Inconsequential Nazi

by Ward Wagher

  “I think much of that is due to Guderian’s work,” Rainer replied.

  “I would not discount that.”

  Schloss took a sip of the coffee as he thought. Finally, he set the cup down.

  “Very well, Karl. We won’t settle this problem today. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

  “You are welcome. I think.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  March 22, 1943; 7 PM

  General Secretary’s Office

  The Kremlin

  Moscow, USSR

  The streetlights came on in the city and spotlights highlighted the walls of the Kremlin and the front of St. Basil’s Cathedral as the daylight faded in the west. The party secretary, Josef Stalin did not seem inclined to interrupt the meeting for dinner. Beria was in the room, of course. Nikita Khrushchev had flown in from the Ukraine for this meeting. Also present were Vyacheslav Molotov, the Foreign Minister Georgii Malenkov, Georgy Zhukov, and Field Marshall Semyon Budyonny.

  “I believe it is time, comrades, to decide on the time to begin our liberation of Germany,” Stalin said. “We have two things to decide. We must decide when to attack, and we must decide how long this war will last. We cannot afford to get bogged down in a long war. We have learned a lot from watching the Germans, and we can imitate their lightning strike.”

  “I believe the country is ready,” Beria said.

  Stalin snorted. “In other words, we need to begin moving on this before the people come after us with pitchforks and torches.”

  The others laughed nervously. Stalin liked his little jokes, but it was always difficult to tell when he was joking or serious. He did not become angry, so the consensus was that he was joking.

  “The reserve armies in the Ukraine are trained up,” Khrushchev said. “We can begin a march to the border at your direction, Comrade Stalin.”

  Field Marshal Budyonny nodded in agreement. I believe the readiness of our Armed Forces is exceptional. Once we kick the door down the Germans will fold like a house of cards.”

  “I do not believe we should be careless in our estimation of the enemy,” Zhukov said. “I agree with Comrade Khrushchev and the field marshal. Our forces are well-trained and ready to fight. But we should not underestimate the Germans. They will be tenacious, and resourceful. We must stay on our toes to avoid any tricks that they might come up with.”

  Stalin looked at Beria. “Where are we at on our maskirovka?”

  “The riots went off very well, and the Germans are confused. However, they did arrest one of our agents. Coincidentally an Englishman was also trying to provoke labor unrest. They arrested him, too.”

  Stalin said nothing at that. He walked behind his desk and sat down. He unzipped a leather pouch of tobacco and begin filling his pipe. He struck a match on his boot and puffed the pipe alight. The room began to fill with the smell of the acrid tobacco. He leaned back and stared at each man in turn as he puffed away. Eventually, he spoke again.

  “Do the Germans know we are involved?”

  “Unknown at this point, comrade,” Beria replied. “The English involvement certainly muddied the waters.”

  Stalin pulled out a handkerchief and coughed wetly into it. “I honestly did not have high expectations of this maskirovka, Lavrentiy, but I must confess to some curiosity about what the English are doing.”

  “The American President, Truman, forced the English to the peace table with Germany. They cannot have been very happy about that. I feel certain that the English are continuing some low-level activities against the Germans.”

  Beria raised an eyebrow, and Stalin noticed it immediately. With a gesture, he invited the head of the NKVD to speak.

  “This is not being driven by the Queen or by Attlee. Our people in England tell us that Churchill is orchestrating these efforts from behind the scenes to destabilize Germany.”

  “Oh ho,” Malenkov laughed. “So, the old lion is working against his own government, then.”

  “I believe that this will work to our advantage,” Beria continued. “We have not been able to prevent the Germans from discovering our intentions. If we can encourage them to believe that the English will join in an attack on them, they may be forced to withdraw some of their forces from the Polish frontier.”

  Stalin muttered to himself as he tapped the bowl of his pipe against the ashtray. He began scooping a fresh batch of tobacco from the pouch. Once he had it fired up, again, he looked at Beria.

  “A thin thread on which to hang this campaign, Lavrentiy. If you are correct in assuming the Germans know we are coming, what is to prevent them from employing a maskirovka, against us?”

  “The Germans do not think that way,” Beria explained confidently. “They are linear in their thinking. They see the goal and drive-through to it. There is not a lot of deception.”

  Stalin looked up at the chunky bald man who had been silent to this point. “I am not going to let you off so easy, Nikita. You have been involved in the planning since the earliest stages. What are the Germans up to?”

  While Khrushchev and Stalin were conversant with each other, the regional party chieftain was not often invited into the rarefied air were Stalin held his meetings. He was not intimidated as such, but he watched carefully to avoid the kind of misstep that would land him in the gulags.

  “It is clear they are preparing for war, comrade Stalin. I do not think we realize how close they came to kicking off in invasion against us almost three years ago.”

  “You say they will beat us, then?” Stalin asked.

  “No, I do not say that. I do not believe it to be true. I think that beating the Germans will be a lot harder than any of us dream, but the Germans are not ten feet tall. We just have to avoid playing by their rules.”

  “And what about you, Zhukov? What do you think?”

  The Army general glanced around the room to the other members. This was an area where he and Budyonny disagreed. There was a lot of danger in this room right at that moment. Everyone knew that with a snap of his fingers Stalin could have anyone of them purged. After all, something like that had happened millions of times over the past five years.

  “I do not recommend a war comrade Stalin. No sane general would want that. However, if we are to do it, we must go about it with a will. We must not give the Germans a chance to regroup and reform. We must hammer them constantly until they do finally break. If we can shatter their lines, the North German plains will give us a fairly easy approach to Berlin. If we can force the Germans to sue for peace at that point, everything becomes a political question.”

  “Well said, Comrade General,” Stalin said. “You have courage and honesty. I fear your honesty will put you at serious risk at the head of the invading armies.”

  Zhukov bit a lip as he looked at the leader of his country. “In my opinion, comrades, being at the head of our armies will be the safest place for me.”

  Stalin laughed out loud at Zhukov’s comment. “Well stated, Comrade General. Well stated.”

  § § §

  March 23, 1943; Noon

  Off the coast of Oahu

  Hawaii Territory, USA

  “Exec needs you, Skipper.”

  Commander Alan Carper disliked being awakened from a sound sleep. This was the first he had had in forty-eight hours, and four hours in bed did not put a dent into his fatigue. The sailor set a mug on the desk of his tiny cabin and poured coffee into it. Carper sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he ground out. “That coffee smells good.”

  He routinely slept in his clothes while on patrol and had only to slide his feet into his shoes. He quickly tied them and picked up the coffee cup. He had hoped for more sleep, but this would have to do. He opened the door and stepped quickly into the control room.

  “What do we have, Mister Rogers?”

  “Sorry to get you up, Skipper, but I thought you really needed to see this.” The exec pointed at the hydrophone station.

  Car
per walked over and picked up the extra set of headphones. He listened to it for a few moments and then stared down at the operator’s display.

  “Is this coming out of Pearl?” He asked the operator.

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure of it.”

  Carper turned to the exec. “How far we out?”

  “Five or six miles, Skipper. Right now there is nothing on the roof.”

  Carper looked back at the operator. “Heard any aircraft sounds lately?”

  “No, Skipper.”

  Low-flying patrol planes could sometimes be heard by the hydrophone operators in the submarines. The absence of evidence, however, did not prove the negative. Carper chewed on a thumbnail as he thought quickly.

  “Very well, Jolly, take us up to periscope depth.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” Rogers said.

  Rogers turned and begin to issue orders to the crew as the USS Hessian slowly swam towards the surface. The American U-boat had been assigned picket duty off Pearl Harbor. There had been an energetic debate on the admiral’s planning staff in San Diego concerning whether it was better to attack the Japanese in Hawaii or to make another raid on their home islands. Carper had heard unofficially from Admiral English, whom Nimitz had confided that the president instructed them to begin planning for a raid on Tokyo.

  The presence of the Hessian in Hawaiian waters told Carper that someone was hedging their bets. This kind of movement by the Japanese Navy was just the sort of thing that Nimitz would be interested in. Carper walked over to the periscope island where the rating prepared to raise the scope.

  Carper smiled at him. “Okay, you know the drill. Take the periscope up to a foot under the surface.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.”

  As the periscope came out of its well, Carper flipped the handles down and dock walked around the island as he watched the scope through a three-hundred-sixty-degree revolution.

  “Nice and easy, now,” he said. “Let’s just break the surface of the water.”

  Carper once again repeated his actions to get a view of the sea around the U-boat. The waves were still breaking over the top of the periscope, so he was not getting a full view. He rotated the optics upward and quickly scanned the sky.

  “Bring it up another three feet, He ordered.

  He completed another scan. “Down scope.”

  “Periscope down, aye, aye, Sir.”

  Carper turned to Rogers. “Very well, exec. Take us down to one hundred fifty. Keep us at steerage.”

  “One hundred fifty feet, aye, Captain. Turns for steerage.”

  Carper felt the boat tip forward slightly as it slid deeper into the ocean. He motioned for the exec to join him at the chart table. They both leaned over it as Carper spoke.

  “It looks like they are putting to sea with their whole inventory, Jolly. I couldn’t count them. Was the sound operator able to get any kind of a count of the ships?”

  “Negative, Skipper. He said it sounded like a thundering herd. It was definitely heading west, though.”

  Carper tapped his fingers on the chart table. “Let’s do this, Jolly. Take us south at five knots. I want to open up some distance. Then we’re going to surface and raise the radio mast. I’m going to go start putting a message together.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” Rogers raised an eyebrow but did not comment.”

  Carper retreated to his cabin and pulled out the coding pad. He thought for a minute, then pulled out a notepad and quickly scribbled a message. Looking at it for a while, he made a few changes than begin transcribing it to the coding pad.

  He tore off the pages containing the message and left his cabin once again. Back in the control room he walked over to the radio operator and handed the message to him.

  “Okay, Sparks. Get this thing ready to send. Go ahead and get the radio warmed up. Once we surface and get the mast up, there won’t be a lot of time. This message must go out.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” the radio operator said.

  Carper walked over to the hydrophone operator. “What have you got?”

  “There’s a lot of background noise in the direction of where that task force came out, Sir,” he said. “I cannot hear anything nearby, though.”

  Carper turned to Rogers. “Here’s how we are going to do this. We will sneak up and take a look around with the scope. If it’s clear I just want the conning tower out of the water. We won’t start the diesels. Soon as we’re out of the water I want the mast going up. Two lookouts up top. As soon as we get an acknowledgment of the message, we’ll pull the plug and go down again.”

  Rogers eased the boat to periscope depth. After Carper had carefully scanned the surface, he broached the boat. Surfacing in enemy waters in broad daylight was something nobody liked to do. But Carper sensed the message was critically important.

  Though it was unusual to get any kind of a connection with San Diego before nighttime, the radio operator was able to quickly get a response from the mainland. They got the message out and received the acknowledgment, and Carper dived the boat. They settled back in at one hundred fifty feet and turned back north. They would creep a little closer to the island but wait until after dark to surface and recharge the batteries.

  “Skipper, can you tell me what was so urgent?” Rogers asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, Jolly. But I do know that we dispatched a substantial task force to meet up with the Brits in Trincomalee. The admiral told me. That automatically threatens Australia or Singapore. What do you want to guess that Yamamoto surged everything he had available to honor the threat?”

  Rogers whistled softly. “If that’s true, Skipper, then they just left Hawaii mother-naked.”

  “Exactly. As to whether we can do anything about it, or whether we want to, Nimitz needs to know about this.”

  “What do you think the admiral’s going to do?”

  Carper shrugged. “I don’t know. All I can say is that I’m glad it’s not my decision.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  March 23, 1943; Noon

  United States Embassy

  Blucher Palace

  Berlin, Germany

  When the ambassador bounded into Misty Simpson’s office, she tried to ignore him. In her opinion, he was always insufferable when VIPs visited the Embassy. Averell Harriman sat, in Gordon Smoke’s opinion, next to the throne of God in Washington. This made him the most important of VIPs.

  “What do you want, Gordie?” She finally asked when her level of exasperation exceeded her desire to ignore him.

  “Mister Harriman desires to speak with you, Old Girl,” Smoke said with a strange look on his face.

  “Is that so?” she responded. “And why could not Mister Harriman simply come to my office?”

  “Listen, Misty, that’s not the way we do things in the diplomatic service. Harriman is holding court in my conference room. You should approach him there.”

  “And you will open the door and announce me,” she retorted, “and I will bow three times as I approach him?”

  “Give me a break, Misty!” he shouted. “I don’t appreciate being used as an errand boy. However, right now I am an errand boy. Will you please go?”

  “Of course, Gordie. Shall we approach the right hand of God, right now?” she asked sweetly. She had won this skirmish and was savoring the victory.

  He swore at her and spun around to leave the office. Picking up a notebook and a fountain pen, she followed him. Because she was the first Secretary in the American Embassy, her office was on the same floor as the ambassador’s. The conference room was between their two offices. She was actually surprised when he opened the door and announced her.

  “Miss Misty Simpson, Sir,” he said.

  The tall, dark-haired man stood with a warm smile. “Come in, Miss Simpson. I have heard much about you from a mutual acquaintance. I am impressed with your abilities and accomplishments.”

  He looked over at Smoke with a slight frown. The ambassador had closed the door and foll
owed Misty into the room.

  “That will be all, Mister Ambassador,” Harriman said. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  Smoke looked as though he had been slugged. Misty almost laughed as she watched him wilt. He quickly turned and left the room without another word.

  Harriman glanced at the closed door and looked back at Misty. “I suppose I am being cruel. But he strikes me as someone who should be a school janitor somewhere in East Bumblefricke, West Virginia.”

  For some strange reason, she suddenly felt the need to defend him. “Smoke may be an idiot, but he has an uncanny ability to land on his feet. The successes we have had here in Berlin are almost entirely due to his efforts.”

  Harriman studied her long enough for her to grow uncomfortable. “Director Donovan tells me that you two fight like cats and dogs. I wonder if it might be more like brother and sister.”

  To her horror, she spoke without thinking. “If he had been born in my family, Daddy probably would have drowned him.”

  Harriman laughed. “Sit down, Miss Simpson. I know your father. I think he would have drowned Smoke. Howard Simpson does not suffer fools gladly. In the case of his daughter, I’m glad to see that acorn did not fall far from the tree. But I digress.”

  He slid a sealed envelope across the table to her. “This is a letter from Director Donovan. My meeting with Ambassador Smoke was actually a pretext. I came to Berlin to see you. After you read the letter, I will entertain any questions you may have.”

  Office of Strategic Services

  Washington, DC

  March 18, 1943

  Dear Miss Simpson:

  The exigencies of the current time prevent me from meeting personally with you. As of March 1, you have been elevated to the next pay grade. This is in recognition of your accomplishments for the United States in Berlin. I want to personally congratulate you on your efforts. I know you don’t really need the money, however, this is the way we reward hard work in our country, as well as give recognition.