Scharff looked at me quizzically.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe you might just do that!’
Finally, we reached the small hospital of ‘Hohe-Mark’. It was a lovely old building. Typical of the solid mansions of the Taunus, almost like a church, with its clock tower and pointed roof. It was nestled among the great trees of the Taunus, and had its own peaceful little park.
Most of the patients were Allied airmen from Oberursel, and it was obvious they were being extremely well treated, and had great respect and affection for all the staff, from Dr Ittershagen, the chief surgeon, on down.
I understood why when I was the object of their tender mercies. Some of the flak which had shot me down had come up through the floor of the cockpit, peppering the undersides of my legs, and wounding my knee. The treatment at the hospital was excellent, if sometimes undignified. I remember being bent over and hearing the clink of the pieces of shrapnel, as they were dug out of my flesh, and dropped into the metal enamel bowl.
It was all part of the unreal world of Oberursel, in which you had to keep reminding yourself that you were in the hands of the enemy. We were made to feel that we were among friends. We were taken on walks into the Taunus, up to the hospital, even into Frankfurt to the swimming pool. We met German pilots and talked flying in the same way as we did among ourselves. There was a famous cognac party in Scharff’s office, when a group of pilots from 334 Squadron of the Fourth Group were invited to greet (Duane) ‘Bee’ Beeson, their CO, when he arrived at Oberursel. ‘Bee’, always inclined to be more correctly military than most of the wild ones of the Fourth, froze as he stepped into Scharff’s office to be greeted by ‘Blacksnake’ Peterson, ‘Van’ Van Epps, ‘Clod’ Clotfelder, ‘Hank’ Mills and ‘Bud’ Care, all waving glasses and yelling their welcome. Major Duane Beeson maintained a straight face, and a rigid brace. ‘I don’t know these gentlemen’, he said, determined not to fall into what he figured had to be a trap; but that only lasted a minute, and soon the Boise Bee was relaxing with his boys. Later, when he learned that Scharff, and, indeed, the whole of the Luftwaffe, knew all about the Fourth, and their red-nosed planes, Bee sent the famous postcard back to Blakeslee in Debden: ‘The red-noses are known and respected here. Paint them all red!’
The atmosphere at Oberursel was even more amazing against the background of Gestapo atrocities and the Concentration Camps. Hanns Scharff has been credited with the introduction of this revolutionary, humane, and undoubtedly, effective approach to interrogation, and he was obviously the instigator. Nevertheless, as he himself admitted, he couldn’t have got away with it if he hadn’t had the backing of his boss, Horst Barth and CO Oberstleutnant Killinger, and he, in turn, must have had the approval, at least tacit, of Göring. There were Gestapo officers at Oberursel, but they were kept well in the background. To me, it was another example of the schizophrenia of war-time Germany. There was the Germany of the ordinary German civilian, of the Luftwaffe, Navy and regular army; decent people with principles. Then there was the darker side, which no one dared admit existed: the Germany of the gas chambers, the Gestapo, the political arm of the SS and all the other horrors of Naziism.
Scharff’s world was the innocent world of pre-war values. Before the war he had spent much of his youth in South Africa where he had married the daughter of Lieutanant-Colonel Claude Stokes of the Royal Flying Corps, who had been shot down and killed by von Richthofen in 1917. I’m sure that these international influences in no way diminished Scharff’s patriotic loyalty, but it was a loyalty to the old Germany of strong principles and fair play. For this he was prepared to fight injustice, even on the part of the powerful Gestapo forces of that other Germany.
This was well demonstrated by Scharff’s fair and impartial defence of Walter Beckham, a leading ace with eighteen destroyed, who arrived in Oberursel at the same time as an official accusation from Poladen where he was shot down, that he had strafed civilians in a small village before he crashed.
Scharff also put his own career on the line with his tireless work in the affair of the Greifswald Seven. Greifswald, a small university town on the Baltic, suddenly found itself attacked by low flying, strafing P-38 Lightnings and P-51 Mustangs. The pilots involved were relatively inexperienced, a fact underlined by the loss of twelve planes in the Mustang Group alone. Five of the pilots were killed; seven were taken prisoner, and arrived at Oberursel. German propaganda wanted fuel for their Luftgangster programme, and Göring in his ‘holier than thou’ role of the World War I ace demanded a personal report. It took a lot of courage for Obergefreiter (Private 1st Class) Scharff to take the unpopular course of proving, by brilliant interviewing and conscientious study of evidence, including gun-camera film, that the prisoners were innocent, and that any wilful attack on civilians had been made by the pilots who had either returned to their base, or had been killed.
Scharff was deeply concerned about incorrect behaviour on the part of Allied airmen. He told me the story of a B-17 of the 100th Group which was badly shot up by German fighters. The pilot lowered his wheels and flap as the accepted signal of surrender, but, when a Luftwaffe fighter pulled up alongside to escort them to the nearest airport, the rear gunner of the Fortress opened up and killed him. Ever since, said Scharff, the Luftwaffe picked out the distinguishing markings of the 100th Group for their most aggressive attacks. It was certainly true the 100th took a terrible beating, and even had the dubious distinction of being the one group that lost every plane on a single mission; no one got back.
Scharff didn’t get much change out of me with this story.
‘I’ve never heard of dropping wheels and flaps as an official sign of surrender. It’s more likely to mean that the hydraulic system’s been shot out, or that the pilot’s slowing down the plane to make it easier for the crew to bail out. In any case, the poor rear-gunner probably wouldn’t know what was going on, and any crew would be concerned with bailing out, not getting fighter escort to a German airfield.’
Scharff also told me that USAAF top commanders had instructed pilots to shoot German pilots in their parachutes. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘they never told me, or anyone in my group, and I don’t believe any pilots do it.’
Scharff kept it up, saying they had camera film to prove improper conduct on the part of the US Air Force. If this aim was to annoy me, he was successful.
‘If you’re so anxious to find atrocities, you don’t have to go so far afield. Why don’t you drop in on your Gestapo friends and study their methods, or interrogate some of Germany’s Jewish families, if you can find any.’
That seemed to be the end of any close relationship we had. Shortly afterwards I left Oberursel.
There was one final visit to Scharff’s office. He told me he had enjoyed meeting me, and wished me well.
‘Thanks!’ I said. ‘It has been very interesting here; but, since your interrogation of me is over, may I ask you a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘You have amassed a great deal of detailed information about the airmen in the various groups, and everyone is amazed when you go into your act. That undoubtedly enables you to get more of this type of detail, so that not a single POW has given you only his name, rank and serial number, as he swore to do when he came in. I’m sure your methods are far more effective, and, of course, more civilised than those of the Gestapo. But surely the problem is that the pilots you interview don’t know anything that you don’t already know. It’s great that your file on me contains information, and even photographs, which you couldn’t even get from The Stars and Stripes forces newspaper; but what good does that do you when it comes to fighting the war? You showed me the line-up of my squadron for a recent mission, but what does it matter whether Smith, Jones or Jackson is flying in a given position, and is Hitler really going to change his tactics because you can tell him the barmaid’s name in the Crackers Club? Don’t you sometimes feel you’re wasting your talents?’
Scharff was a little taken back. ‘No,’ he sai
d. ‘We have assembled a lot of very useful information, and we have been successful in supplying our superiors with the information they have requested. Pilots know more than they realise themselves. Nevertheless, I admit that there is a lot in the area of new secret technology where you combat officers can’t help us. Take a look at this, for instance.’
He unrolled a blue-print on his desk. ‘This is a Rolls-Royce jet engine. You see it’s a photocopy of an original.’ He pointed to the Rolls-Royce name down in the corner.
‘Do you know how a jet engine works?’
I shook my head.
Scharff explained the principle of jet propulsion, using the Rolls-Royce drawing.
‘Now, these ducts on this turbo are what interest us. These turbos rotate at speeds up to 25,000 rpm. At those speeds, these little ducts are inclined to fly off, and this could cause imbalances which could result in the whole thing disintegrating. We believe the British have an alloy which handles this problem, and we’d like the formula. Of course, we know you pilots don’t know anything about things, but that doesn’t mean we don’t learn a lot from you.’
‘And what have you learned from me?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘That we have a worthy adversary,’ he said.
As I lay in bed in the cooler on my last night in Oberursel, I pondered the enigma of Hanns Scharff. I felt that there was a phoneyness about his friendly, almost pally, approach to those who were for him, after all, enemy officers from whom his job was to extract information which they were not allowed to give him.
There was no doubt about his efficiency in his job. I was sure his methods got better results than torture or other means of putting on pressure. The system was simple. A tired, worried POW, probably suffering from some degree of shock, fearing the worst, suddenly found himself, not facing physical or mental torture from Nazi thugs, but being greeted by a charming and sympathetic young man, who not only spoke his language, but knew all about him, his squadron and his buddies. No wonder Scharff could boast that none of the POW’s he interviewed limited their conversation to ‘name, rank, and serial number’. However, I still feel that very little of the information gathered by Scharff was of enormous help to the Germans.
Even long after the war, when the excellent book, The Interrogator on which Scharff collaborated with Colonel Ray Tolliver appeared, there were no dramatic disclosures. Indeed, most of Scharff’s work helped the Allies more than Germany. This was particularly true of his investigations into cases in which American pilots were accused of attacking civilians or Luftwaffe pilots who had bailed out. His findings were strictly correct and fair. He found evidence of misconduct, but usually on the part of young, inexperienced pilots in new squadrons with few combat missions behind them. As for POW’s like Beckham and the Greifswald Seven, Scharff defended them successfully, at considerable risk to himself and his career.
Nevertheless, his holier-than-thou attitude on this subject annoyed me. While it was true that the Luftwaffe pilots had high standards of chivalry, Scharff must have known about the atrocities of the SS and Gestapo, the concentration camps, and other Nazi atrocities. Against this background, his play-acting at Oberursel was as unrealistic as Oscar Wilde’s Victorian comedy being played at the outset of the war.
But the more I considered Scharff’s position and background, and the more I learned about Nazi Germany, the more I realised that he was perfectly sincere and honest according to his lights. Scharff’s schizophrenia was the schizophrenia of Germany. The decent people tried to uphold the old traditions of decency and honour. If they knew about Nazi atrocities, they put them out of their minds. If the facts intruded so strongly that they could not be denied, Scharff would probably have argued: ‘If others break the code of honour, then all the more reason for me to uphold it’. But the facts seldom did intrude. People knew that political enemies of the Third Reich were put in concentration camps, which were obviously no more comfortable than other prisons. That people died in them were rumours, not facts, and everyone will believe what he wants to believe, and not believe what he cannot bring himself to believe. Albert Speer gave the most honest reply for all decent Germans at his trial in Nuremberg: ‘No, I didn’t know, but I could have known, and I should have known. Therefore, I plead guilty.’
I now look on Hanns Scharff as a decent, honourable, outstanding man, who defended the right and held to his own high principles of honour while serving his country faithfully and extremely capably. In his position in Nazi Germany in 1944, that was no mean feat!
When we left for prison camp, Scharff was at the railway station to say goodbye to us.
‘Well’, he said to me, ‘what do you think of our interrogation methods? Not too bad, eh?’
‘Personally,’ I replied, ‘I was very disappointed in you.’
His smile disappeared. ‘What do you mean?’ His voice was angry.
‘You never asked me for my name, rank and serial number!’
‘Dammit! I always forget something!’ The charming smile was back.
Postscript
After the war, there weren’t many of us left, and those of us who were still around were not too good at reunions. We knew what we’d been through together could never be relived.
I heard that Johnnie Godfrey had married a beautiful girl, had two fine boys, and had become a highly successful businessman, with his own private planes, and a string of race horses for good measure. But I didn’t get in touch with him until I heard that his amazing luck had finally run out. He had contracted multiple sclerosis.
At first he refused to accept it, and fought it with his usual energy. He organised an international group of fellow sufferers, he contacted every expert in the world, but the crippling disease continued its inexorable fatal course.
The last time I saw him, he was in a clinic in Germany. He was lying helpless in bed, and it was difficult for me to hide the shock when I saw how the handsome face and six foot two frame had deteriorated. Only the piercing black eyes were recognisable.
‘How you doing, Johnnie?’ My question was stupid, but what else could I say?
‘I’m dying, Goody.’ He had trouble mouthing the words. The muscles in his face had gone.
‘Well, I guess we’re all dying.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s OK, Goody. I’ve had a good run for my money. I’ve hit the highs, and the lows, and it’s all been good.
‘I’ve done a lot of thinking while I’ve been lying in bed – waiting; and think I’ve learned a lot about life – and death. I don’t mean I understand the meaning of life, no one can; but I think I know what life is for: life is for living; living to the full. If you’ve done that, death isn’t so sad. And, by God, we’ve lived life to the full. I did it all a little faster than most people; but I did it. Death is only sad for people who have never lived – whatever age they die at.’
‘Funny,’ I said, ‘I came to the same conclusion when I spent a night thinking I was going to be shot. It’s like a game. It’s only good if you throw yourself into it and play it to the hilt, and enjoy it. Then it’s good.’
‘And it’s not only the high spots that are good. You need the lows too. Even prison camp was good for me. I was a spoiled kid when I went back for the hero’s treatment; being a POW made me human again. You know what I’m thinking of now? Not the successes and the ballyhoo and the glory. I’m back in the Mess in Debden. Mac’s banging the piano and those crazy wonderful characters … Don, Millie, Hank, Red Dog, Deacon, Jim, Bud …’
‘Yeah! We were crazy – and naive – and corny —’
‘And great!’ he added.
After a pause he said, ‘Do you remember that poem you had put up in the Mess? You knew the guy that wrote it, he was an American in the RCAF, and got killed early on.’
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘John Magee. He called it “High Flight”.’
‘How did it go?’
I recited it for him.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
A
nd danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Illustrations
Mike Sobanski (The Pole).
Goodson with The Pole.
Colonel Blakeslee and General Kepner.
Gentile and P-51 with original Eagle Squadron insignia designed by Walt Disney.
Wing Commander Bob Stanford Tuck, DSO, DFC and two bars, one of the outstanding fighter leaders of the RAF. He was typical of the experienced RAF commanders who helped form the Eagle squadrons.
General Eisenhower pins DSCs on Gentile and Blakeslee. He commented: ‘I feel a sense of humility being among a group of fighting men like this.’
Tumult in the Clouds Page 24