, on the floor just inside the doorway of her flat. When she first knew that she was pregnant she had wondered how she could carry on, carrying the baby of a man she no longer loved and whose cause she hated. Early on, an abortion would not have been impossible; she had friends who had connections and, in wartime, no stigma would have attached. The thought of an abortion was too abhorrent—she couldn't do it.

  The real question, of course, was whether she could put her battle against Germany above the baby. Right now she thought she could; when it was born it might be very different indeed. Nothing in her emotional conflict confused her; she was determined to play out the cards she had been dealt, to take what she could from life, and to strike whatever blows she could against the Nazis.

  Helmut lay with his hand on her belly, now round as an Army loaf of bread.

  "What shall we name him?"

  "If it's a him, Helmut, of course."

  "No, I've never liked the name Helmut. My mother's family name was Ulrich—let's call him that. If it's a girl, Gunilla. How would that be?"

  He realized that she was softly sobbing.

  "What's the matter? Did I say something?"

  "No, it's just that the times are so confusing. Should we be bringing a baby into the world at all?"

  "Of course. Think of all the people who have been killed. We need good babies for the future. And be glad you're here. The bombing in Germany is going to get worse and worse; we've only seen the start of it. It was bad enough to have you in danger before; now . . ."He rubbed her stomach again.

  Lyra had been two months pregnant before she gave in to him and agreed to go to Stockholm. Even then her decision was based in part on the fact that she would be able to communicate with Caldwell much more directly. Ironically, Josten had asked Bruno Hafner to pull some strings and get her an assignment in the Legation. Hafner had said he'd tried but failed; Lyra and Helmut weren't sure he'd even tried. Then, at Helmut's insistence, Lyra had requested assistance from Joseph Goebbels. Within a week she had been assigned to be the Propaganda Ministry's representative at the Legation. Goebbels tried to be romantic, even hinting that he might be the father, yet transparently unable to hide his relief at what he termed "an admirable solution" to her problem.

  The secret marriage had been surprisingly simple. The Luftwaffe attache in Stockholm, Captain Kurt von Wahlert, was an old friend of Helmut's from Jg 26 who had been terribly wounded in a night battle with a Lancaster. Kurt had made all the arrangements, bribing a very thirsty Swedish clerk to forge the marriage documents for them, and arranging for a distant cousin, Folke Holmstrom, pastor of the Linkoeping Cathedral, to perform the ceremony. Von Wahlert assured her that it was all absolutely legal in the eyes of the Church and the law; he'd been given a secret pastoral dispensation for all the usual requirements.

  The marriage had been quick and quiet; the pastor was obviously distressed at stretching his authority, but determined. Afterward, there was a small feast—some strange-looking but delicious fish, dolmas, a pork roast with rice and brown beans. Helmut had brought champagne and Asbach Uralt brandy; the pastor's mood improved markedly after a few drinks. When it was time to go, he struggled to his feet for a final speech.

  "My children, I hope that I've made you as happy as you have made me. We must remember that the child to come is innocent of all the politics that poison
the world today. Before I give a final toast to you and to your child, I want to add one thing, a sad and I hope unnecessary promise."

  They were silent; he hesitated and Helmut saw that the pastor's glass was empty; he hastened to fill it, and the priest went on.

  "Nothing is certain in this war—we don't know what will come. But if ever the worst should come, and God forbid that this should happen, if you need someone to care for the baby, bring it to me. I have friends in my parish in whom I have perfect trust, and so can you. I promise you that the child will be cared for. May it never happen, and may all be blessed."

  Now, tonight, when it was time for Helmut to leave, Lyra asked, "When do you think you will be back?"

  "I'm not certain; Galland is sending me on an inspection tour of the night-fighter wings and we are still having some problems with the jet engine. I'd hoped to have eight or nine aircraft ready for training other pilots by now; we have only two, and the engines go out on them all the time."

  She felt utterly perfidious. He was her husband, the father of her child, but he had said the magic words "jet engine" and she wanted to find out more.

  "What's the matter with the engines?"

  "Don't bother your head about that—you just worry about the baby."

  The war had surely ruined her; she felt as calculating with Helmut as she had with Goebbels. With a warmth she did not feel she said, "No, I want to know everything about you, what you are doing, what your problems are, everything."

  The sudden warmth caused him to respond gladly; Lyra knew he felt that it was the pregnancy that had changed her so, made her so indifferent to him.

  "I'll tell you, but you won't understand." He sat upright next to her, his hands trying to help his words, telling her about the turbine blades overheating, and how Hafner's people had invented a way to cool them.

  "They keep the temperatures down by bleeding air through the blade—but they haven't solved the blade welding process. Understand?"

  "Not really—but do you think you can solve it?"

  "I can't, I'm not even working on it. But Hafner has the best craftsmen in the world, and if anyone can, they can. It's just a matter of time—and unfortunately that's what we don't have, time."

  "Does this mean that the bombing won't stop?"

  "I can't say. If he found a solution today, we could have twelve fighters ready in a month, and an operational squadron trained and ready by the summer. If we demonstrate to the idiots at Headquarters that the plane is a triumph, we could have it in mass production by the fall. Then the bombing would stop, and the invasion would be next to impossible."

  She took his hands and put them on her waist.

  "Kiss my breasts, please, and make me forget about the war."

  What a whore I am, she thought.

  *

  En route from Guadalcanal/April 18, 1943

  The control wheel burned his hands as the temperature in the sun-drenched cockpit soared like a runaway sauna. He was glad he was wearing only his standard khaki pants and shirt. Bandfield ran his finger around the scar on his face, white against his deep tan, then reached over to adjust his shoulder holster, which was rubbing him raw underneath the parachute straps. He felt an inordinate satisfaction.

  Goddamn, I'm the luckiest guy in the world! Patty would kill me if she knew what I was doing.

  Looking ahead he saw that the usual smooth symmetry of the Lightning—twin props, twin booms, twin tail—was marred, made lopsided with the new 310-gallon tank on one side and the standard 165-gallon on the other. Ungainly as they were, they increased the internal fuel supply by two thirds.

  He was the tail-end charlie of a sixteen-ship formation, whipping along at wavetop height on a heading of 265 degrees at an airspeed of two hundred miles per hour; the P-38's engines were just loafing, conserving fuel. At sea level the Lightning had a normal range of about six hundred miles; today's mission was over eight hundred miles roundtrip—and if things went as planned, there would be the damnedest dogfight ever in the blue skies over the Kahili airfield.

  The extra range came from the big auxiliary fuel tank. He felt some pride in it; he'd sketched out the original shape and internal plumbing, then ramrodded a team to get it into production. It did the job—but unfortunately, despite all its advocates in the Pentagon, the P-38 was clearly not maneuverable enough to become the long-range fighter in Europe—the Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs would eat it up.

  On Guadalcanal, he had made a pest of himself, insisting that he should at least be listed as a spare on the mission because his plane was already fitted with the tank for tests, while the others had to be jury-rigged overnight. They had grudgingly listed him as number seventeen. The opportunity to fly came when one of the mission pilots ran his overloaded P-38 over a jagged shard of pierced steel planking and blew a tire. Fighter Strip 2, northwest of Henderson Field, was torn up by use and mortar fire, and blown tires weren't unusual. He knew the other pilot felt as bad as he felt good. There was nothing like being in the right place at the right time!

  It was sweat or freeze in the P-38; at low altitudes the big canopy let in enough solar radiation to fry you; at high altitudes it leaked enough heat to freeze you. He'd suffer both today and didn't give a damn, because this was the dream mission, a chance to kill Admiral Yamamoto, the Commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet.

  Glancing at the clock he saw they had another forty-two minutes to fly on this heading, a long time to sweat and to think. The word on the mission had come down through Navy channels, all the way from that old Rough Rider, Secretary Knox himself. The code-busters had received word of the inveterately punctual Yamamoto's itinerary for an inspection trip. His death would come in the air over Ballale, a tiny island just off Bougainville. He was due to arrive there at exactly 07:45 a.m. Japanese time—Tokyo time—and as the Americans reckoned it, 09:45. The Lightnings would be ready.

  They had departed from the charred and battered palm groves that surrounded Henderson Field and the two adjacent fighter strips, heading out over the small cliff that fell away from Fighter Strip 2 to circle to join formation.

  Bandfield was essentially a loner, but he had never felt more isolated before, in part because he wasn't completely accepted by the fighter pilots, knit together by long months on the island and in combat. They had been polite and mildly condescending to him until he began to return from missions with as much as one hundred more gallons of fuel in his tanks than anyone else, the result of his years of study on cruise control. Now they all had adopted his techniques, flying at higher manifold pressures and lower rpms, never wasting a moment in the air, always cutting courses as close to straight lines as possible, and most important of all, using efficient climb speeds.

  He reached down from the sweat-slick wheel to pull his gloves from his pocket. God, what a lovely airplane this is! he thought. Two Allison engines, two superchargers, and in the nose the best gun package he'd ever seen. No worries about harmonizing, synchronizing, nothing, just hose 'em and go! This is how technology pays off; when they needed to have a plane with the range to get Yamamoto, it was there. You can't afford to be second best, not here, not in Europe. Especially not in Europe.

  Low to the water, their formation was remarkably precise, as if they were all proud that the Navy had reluctantly turned this prize mission over to the Army. There had been no choice—the Navy didn't have a plane with the range to hack it. And once it was turned over to the Army, it was a foregone conclusion that the 339th would fly it, and Major John W. Mitchell would lead it.

  Mitchell was a short, dark-haired Southerner with a triangular face and a pouting mouth. He was soft-spoken but very direct; he flew with his head and had not left them any illusions about the toughness of their mission. They were going to fly at sea level, out of sight of land, for more than four hundred miles, with no navigational aids other than their compasses; at the end of that time, they were supposed to intercept a Japanese bomber carrying Yamamoto. To think that they could pull of
f a miracle of split-second timing seemed impossible, particularly in the hurry-up-and-wait universe of the military. Even if they flew their mission exactly right, there was no guarantee that Yamamoto's pilot would. But the bright side was that if Yamamoto were there, he'd almost surely be escorted by a flock of Zeros, so there would be a chance for a dogfight and some victories.

  The four hottest-shots of the outfit had been appointed as a hunter flight to go in and get Yamamoto's plane. The other twelve aircraft would act as top cover, breaking up the Zero escort.

  Characteristically, Mitchell took the job of attacking the fighters, leaving the glory of shooting down Yamamoto to the hunters. Bandfield knew only two of these, gregarious Tom Lanphier and the businesslike Rex Barber. He was perfectly content to let them go after the bombers; he wanted some Zeros for himself.

  There was a pop from his left engine as the 165-gallon tank ran dry; he switched the fuel tank settings and the Allison purred again. It was going to be a long day.

  *

  En route to Ballale/April 18, 1943

  A crushing sense of guilt overwhelmed him, compounding his fatalistic certainty that he was living his last days. He had not been strong enough to prevent the war nor wise enough to win it.

  Everything that he had predicted, from the early victories to the mounting defeats, was coming to pass. And he was responsible. After Midway, someone had asked him, "Who would apologize to the Emperor?" It was a rhetorical question; only he could apologize, and that was not enough, not for the Emperor, not for the nation.

  Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto sat dressed in an olive-green fatigue uniform, a drab contrast to the customary formal whites he wore on Rabaul, saluting each arriving and departing flight of aircraft. It was a concession to his good friend Lieutenant General Imamura, who tried to get him to cancel the trip; he had himself been almost shot down on a similar flight. When Yamamoto had politely refused to delay the inspection Imamura had pleaded with him to tighten security and not to wear the familiar full-dress white uniform that was virtually his trademark. Reluctantly, Yamamoto had given in, not out of concern that some American spy would see him, but simply to appear to pay attention to his friend's concerns.