Beyond the Call
Page 35
19. Hampton, cable T-3550 to Gen. Hill, 11 April 1945. Adding to the confusion, Hampton had been informed that the ‘B-17’ would be arriving that day, 11 April.
20. Foregger, ‘Soviet Rails to Odessa’, pp. 852–5.
21. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 4.
22. The aircraft photographed at Poltava on 12 April matches the serial number and description given to General Deane by General Cannon (Cannon, Cable M-51026 to Gen. Deane, 11 April 1945).
23. Kaluta, vol. III, photo 19–21.
24. In response to the SMERSH report on actions at Poltava in early April, Stalin ordered, ‘Calm Comrade Kovalev down. … Prevent him from taking independent actions’ (Dobbs, Six Months in 1945, p. 196).
25. License discovered by Tom Lingerfelter. Described online at www.heritagecs.com/1928_Balloon_Pilot_license.htm (retrieved 26 February 2014).
26. General Deane had been informed in detail about the flight. He passed the full details on to the Soviets, but not to Eastern Command. It was a high-ranking crew that took Morris Shenderoff to Moscow, hand-picked on behalf of Lieutenant General John K. Cannon, commander of Allied Air Forces in the Mediterranean: pilot Major Walter C. Cannon (possibly a relative); copilot Captain James R. Mayer; navigator Captain Arthur F. Butler; engineer Second Lieutenant Melton E. Bloom; and radioman Staff Sergeant James W. Wells. Shenderoff was escorted by Captains Harold W. Crowell and Beverley H. Tripp of the Corps of Military Police, and by Major Orfutt and Lieutenant Colonel Stepanovich, American officers who spoke Russian. Lieutenant Colonel Stepanovich was responsible for delivering Shenderoff into Soviet hands (Cannon, Cables MX-50976 and M-51026 to Gen. Deane, 11 April 1945; Deane, Letter to Lt Gen Slavin, 11 April 1945).
27. The photo of the Shenderoff plane in the USAF archive is erroneously captioned, ‘American and Russian personnel wave their greetings as the Consolidated B-24 ‘JUDITH ANN,’ carrying Major General Deane and Major General Edmund W. Hill, comes to a halt on the steel mat runway at Poltava Airbase, a shuttle mission base in Russia. 12 April 1945.’ In the official history of Eastern Command, the same photo is captioned, ‘Secret arrival at Poltava of B-24 from Italy’ (Kaluta, vol. III, photo 71–11).
28. Borch, ‘Two Americans’.
29. Kaluta, vol. I, ch. I, p. 4. Apparently the rumor originated with Lieutenant Myron King, who heard the story when he was in Moscow for his court-martial (Borch, ‘Two Americans’).
Chapter 18: Spare the Conquered, Confront the Proud
1. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, p. 1. Eastern Command had opted not to fly their flag permanently in case it irritated the Russians.
2. Roosevelt died at 3:35pm on 12 April, which was the middle of the night in Russia. The Americans there woke to the news on 13 April.
3. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, p. 1
4. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, p. 1; Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. VIII, pp. 38–9.
5. The artist was Senior Sergeant Sapokar. The theater was shared between American and Russian personnel and, until the rise of tensions in March 1945, had been a focus of good relations between the two sides (Kaluta, vol. I, ch. V, pp. 21–2).
6. Quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 10.
7. The similarity was noted at the time by Eastern Command (Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 10).
8. Captain Trimble made this plain at the commencement of the conference (report by adjutant Captain Fischer, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 10).
9. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 13.
10. Trimble, cable to Hill, 21 April 1945, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, pp. 13–14.
11. Hill, cable to Trimble, quoted in Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. 6, p. 83.
12. Trimble, cable to Hill, 21 April 1945, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, pp. 13–14.
13. Narratives in Borch, ‘Two Americans’.
14. Dolin had met Wilmeth and Kingsbury in Lublin. Strangely, Dolin believed that the POW contact mission was a front and that the two colonels were actually spying on the Soviets (Dolin, quoted by McDonough, Wars of Myron King, p. 174). The allegation is fairly preposterous. It rests on the claim that Dolin saw documents containing intelligence about Soviet forces on Wilmeth’s desk. The claim assumes that Wilmeth, as a spy, had recorded his data in plain text and left it lying about where anybody entering his office could see and read it. Given that he was constantly being spied on by the NKVD, this would make him the most incompetent (and the luckiest) spy who ever lived. The ‘intelligence’ documents were probably details of Red Army POW collection points, Odessa transports, and prison camps, as well as information about the dispersal of POWs obtained from Wilmeth’s POW agents.
15. Trimble, letter to Kovalev, 18 April 1945, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 11.
16. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, pp. 11–12.
17. Wilmeth, cable to Deane, 9 April 1945, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, p. 6.
18. In 1952, after a review of his case by the US Air Force, King’s guilty verdict was overturned. His fine was refunded and his military record cleared (Borch, ‘Two Americans’).
19. Trimble, cable to Hill, quoted in Kaluta, vol. II, ch. I, p. 4.
20. Hampton, Cable T-3457 to Gen. Deane, 4 April 1945.
21. McDonough, Wars of Myron King, pp. 192–3.
22. Except for tail gunner Sergeant George Atkinson, who had been involved in a road accident in Poltava on 19 April, in which a local woman was killed. Atkinson bumped his truck into a Russian truck, which, not properly braked, rolled onto the sidewalk and crushed the woman. Despite attempts by Captain Trimble, General Deane, and Deane’s chief of staff to settle the case quietly with the Soviets and get Atkinson flown out to Tehran, the Soviets insisted that he be subject to their jurisdiction. He was fined heavily, and the Military Mission paid compensation to the woman’s family (Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, pp. 7–8).
23. According to Kaluta (vol. II, ch. II, p. 7), Kovalev had pre-approved King’s departure. However, Robert Trimble recalled that Kovalev complained about it after the event. Knowing the Soviet habit of giving and then rescinding permissions, this isn’t surprising (permission to fly injured combat men to Tehran had been given and rescinded several times during the flying ban). Recalling the fate of Morris Shenderoff, Robert said later, ‘I’d be damned if we were going to let that happen to King.’
24. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. II, p. 2.
25. The old building is still part of the US Embassy, now serving as the US Citizen Center.
26. These complaints are reviewed throughout all three volumes of the official history; some were true (such as the black market dealing, detailed in Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. V, pp. 86–92), whereas others were exaggerated or dubious.
27. Plokhy, Yalta, pp. 155–6, 168–9.
28. Winston Churchill, address to the House of Commons, 14 December 1950, Hansard vol. 482, col. 1368.
29. In his memoir, The Strange Alliance, written shortly after the war, John R. Deane’s diplomatic tone often gives way to anger over the POW issue. Likewise, Averell Harriman was sufficiently angry about the issue to suggest retaliation against Soviet POW contact teams in American-occupied territory (Harriman, cable to secretary of state, 14 March 1945, in US Department of State, Foreign Relations, pp. 1079–81).
30. Deane, Strange Alliance, p. 197.
31. Winston Churchill, address to the House of Commons, 14 December 1950, Hansard vol. 482, col. 1367.
Chapter 19: The Long Way Home
1. Kaluta, vol. II, ch. III, pp. 2–5.
2. Lieutenant William R. Kaluta, Corps of Engineers, became one of Eastern Command’s official historians.
3. Infield, Poltava Affair, pp. 223–4. Unfortunately, Infield cites no source for the story, and there are problems with it. First, Infield is under the impression that Ritchie was CO at Poltava (he was just visiting to finalize the evacuation), and he is said to have dumped the material in the lake ‘through a hole in the ice’ (in June). However, it is plausible that OSS equipment could have
been stored at Poltava, given the planned cooperation program (Deane, Strange Alliance, pp. 50–9). It is unlikely (although not impossible) that the cache had any direct connection to Robert Trimble’s mission.
4. Hill, Letter to Gen. Spaatz, 16 May 1945. What is significant is that the only exceptional thing Robert had officially done was take command at Poltava, and at the time the letter was written he had only been in that post one month. His officially recorded work as assistant operations officer was (for Eastern Command) fairly standard. It is clear that Hill was alluding to Captain Trimble’s truly exceptional off-the-record mission.
5. Deane, Cable M-24441 to Gen. Spaatz, 24 May 1945.
6. Many biographical accounts of Spaatz at this period have him moving to USAAF HQ in Washington, DC, in early June, prior to taking up command in the Pacific in late July (e.g., Watson, Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff, p. 109). However, in late June he was still in Europe, having resumed command of USSTAF from 13 June to 30 June. On the 27th he visited Melun airfield in France, where American test pilots were evaluating captured German Me-262 jet fighters (Samuel, American Raiders, pp. 271–7).
7. Metz, Master of Airpower, ch. I.
8. American Legion Baseball was (and still is) a baseball league for teenage boys, founded by the American Legion veterans’ organization in 1926.
9. In practice, it is almost certain that Robert Trimble would not have been one of those pilots, even had he accepted Spaatz’s offer. The 509th Composite Group was a specialized unit which had trained intensively for the atomic bomb missions. Robert probably could not have completed conversion training on the B-29 in time to join the 509th, let alone taken part in any missions. But that wasn’t known at the time – it was anticipated that there would be more than just the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions, and that the war might go on much longer.
10. There seem to have been two contradictory views of Robert Trimble’s (officially recorded) service with Eastern Command. Major Albert Lepawsky, the command’s first historian, is dismissive of him as commander. Lepawsky was sympathetic to the Russians and writes disparagingly about both Colonel Hampton and Major Kowal. While acknowledging that Trimble was a congenial character and inexperienced in command, he claims that he was antagonistic toward the Russians (Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. VIII, pp. 101–11). However, Lepawsky was not at Poltava during Trimble’s time, and his version is flatly contradicted by the volumes of the official history written by Lieutenant William Kaluta (who was there) and by the testimonials of General Hill and General Deane cited above. It is probable that the unnamed general who called Robert to Washington had heard a version of events propagated by Lepawsky, since the latter had been producing negative reports on Eastern Command personnel for the War Department since at least December 1944 (Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. VIII, pp. 49–51).
11. Captain Trimble initially declined to take part, because his personnel were busy with urgent administrative duties, having been told a few days earlier by General Deane that Eastern Command was about to be shut down and evacuated – an order which was later rescinded (Kaluta, vol. II, ch. III, p. 2). Captain Trimble immediately apologized to General Kovalev for the confusion and authorized American participation in the celebration (Lepawsky, History of Eastern Command, ch. VIII, p. 111).
Epilogue: Not Without Honor
1. The Croix de Guerre citation for Robert Trimble is listed in French government records under ‘decision no. 1029, division level [with silver star]’ dated 20 August 1945. The actual citation document has unfortunately been lost in the French archives.
2. De Gaulle visited Washington for talks with President Truman from 22 to 24 August. The meetings were generally civil, but there were ongoing disagreements between de Gaulle and the United States that year over the post-war plan for Germany and French plans to re-establish a hold on Indochina (Wall, ‘Harry S. Truman and Charles de Gaulle’, pp. 123–9; McAllister, No Exit, pp. 99–103; Marr, Vietnam, pp. 183–4).
3. At some time between infancy and later childhood, the second part of Carol Ann’s name fell out of use. She has no memory of when or why, only the knowledge that ‘Carol Ann’ was what her father called her when she was a baby.
INDEX
493rd Bomb Group 17, 20, 116, 302
aircrew rescue 74, 109
American Military Mission, Moscow 66, 70, 78, 89, 94, 164, 177, 181, 186, 217, 236, 244, 257, 269
Antonov, General Aleksei I. 240, 242–3
appeasement of the Russians 255, 259, 263, 266
Auschwitz 12, 78, 86–8, 109, 119, 205
B-17 Flying Fortress 17, 23, 62–3, 68, 105–7, 110, 127, 131, 139–41, 142, 148, 171–4, 176, 192
B-24 Liberator 22, 46, 68, 105, 142, 245–7
B-29 Superfortress 142, 275
Barnett, Second Lieutenant Jack 175–7, 187, 191
barrage balloons 30–2
Beadle, Sergeant Richard J. 155–8, 167–70, 179–80, 182, 184–6, 191–2, 194, 195
bird dogs (NKVD officer escorts) 77, 83, 98, 117, 126, 160, 164, 216, 217–18, 226, 240
Birkenau 121–2, 126
Bomb Group, 493rd 17, 20, 116, 302
Bridge, Lieutenant Donald 241–2, 244, 257–60
Brygidki prison 214, 318
Brzezinka, Poland 75, 78
C-46 Commando 269
C-47 Skytrain 41, 50, 67, 130, 132–4, 140, 149, 160, 237, 269, 272
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania 19, 210
Casablanca 44–5, 48
Churchill, Winston 2, 65, 74, 266
Commando, C-46 269
communication protocols 85
concentration camps 121, 205
see also Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek
Cossacks 136–8
Croix de Guerre 8, 289–90, 325
Czarnków, Poland 155, 157
Dakar, Senegal 43
Deane, General John R. 79–80, 88, 101, 161–2, 166, 167, 181, 197, 200, 240, 242, 246, 251–2, 262–7, 272, 307, 309, 321, 323
death camps 71, 162
death march see forced marches
Debach, England 17, 19–20
Distinguished Flying Cross 8, 115, 127
Dolin, Second Lieutenant Leon 257–8, 322
Eagle project 84, 308
Eastern Command 22, 61, 63, 68, 71, 76, 82, 109, 113, 159, 163, 186, 193, 239, 243, 245, 253, 259, 269–73
Eastern Front 60, 156, 220
Eden, Anthony 244
Eighth Air Force 17, 61, 302
Fawzia, Queen 52–5
Fitchen, Captain William 83, 126
Fitin, General Pavel 66
Flying Fortress, B-17 17, 23, 62–3, 68, 105–7, 110, 127, 131, 139–41, 142, 148, 171–4, 176, 192
forced labor 11, 72, 120, 184, 218–20, 301, 319
forced marches 11, 91, 120, 155–6, 220
gas chambers 87
Germans 63, 218
Germany 105, 219
Gould, Private Ronald 168–70, 182, 184–6, 193, 194
Grosvenor Square 29, 35, 303
Halifax, Lord 244
Hall, Major Paul 127, 201
Hampton, Colonel Thomas K. 68–70, 73, 76, 78, 81–3, 101, 126, 132, 159, 244–7, 254, 312, 313
Harriman, Ambassador Averell 9, 80, 199–200, 243, 262–7, 323
Helton, Colonel Elbert 20–4, 27, 33, 70, 85, 302
Hill, Major General Edmund W. 15, 66–7, 78, 245, 246, 251, 255, 271
Hitler, Adolf 156, 266
holding camps, Russian 92, 99–100, 103, 189, 199, 221, 315
Hotel George, Lwów 93, 174–5, 179, 185, 190, 215, 220–3
Iran, Shah of 52–5
Isabelle, French refugee 11–13, 216–21, 229–30, 234–8, 289
Janowska camp 214
Jessee, Lieutenant Tyler E. 131, 149, 171, 177, 185
Jews 88, 120, 214
Joes (field agents) 39, 84
Johnson, Lieutenant Warren 17, 31, 43
Kasia 123–5
Katyn massacre 64, 305
King, Lieutenant Myron 240–1, 244, 257–60, 320, 323
Kingsbury, Lieutenant Colonel Curtis 79, 126, 160, 195, 257, 322
Kisil, Corporal Paul 160
Kovalev, Major General S.K. 69, 101, 132, 239, 243, 248, 253, 255, 258, 312
Kowal, Major Michael 78, 81–2, 126, 245, 254, 307
Kraków, Poland 75, 78, 109, 117
Kratke, Tadeusz 111–12, 310–11
lend-lease to USSR 61, 269–70, 304
Lobb, Lieutenant Jean 19
London 30–2
Lowry, Esa 176–7
Lublin, Poland 78, 79, 101, 127, 130, 160, 163–7, 191, 196, 200, 240
Luftwaffe 62
Lwów, Poland 11–13, 78, 93, 97, 101, 103–4, 149, 154, 169, 172, 186, 189–90, 213, 236
train station 225–9
Hotel George 93, 174–5, 179, 185, 190, 215, 220–3
Maiya, interpreter 76, 133–5, 139–41, 149–51
Majdanek 71, 86, 88, 162, 205
Matles, Sergeant John 131, 142–3, 145, 147–9, 171, 175, 177, 181–3, 185, 315–16
McNeish, Jim 187–92, 193, 194, 316
Misburg, Germany 27
Molotov, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav 64, 66, 243
Montgomery, Second Lieutenant Jack C. 157
Moscow, American Military Mission 66, 70, 78, 89, 94, 164, 177, 181, 186, 217, 236, 244, 257, 269
Mustang, P-51 62, 142, 144
Nazis 11, 71, 87, 214, 220
NKVD 65, 66, 76–7, 81, 85, 92, 95, 110, 117, 125, 177, 199, 201, 214, 216, 226, 233, 309
see also bird dogs
Observation Mission 244
Odessa, Ukraine 101, 120, 125, 127, 163, 227, 237, 310, 319
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) 2, 29, 38, 66, 70, 81, 83, 94, 109, 119, 150, 309
Oflag 64 88, 308
Operation Frantic 22, 61, 63, 81
P-51 Mustang 62, 142, 144
Pacific theater 274–5
Paris 273–5
Picarelli, Sergeant 131, 140–1, 149, 152, 171
Poland 11, 63–6, 70, 73, 76, 96, 119, 199, 236–8, 265
Polish
Army 64
political prisoners 64
provisional government 79
Poltava air base, Ukraine 2, 15, 22, 59–60, 62, 67, 69, 77, 81, 95, 101, 113, 130, 163, 180, 183, 192, 198, 239, 243, 253–7, 269–72