American Under Attack

by Jeff Kildow

  Again, Higgins nodded to the projectionist. “Sir, I apologize, we have very poor photos of the Gotha aircraft, but some of General Donovan’s men have secured better ones, which we ought to see tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Donovan!” the Admiral snorted, jerking in his chair, “That son of a—.” He stopped himself; Donovan, Army “General” Donovan, had been hand-picked by Roosevelt to run a separate intelligence gathering group, and promoted from colonel. Because he was working outside normal military channels and had direct access to the President, the man was uniformly despised by senior officers in both services, despite having been awarded the Medal of Honor in the Great War. Controlling his temper, he motioned to Higgins.

  “Why a flying wing?”

  “Admiral, if you would like, there is an expert here, an Army Air Service Lieutenant Colonel Knight, who could brief you on the technical details.” Joel had been sent to Washington to brief both Army and Navy senior officers about the new threat.

  Joel saw that the Admiral wasn’t too pleased to be briefed by an Army man; inter-service rivalry was no mere concept here.

  Scowling, he said “Very well. I don’t know why a Navy man couldn’t brief this.”

  “Good morning, Admiral! I am Lieutenant Colonel Joel T. Knight,” Joel said as he stepped behind the wooden lectern. “A Navy man isn’t standing here, sir, because knowledge of flying wing aeronautics is pretty limited, and I was about the only fellow on the East coast available on short notice.”

  “What is your background, young man?” the Admiral demanded. “Say, are you related to the late Rear Admiral Josiah Knight?”

  “Yes, sir, he was my uncle.”

  “Why didn’t you join the Navy, Colonel? With such a distinguished relative, you could have gotten into Annapolis easily.”

  “Actually, sir, I applied to Annapolis and West Point at the same time. The Navy just took longer to show interest; I was already a Plebe at the Point! As to my qualifications, I graduated from West Point in 1932, with one of the first Bachelor’s degrees in aeronautics. My class and I built a scale model flying wing which we flew as our senior class project.”

  “Again, I’ll ask; why a wing?” Stuart pressed.

  “Sir, an all wing aircraft offers several advantages, not the least of which is less aircraft weight for a comparable size. Aerodynamically, a flying wing is far more efficient that a conventional airplane, because of the much smaller wetted area—”

  “Define ‘wetted area.’”

  Joel thought for a moment. “Admiral, to use a Navy analogy, the wetted area on a ship is the hull below the water line. All that surface area creates drag which must be overcome by the engines. That’s why battleships have such graceful hull lines; it minimizes the wetted area, and smoothes the flow of water past the hull. In comparison, the entire exterior surface of an airplane is affected by the air it moves through, so it all is considered wetted. By not having a fuselage, a flying wing may have as little as half or even less wetted area than a similar, conventional, airplane.”

  “So why aren’t we building them?” the admiral asked bluntly.

  “With respect, sir, we are working on such designs; the Northrop Aircraft company in California has built and flown a couple of small prototypes, and a much larger plane is on the drawing boards. That’s classified. I have consulted with them on several occasions. Unfortunately, the control of flying wings is a lot more difficult than anyone here appreciated. Apparently, the Germans have mastered the control problems ahead of us.”

  “You said these flying wings are more ‘aerodynamically efficient’ – what does that mean in the practical world?” Stuart demanded with an impatient wave of his hand.

  “Sir, that means that a given airplane could carry the same payload of bombs or torpedoes a much greater distance, or, to state the opposite, the more efficient aircraft could carry a far heavier bomb load the same distance.”

  “Good brief, Colonel.” Stuart said, cutting him short; “Now Commander Higgins, how does this threaten the Navy?”

  Higgins said, “Thank you, Colonel; please stand by for any questions the Admiral might have. Sir, one of the missions for these airplanes is interdiction of convoys and fleets. The much greater range of the Gotha flying wing could put many more ships at risk.”

  “Ha!” the Admiral snorted. “We’ve seen what success the Army has had trying to bomb ships underway; why should the Germans be any better at it?”

  “Sir, the answers to that question requires that all personnel not cleared for TOP SECRET leave the room.”

  “Make it so.”

  With a scuffling of feet and shuffling of papers, several men moved out of the room. The Admiral looked around.

  “Very well, Commander, you may continue.”

  “Thank you, sir. There are two highly secret German projects we just learned about, both of which have serious potential impacts to the Navy.”

  “Go on.”

  “The first is referred to as a Relative Motion Bombsight, or RMB. They have developed a method to account for a ship’s motion relative to an airplane, using a small, tightly focused RADAR on the aircraft – it increased the probability of a hit by more than three times in the first experimental version. We have several independent reports of this device, all accompanied with similar information on accuracy. The Brits—”; he nodded to the projectionist; “sent us this movie taken from a Royal Navy submarine.”

  The black and white movie was somewhat grainy, and overlaid with the reticule marks from the sub’s periscope. A small cargo ship was suddenly struck repeatedly by a number of bombs, first on the stern, then repeatedly forward along the length of the ship. By the end of the short movie, the ship was rolling over, sinking. The camera jerked upward, to show a German JU-88 twin engine bomber banking away.

  “We believe the ship was controlled remotely by radio waves. This same technique has been observed on two other occasions; one of them involving a ship maneuvering in a classic zigzag pattern.”

  The briefer cleared his voice. “There have been unconfirmed reports that this RMB device has been fitted to the Gotha. Given its long range, sir, we believe that even convoys in the North Atlantic could be at risk.”

  The Admiral had slunk down a bit in his seat; “What other encouraging news do you have?”

  “Admiral, the Germans have also developed a new gun-like weapon for aircraft. No photos are available, and we don’t know its designation. It is comprised of a fairly large diameter tube of thin-wall steel, and an insubstantial-looking receiver mechanism. The rounds it fires are actually small rockets. They are about 60mm in diameter [2 ½ inches]. The shells propel themselves out of the barrels and continue to increase in velocity until the propellant burns out. They use no separate casing, and cause no recoil. The result is accurate rounds at very high velocities for long distances, compared to gunpowder projectiles. The huge size of the shells means that nearly any hit on an aircraft would be extremely damaging. At this time, we have no information as to the shell types – high explosive, incendiary, shrapnel – but we assume they will have the same variety as conventional shells soon if they don’t already.”

  He continued, “Most lightly armored or unarmored ships like merchantmen would also be at severe risk.”

  “Is this weapon still in development, or—?”

  “Sir, a large number have been seen, being fitted on numerous airframes. My educated guess is that the weapon is in advanced testing or initial stages of production. To my knowledge, it has not yet been encountered in combat. God help us when it is.”

  Chapter 38

  9 June 1943

  Signals and Intelligence Group Headquarters, Berlin, Germany

  1319 Hours

  Exposing the Rotten Core

  Tenaciously, Müller minutely evaluated the process by which his government encrypted messages. Within days, he had narrowed his search for possible leaks to a short list, at the top of which was the key and date books, and the print
shop.

  The young SS Hauptstrumfuhrer [SS Captain] responsible for overseeing the process haughtily assured him that there was no opportunity for the documents to be stolen or copied.

  “Always, they are under the supervision of an SS officer or unteroffizer [sergeant],” he told Müller as they watched books being prepared for shipment.

  “You print them here in this building, yes?” he asked him.

  The Hauptstrumfuhrer hesitated, “Yes, General. Most of them.”

  “Most of them? Where are the others printed?”

  “At the Eisenbach Brothers Publishers a few blocks from here, Herr General. They do a great deal of work for the Reich.”

  “Are they supervised by the SS as well?”

  “Sir, there is often an officer present during—”

  “Often? How many do you print?”

  “Between 800 and 1,000 copies, sir.”

  Müller was incredulous. “You are telling me that 1,000 copies of these incredibly important, secret books are printed and distributed every ninety days, is that it?”

  “Oh, no sir. We often don’t distribute them all, as some units are withdrawn or ships sunk—”

  Müller’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “What is done with those not distributed, Hauptstrumfuhrer?”

  “General, they are gathered together and burned, I believe, sir.”

  “You believe? Do you not know? How are they accounted for?” he asked with steel in his voice.

  The Hauptstrumfuhrer had a fine mist of sweat on his upper lip, and his eyes were looking from side to side, as if seeking help. “Um, sir, we count the bundles, record the number in the Daily Log, then bag them for disposal in the furnace.”

  “Individually. How do you account for them individually?” Müller demanded icily.

  “The Log Book records each unit or ship receiving a pair of books, and—”

  “Do not waste my time, Hauptstrumfuhrer; do you serialize each book so it can be traced?”

  He answered in a small voice, “No, sir.”

  There was a frigid silence as Müller considered the answer. “Let me understand this; you print 1,000 copies of the most secret books in the Reich, yet you have no way of telling if one or two, or a dozen copies were to vanish? Is this so? And many of them are printed in a civilian building with ‘occasional’ supervision?” The icy voice had turned glacial.

  The young man pulled himself to attention, “I assure you, Herr General, that I perform my duties precisely as they are prescribed.”

  “No doubt you do, Hauptstrumfuhrer,” Müller said dryly. “Nonetheless, we shall speak to your superior at once.”

  With the increasingly terrified Hauptstrumfuhrer in tow, Müller made his way to the chief’s office. SS Standartenfuhrer [SS Colonel] Heinz Koller was a tall, thin, graying man in his early fifties. He affected a poor imitation of Hitler’s mustache, and wore thick, rimless glasses over pale blue eyes.

  “What is it you require, Herr General? I am a busy man,” he demanded haughtily.

  “Not busy enough, from what I have seen, Koller,” snapped Müller. Koller’s eyes opened wide; no one ever spoke to an SS Colonel that way! Just in time, he remembered Müller’s new position and bit back the acerbic reply on his tongue.

  “Your man tells me you neither serialize nor track the key and date books for Enigma and that they are in part published at a civilian printer without full-time SS supervision. Is this so?”

  A chill ran down the Standartenfuhrer’s back. He was being interrogated as if he was a mere private, and by a man who could have him summarily shot.

  “It is essentially so, Herr General, but never have we suffered a loss.”

  “Truly?” said Müller sarcastically. “How do you know this? I have strong suspicions that such a loss directly contributed to the Führer’s injuries. Can you demonstrate otherwise? Or should I call for the Sicherheitsdienst [SS Security Service]?”

  Now the Standartenfuhrer was really afraid; if Hitler’s wounds were traced to a leak in his command, he was a dead man. Quickly he said, “Come, let us pay a visit to the publisher, Herr General, and let you see for yourself.” He hated the quaver in his voice. It was more bravado on his part than any expectation that a visit would put Müller’s mind at ease. At least, he hoped, it would give him some time to think of some way to extract himself.

  Half an hour later, the three men were standing in the press room of Eisenbach Brothers Publishers, shouting over the roar of huge presses printing propaganda posters. Müller watched the machines for a moment, then shouted into the Standartenfuhrer’s ear.

  “The key and date books are small, the size of a book. These are the size of newspapers. Where do you print the books I am interested in?” His tone of voice made clear his increasing impatience.

  To his amazement, the SS Colonel leaned over and apparently asked the same question of the civilian employee running the press.

  Has this man never been here before? Müller wondered. This is appalling.

  The pressman wiped his hands on a dirty apron, and signaled that they should follow. The press was smaller, though scarcely quieter. A bored looking young SS Gefreiter [Private] spotted them, leapt to his feet and stood at rigid attention.

  “This is the supervision you provide, Herr Standartenfuhrer? A boy soldier? Does he even know the importance of what it is he is watching over?”

  A few feet away, another man operated the smaller press oblivious to them. He had obviously been severely injured; his left eye was covered by a large patch, his face damaged horrifically. Some movement caught his eye. He turned to his right and saw three men, two of them in SS uniforms, looking at him and talking. In an instant, he bolted away toward a doorway. Their escort stopped the press.

  Müller instinctively knew the runner was the source of the leaks.

  “You,” he pointed at the pressman, “call the guards at once.” He turned to the men with him. “Where does that doorway lead?”

  The Colonel didn’t know, but the Hauptstrumfuhrer spoke up, “Sir, it’s an auxiliary room, where the men change their clothes, take cigarette breaks, and eat their lunches. There is a toilet room attached, but no other exit.”

  “What’s in there? Tables and chairs? What else?”

  “There are wooden lockers, for their street clothes and jackets, and personal belongings.”

  The pressman returned from the telephone, as the roar of the big presses in the other room stopped.

  “What is that man’s name?” Müller demanded.

  “He is called Schmitt. I do not know his Christian name, Herr General.”

  Müller went and stood to one side of the door as several armed guards rushed into the room. He waved them to stand back.

  “Schmitt! Listen to me. You cannot escape, there is no other exit. Give yourself up, and it will go easier on you,” he shouted.

  They heard a muffled voice from the room, and then a heavy shot rang out.

  “Sir!” one of the guards said, “That’s a Russian Markov! I know it well!” A moment later, a second shot echoed off the concrete walls. No one moved.

  “Schmitt is a veteran, wounded in Russia, Herr General. He may have brought such a pistol home with him as a souvenir,” suggested the pressman.

  “We shall see,” Müller said, not taking his eyes off the door. “Shut off the lights in this room.”

  There was a shuffle of feet, and they were plunged into semi-darkness.

  “You there, lie on the floor and look under the door. What do you see?”

  A teenaged guard nimbly lay down and peered under the door. “There is someone on the floor, Herr General. I cannot see his face. There is blood…”

  “There was someone else in this room. Who?” Müller said.

  The pressman looked around at the gathering crowd of print shop workers, “I have not seen George Herbst in some time. He is in there perhaps?”

  “Schmitt! Schmitt! Answer me!” Müller demanded. There was silence. “Her
bst, are you there?” Nothing.

  “We must see what has occurred. We will treat it as a military assault, yes?” he said to the officer leading the guards. The man nodded, and signaled his men.

  Moments later, the door was smashed down, and the armed men rushed in.

  “There are two dead men here, Herr General,” someone shouted.

  “Poor George, he must have tried to stop him,” the pressman lamented.

  “And got himself killed in the bargain,” Müller looked at the body of the eye-patched pressman, who had shot himself. The pistol was a Russian Markov.

  “He’s wearing his Army Identity Disk,” Müller said as he lifted it off the body. “It looks authentic enough.” He rubbed the metal disc between his fingers. “It feels as it should.” Russian imitations often had an oily feel.

  He turned and spoke to the late arriving Sicherheitsdienst Hauptman.

  “Take this body to the Gestapo morgue, and have them examine it. I want to learn of every tiny detail, even every piece of lint from his trousers, and his clothes in that locker as well. Check the authenticity of this Identity Disk. Call me when you are finished,” he said, handing him a card. The man started to protest, and stopped when the Standartenfuhrer shook his head.

  Chapter 39

  10 June 1943

  Millville Army Air Field, Millville, New Jersey

  1710 Hours

  Millie and Charles

  Joel had been calling Susan a couple of times a week since their movie. Neither could get away on most week nights, so a few minutes on the phone helped make up for it. And a few minutes it was, as Susan’s landlady strictly enforced the five minute rule on use of the only phone in the boarding house.

  “Oh, Joel! The best news!” she told him enthusiastically, “Millie and Charles are engaged. They’re to be married next May.”

  “Well, we saw that coming, didn’t we? The way they looked at each other like moon-struck cows, or something. But good for them, I’m happy for them.”

  She laughed. “The sad part is that he did get hired by that Martin airplane plant in Baltimore. He’s to start there Monday. Millie, poor thing, won’t get to see him except for when he can take a train here.”