Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  Since the fateful word from the Bunker, there was a new Fuehrer, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, the dour fanatic whose submarines had almost brought Great Britain to its knees. Small and wizened, his uniform always seeming to be two sizes too large for him, he had been as surprised as anyone to have been selected as Hitler's successor. Now he seemed torn between a desire to honor his oath to the fallen Fuehrer and a heartfelt urge to end the killing by surrender. He knew about killing. His U-boats had sunk millions of tons of shipping—and of his forty thousand submariners, thirty thousand had drowned.

  Perhaps the thought of their deaths had given Doenitz the early morning courage to inform a shaking and unbelieving Himmler that there was no place for him in the new government. It was a crucial decision that affected Hafner directly, for the two Junkers escape planes he had waiting at a small field outside Flensburg were guarded by loyal SS troops. There was no way he could use either airplane without Himmler's permission.

  Doenitz and his cabinet had spent the day making meaningless decisions and issuing hollow statements solemnizing Hitler's death.

  Now the meeting was breaking up for the one-hundred-kilometer retreat to Flensburg. The shabby Doenitz government, moving in a ragged convoy, was going to run the gauntlet of British fighter bombers, fleeing north of the Kiel Canal to the naval cadet school at Murwik. Himmler, refusing to believe that Doenitz could operate without him, had insisted on hanging on. Doenitz had acquiesced, but insisted that they not travel together. Abashed but quietly defiant, Himmler agreed that his own convoy of Mercedes staff cars would follow the Doenitz party.

  Hafner waited patiently in the gathering dusk, standing quietly by Himmler as the last Mercedes was being loaded with the Reichsfuehrer's personal papers.

  "Ah, Herr Reichsfuehrer, it is times like these when the services of our friend Dr. Kersten would be invaluable."

  Startled, Himmler turned his owl eyes upon him, clearly unaware of his presence until that moment.

  "Oh, it's you, Hafner. Yes, Kersten is a magician. He has done well for you, I see."

  "Herr Reichsfuehrer, may I ask you a question?"

  "Not now, Hafner, I'm preoccupied. Get in the car with me. We can talk en route. Right now I have to think."

  They sat in the back of the Mercedes as Doenitz's caravan pulled out. Himmler watched his wristwatch steadily for ten minutes, then curtly nodded his head. His own convoy followed.

  The road to Flensburg was crowded with refugees moving slowly along the sides of the road while untidy detachments of troops, using any sort of conveyance, retreated in disorder, as much afraid of the brutal execution of summary court-martial squads as of the Russians. The roadsides were littered with burned vehicles, corpses, and dead horses. Among the martial debris, strange mixtures of destroyed domesticity hinted at an earlier, saner life. There were baby carriages loaded with clothes, broken bottles of wine, torn paintings, an open family album with photos staring blankly at the passing parade, dolls, a dead puppy, a harp. All had been at one moment the most important thing in the world to their owners, selected from all other things to flee with. And now they were abandoned forever.

  Himmler stared straight ahead, his hands positioned on his knees in the position of a cadet sitting at attention, his lips occasionally moving soundlessly. Hafner noticed that Himmler's usual military luster was dulled—his uniform had not been pressed, and it was without the usual array of medals.

  Drumming his fingers on the cushion beside him, Hafner waited to speak. He had left his own car at Plon, but it didn't matter. If he reached Flensburg with Himmler's permission to take off, he'd walk to the airfield if he had to.

  In the red haze of the deepening dusk they saw the all too familiar British Typhoons attacking the road ahead of them, a sight as common in Germany now as marching Hitler Youth once had been. Their driver pulled off the road to shelter under some trees.

  Himmler turned to Hafner and smiled.

  "Our new Fuehrer"—the word "Fuehrer" sounded as if his tongue was handling it with tongs—"is tasting some of the problems of office. I'd volunteered to precede him, to make sure things were safe. Now the Tommies are giving him a little lesson."

  Hafner nodded, and Himmler peered intently at him, his eyes growing large behind the round lenses of his glasses.

  "What is it you wanted to ask me?"

  "Herr Reichsfuehrer, I owe you a great deal. If you had not allowed Dr. Kersten to work with me, I never would have walked again. Now, I implore you to allow me to fly you to freedom. We have two Junkers aircraft at Flensburg. I could fly you to Spain in the larger airplane, the 290. You could go incognito, and perhaps escape to South America." Hafner had no intention of flying Himmler anywhere—if he boarded the aircraft with him, he would take him to Russia as a present.

  Tears misted Himmler's eyes. He had always been sentimental, sensitive to his own feelings, and the nearing end made him more so.

  "Ah, Hafner, there are few left like you. Even in my own SS there are traitors. But I can't go. I'm the only one the Allies will deal with. Doenitz doesn't realize this yet, but he will want me to become the Chancellor. No—but you go. I'll authorize the release of the aircraft as soon as we reach Flensburg."

  "Thank you, Herr Reichsfuehrer."

  Hafner felt relief sweep through him. He had been convinced ever since that meeting at Nordhausen that Himmler's almost paternal benevolence toward him masked a raging suspicion. Now things had so shifted that he no longer cared what Hafner did.

  But Himmler's previous reluctance to provide him with an aircraft had forced Hafner to take risks, forcing him to set the date of his defection early. His last contact with Scriabin had been his easiest—the Russian advance had been so swift that they had captured town after town with the telephone lines intact. Scriabin had simply rung him up at his Cottbus office. Now he was just going to make it. He had arranged with Scriabin that he would arrive off the Baltic Coast near Peenemunde just after dawn on the 3d, 4th, or 5th of May. The Russians would have a fighter escort on station each day for one hour, waiting to escort him in to his new fatherland.

  They drove in silence for a while and Himmler turned to him.

  "Tell me, Hafner, who made the best offer, the Americans or the Russians?"

  *

  Munich-Reim/May 2, 1945

  "I was here before, you know."

  Caldwell grunted apathetically.

  "Back in 1936, when you told me I was going on a boondoggle."

  As usual Caldwell didn't reply. At least he wasn't drinking anymore. Bandfield had initially been pleased when his old friend had said that he was going to join him on Operation Lusty. But he'd started drinking on the C-54 flight across the Atlantic and didn't stop until what Bandy was mentally calling the "Miracle in Frankfurt."

  If they had been in any sort of regular outfit, Caldwell would have been brought up on charges long ago. But because they were operating independently, Bandfield was able to keep his old friend under cover most of the time. It had been a strain caring for him, protecting him from himself. He'd spent most days passed out in the back of the Douglas C-47. The tragedy was that it was exactly the sort of irregular, free-lance work that Caldwell ordinarily enjoyed. Their original charter called for them to "closely follow" the advancing American armies, but the Germans were now so eager to be in American custody that they had twice landed behind German lines to accept the surrender of an airfield themselves. It was laughable—the C-47s they flew were normally unarmed, but Bandfield had had two . 50-caliber machine guns installed in flexible mounts. One was fixed so that it would fire out the big door on the left-hand side, the gunner restrained by a makeshift harness of safety belts and parachute lines. The other fired through the aperture of an escape hatch on the right. They'd been afraid to test-fire them, for a huge long-range fuel tank was rigged in the center of the cabin, and it gave off fumes continuously. Caldwell had requisitioned a small arsenal of captured German weapons—rifles and submachine guns—but they'd l
ain inside under a canvas cover for the whole trip.

  It didn't matter to the Germans that they were virtually unarmed; there was no question of protocol or rank, or of marching out with flags and arms—they just wanted to surrender to the Americans.

  "Let me show you something eerie, Henry. All Germany is in ruins, and this place has survived everything. Come on."

  They went down a flight of stairs of the Luftwaffe's officers' mess, abandoned by all but its white-liveried staff. Bandfield led the way down a hallway lined with framed paintings of Staffeln insignia to a white-tiled lavatory, immaculately clean.

  He pointed to large white basins fitted with large drains in the center, equipped with handles at the sides. Above each basin was an enormous faucet, more the size of a fire hose than a bathroom fixture.

  "Look at these, Henry."

  "Brother! What the hell are they?" It was the most emotion he'd expressed in days.

  "Vomitoriums. The Krauts would drink all the beer they could hold, then come down here and throw up."

  The uniform Lieutenant General Henry Caldwell had worn on the Schweinfurt raid when he posed as "Major White" hung loosely on him, disheveled and sported with cigarette burns. He was chain smoking again.

  Caldwell sighed, saying lugubriously, "They're strange people, Bandy."

  Bandfield wanted to encourage the little glimmer of interest.

  "Yeah, like when I landed at Leipheim. I taxied in and told the old captain running the field that I was taking off in one of the jets he had parked on the line. He was agreeable as hell—if I signed a receipt for the airplane! As long as his ass was covered, he didn't care who took it."

  Caldwell reverted immediately to his idée fixe. "But nobody knows where Hafner is! He's my only chance, Bandy. If I could get to him—or at least get to the material he has on microfilm—I might be able to beat the rap."

  Bandfield nodded, even though he didn't agree. If the Judge Advocate General was out to hang Caldwell, some captured data wasn't going to save him. But as long as it gave Caldwell something to cling to, it was fine with Bandfield.

  "You'd never recognize him, Bandy. You remember what a handsome devil he was in the old days? All the women used to throw themselves at him. Well, you fixed him. His face is twisted and burned, and his legs are atrophied. He's built up his arms and shoulders, though."

  "If I see the son-of-a-bitch, I'll recognize him. He did me enough harm to remember him no matter how he looks."

  They walked back upstairs to the deserted dining room. Their crew chief, Vince Lowe, was tired of living out of cans and had talked the German cooks into preparing a meal. The Germans had gone full out, delighted to have the American rations, and the table was glittering with white linen, crystal, and formal Luftwaffe dinnerware. Caldwell picked at the food, the highly prized C rations and a can of Spam, nicely presented, with German Army bread on the side.

  "Damnit, Henry, you can't go on like this, never eating. What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?"

  "There's nothing the matter with me that a shot from a forty-five-caliber pistol wouldn't cure. Anyway, who knows what will happen over here? Some Kraut might put me out of my misery. Or we might land at some field, and up would pop our friend Bruno."

  Bandfield nibbled at his food, conscious that he was watching the death of a career and perhaps the death of the man. Caldwell had spent his life doing things for the Army that no one else could have done. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that he had laid the foundations for victory. But in the process he had made enemies—and some big mistakes. Now they were going to destroy him.

  "Remember that meeting back in Yankee Stadium, Henry? You told me we'd get to fly everything, but I never thought we'd be flying stuff like this."

  Caldwell agreed. "Some of it makes old Hadley's Operation Leapfrog look pretty tame."

  So far they had collected half a dozen 262s, two of the strange Dornier Do 335 twin-engine "push-pull" fighters, an Arado reconnaissance jet, and a single-engine Heinkel jet, a 162. In the process they'd taken far more prisoners than they could handle, content to send most of them marching back without an escort, retaining only the best of the German mechanics. Bandfield had run the selection like a dockyard shape-up. He tried to figure out who had the most talent and sent the rest along on their own.

  The most important catch of all came to them voluntarily, in the "Miracle in Frankfurt." Karl Hoffman was a mountain of a man who'd served throughout the war as a civilian production test pilot for Messerschmitt. He'd flown in a rare two-seater 262 to the bombed-out airfield at Frankfurt am Main. Bandfield had grabbed him, and Hoffman gladly agreed to teach them to fly the 262 and anything else they captured. He spoke English well enough to get by and had been with them ever since.

  The "miracle" had been Caldwell sobering up for a demonstration ride in the two-seat 262 with Hoffman. He came down boiling with enthusiasm, looking more like an eager cadet than a tired and frightened old man. He stopped drinking on the spot, and the next day Hoffman sent him solo in a single-seat 262. Since then there had been increasing signs of life in Caldwell—and he had stayed on the wagon.

  "Look who's coming, our newest recruit."

  Hoffman bustled in to stand at rigid attention beside the table.

  "I have some information for you. One of the most important pilots in the 262 program, Oberst Josten, is in the Oberfoehring Army Hospital in Munich. He is badly burned from a crash but conscious. You might want to talk to him about the airplane."

  Caldwell was on his feet. "Airplane hell! I want to talk to him about Bruno Hafner."

  Hoffman, frightened that in his fractured English he had said something offensive, began to apologize.

  "Take us there right now, Karl. We've got to talk to this man."

  As they rushed out Caldwell grabbed a piece of Spam from his plate and stuck it between two slices of German Army bread.

  "This is the break we've been looking for, Bandy—he's bound to know where Hafner is."

  Bandfield hoped that it was not just a forlorn whistle in the dark.

  They were treated like kings by Major Pingel, the harried head of the hospital. As soon as they'd entered the hospital grounds, he materialized, all smiles and wringing hands, bowing and scraping. "Oberst Josten is recovering better than we could have expected. He's in considerable pain and we've kept him under sedation. He's been taking Dolantin, and we're beginning to reduce the dosage. His face and hands were badly burned, and he has two bullet wounds and a fractured hip." Caldwell asked impatiently, "Will he be able to talk to us?" "Yes, it might even help him. He needs to get his mind off the crash. Conscious or unconscious, he complains continually about having wrecked his aircraft." The major laughed heartily, as if he were sharing a rare joke with them. "As if it mattered anymore."

  Bandfield spoke quietly to Caldwell. "Strange how easily they've gone belly-up, now that it's almost over. He's acting as though they just lost a rubber of bridge."

  "Churchill was right—the Germans are either at your feet or at your throat."

  The hospital was overflowing with the wounded, civil and military; patients were jammed into every room and beds lined the hallways. One entire wing was open air, the walls and roof gone. Yet the floors had been swept clean and the beds were lined up at regular intervals, patient charts in metal holders at the end, just as if it had been planned that way.

  "We have a few rooms reserved for special cases." Pingel pointed to a heavy oak door and the two Americans went in.

  There were only two beds in the room, and one was vacant. Josten was asleep, his arms and head covered with thick white gauze, his left leg in a hip-high cast.

  "Can we wake him up? It's urgent."

  "No problem at all!" Pingel seemed genuinely pleased to have to disturb Josten for them. "We have to awaken patients at all hours for their medication, they're used to it." He leaned down and shouted, "Oberst Josten! You have important visitors."

  "Thoughtful fucker," Caldwell mutt
ered.

  Josten, hearing strange voices even before Pingel shouted in his ear, had already begun the long swim upward through the opiates to painful consciousness.

  "Who is it?"

  "Some old friends of yours, Helmut. I'm Henry Caldwell—we knew each other in Berlin before the war. And you met Frank Bandfield in 1936."

  "1936?" Josten's voice was fuzzy. It took a moment for the names to register.

  "Americans. Is the war over?"

  "Almost. A few days more, at most. We need your help. Perhaps we can help you in exchange. You'll remember that I knew Lyra before the war. Can I be of assistance to her now?"

  A low sob, more a rattle than a cry, came from the bandages.

  "I don't know where she is. If you can find her, bring her to me. I need her."

  "And what about your child?"

  "Ulrich's in Sweden—I may need help to find him. But first, find Lyra and bring her here."

  "We'll do that if we can. First we need some information. Do you know where Bruno Hafner is?"

  "Of course. Or at least—" His voice choked and Pingel thrust a glass straw through the slit in the bandages over his mouth. Josten slurped water noisily.

  "At least I did. He had positioned two airplanes at Flensburg in Schleswig-Holstein. Near the coast. But he may be gone. I suspect that he has an arrangement with the Russians."

  The expressions on Caldwell's face were changing like an electric sign, registering hatred, hope, anger, and hatred again in rapid succession. He jerked his head to the door and said, "Helmut, we've got to leave, now. We'll be back, and if we can find Lyra we'll bring her to you. Thanks for your help."