American Under Attack

by Jeff Kildow

  Susan began, “Very well. Where and on what date did you first meet the German officer named Gerhard von und zu Schroeder?”

  Joel cleared his throat. “It was on the thirteenth of June, 1936, at the German air base at Hannover, Germany.”

  “Why were you at that place at that time?”

  Joel explained about the flight demonstration assignment and the tour through Europe.

  “So tell us, Colonel, what was your first impression of Gerhard von und zu Schroeder?”

  “He was a walking caricature of a uniformed German ‘aristocrat’. About all he needed to complete the picture was a monocle. He quickly made sure I knew he was a ‘Baron,’ and it rattled him when I wasn’t impressed. There was a sense of arrogance about him, but—,” he hesitated.

  “Go on, sir,” said Technical Sergeant Lucile Morgan, watching carefully.

  “Well, it was as if he was acting, or pretending, and that he knew I knew he was lying. And that he expected me to call him on it. Seems silly.”

  “How did that make you feel?” Morgan asked in her shrill voice.

  “Feel?” He laughed, “I was a cocky young pursuit pilot. I thought he was a buffoon. Then, I remembered he outranked me as a Captain. I had to show him respect because of that. And, I was in his country as a guest. Remember, we weren’t at war then. If I insulted him, it could have been an international incident; any friction between us could have been a barrier to selling the aircraft I was demonstrating.”

  Susan interjected, “Please tell us how he came to challenge you to a ‘dog fight’.” She emphasized both words equally, making the term sound contrived, as if they were little boys at play on a schoolyard.

  Joel shrugged. “He said something to the effect that my airplane’s performance impressed him, and would I like to fly against him in his new Messerschmitt. My answer was ‘of course.’ The ME-109 was brand new then – hadn’t even been selected for production yet. Nobody had any real idea of how good it was. His offer was a golden opportunity for me and for the Army.”

  “So you flew your airplane and pretended to fight against his, is that what happened?” Morgan asked.

  It’s obvious her ideas of dog fighting come from movies, Joel thought.

  He chuckled, “No, even that would have been unbelievable. What really happened was—.” He spent fifteen minutes detailing the mechanical problems with his own airplane, and his attempts at goading the German into letting him fly an ME-109.

  “Did you think it was unusual that von Schroeder and his superiors agreed to this contest?”

  “Oh, I’ll say! It was nuts! In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have thought that they’d go for it. My suspicion is that somehow, von Schroeder and his boss thought they were upholding the ‘Honor of Germany,’ something like that. I mean, I was manipulating Schroeder like everything, and they just went along.”

  “Did you think that ‘honor’ was a motivating factor then?”

  “I don’t care what their motivation was as long as I got to fly the ME-109. My boss and the Ambassador thought it was a trick. They – the Germans, that is – were taking quite a risk. After all, I could have crashed one of their two prototypes. I could have been killed, and that would have created a big international incident. I doubt that they considered I would beat von Schroeder. The whole thing was so – un-German, going forward on the spur of the moment with an outrageous plan without the approval of Göring or Hitler. In retrospect, I suspect they were hoping I’d be so impressed with their plane that I’d tell the Army they were invincible, something like that.”

  He looked steadily at the two women,

  “And we were taking a big risk, too. The Germans had no idea I was anything but just another low ranking U.S. Army pilot. We kept the information about my being an aeronautical engineer very close to our vests. In truth, I collected a lot of very important information about that airplane, information that a pilot not trained as an engineer would have missed. I have no doubt that they would have called me a spy if they had known. It was actually quite a coup for our side.”

  “If we may, let’s get into the actual ‘dog fights.’ What was it, do you remember, that made it possible for you to defeat him?” Susan said.

  “Oh, I remember, OK. It was – it’s just that—well, he just had no imagination, no creativity.”

  Both women looked at him blankly.

  “See, a dog fight pits one pilot against another on a real basic level involving a lot of skill and finesse. It also requires gut level intuition, how to anticipate your opponent’s next move, how to take advantage of what he just did, that sort of thing. To do it well, you must also be master of your aircraft. In some ways, it’s like sword fighting, with parry and thrust, move, countermove. And just like sword fighting, if you’re predictable, you’re dead. If that fight had been for real, von Schroeder would have been dead after our first encounter.”

  Susan said, “You say that he was predictable; in what way?” She was making notes while the tape recorder whirled.

  Joel said, “He always feigned twice one way, then turned the other. And on initial break, he always broke left.”

  “Initial break? Please explain.” asked Morgan, also taking notes on an Army issue tablet.

  “See, when two fighter planes come at each other head-on, they have to ‘break,’ or turn, to join the fight.” He demonstrated with his hands.

  “In our four dog fights, von Schroeder broke left – turned to his left – all four times. In real combat, it would have been the kiss of death.”

  Morgan accepted what he said, but he could tell she didn’t really comprehend.

  “What else do you remember about how he fought?” Susan said.

  “Well, he was very mechanical, as if he’d only read about how to do it in a book. He just performed the basic maneuvers, with no variation. All of his maneuvers were graceful, gentle. He didn’t seem to understand that an Immelmann or a split-S or whatever was supposed to give him an advantage over me. His worst sin, as a fighter pilot – a fatal sin – was that he didn’t think in three dimensions. He wanted to fight on a horizontal plane. He forgot about the vertical dimension.”

  He paused; the women didn’t interrupt.

  “He was supposedly a champion; or so he claimed. I don’t see how, unless they let him win for some reason. And why would they do that?” Neither woman responded, but both wrote on their pads.

  “Now, tell us, after you defeated him –four times, wasn’t it? How did he react?” Susan said, “Was he angry, for example?”

  “Oh, yeah! ‘Angry’ doesn’t begin to cover it,” Joel said, smiling.

  “He was furious. I mean, I’ve never before or since seen someone so mad. He was apoplectic – red in the face, his neck veins standing out, eyes bugging out. It was kind of scary, actually.”

  Joel hesitated for a moment, then leaned toward the two women, “Then, he threatened me, threw down his glove, as if challenging me to a duel! And honestly, I think from his viewpoint, he was. He swore he would kill me if he had to come here, to the U.S. If his Colonel hadn’t intervened, he might have tried to kill me on the spot.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “No. I was young and stupid. Then, when I heard he was still saying the same thing years later, I was concerned. When I saw his airplane during the attack on New York, I knew it couldn’t be coincidence. I think the word is vendetta.”

  There was a moment’s pause when no one spoke.

  Then Joel said, “It’s as if he blames me, personally, for all the bad things that happen to him. That he was an orphan.”

  “Let us draw the conclusions, please,” the sergeant said a bit primly.

  “Wait,” Susan said sharply, “he was an orphan? Why do you think that?”

  Joel shrugged, “When Colonel Bigsby and I saw him, Ambassador Dodd’s master sergeant briefed us on von Schroeder’s dossier. His old man was killed during the Great War, and then his mother, brothers and sister were all killed we
re moving to Berlin or somewhere.”

  “I’m unaware of this dossier; do you know of it, Doctor Johansseson?”

  “No, I don’t,” Susan said. “Do you remember this master sergeant’s name, Colonel?”

  “No—,” he hesitated, “it was something common, like Smith or Jones, but I’m sure you could find it fairly easily. He was assigned to the Military Attaché’s office. When they closed the embassy, they brought out all that stuff. It’s probably in the State Department’s archives.”

  Sergeant Morgan turned toward Susan and said, “This could be the break through we’ve been wanting.”

  “Yes,” Susan agreed, “this could help us explain a great deal.”

  1944

  Chapter 69

  Monday, 10 April, 1944

  Millville Army Air Field

  Joel’s Office

  0630 Hours

  Attack On Millville

  Joel and his deputy were going through pilot personnel records, deciding who they wanted, where each would be assigned, trying to balance experience with skill, bravado with reasoned caution. The idea was to separate them into piles of similar qualities. It sounded great, but it just wasn’t working. When they gave the personnel files a close look, they saw that other commands had sent them their “problem children,” as Joel had put it.

  Captain Derek Chapman shook his head, “Look at this, would ya; just look at this!” He snapped the folder with his index finger.

  “This guy busted two check rides in a row, then gets a ‘superior’ a week later, just before he’s shipped to us – are we supposed to be so stupid we don’t notice that?”

  He snapped another, “And this guy can’t stay out of a bottle. A lush: just what we need. And here! ‘An officer and a gentleman’ who thinks it’s funny to buzz the parade for a new commanding officer! What’re we gonna do with these misfits, Joel?”

  “Ah, the challenges of leadership, Chappie. And ain’t it fun? I keep telling myself that somewhere there must be a couple of guys who could actually lead a flight. I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “Say, I’ll give you my take on it, boss: they’re a bunch of yo-yos! We’ll have to come down on these guys like a ton of bricks, give ‘em a lot of discipline, try to get them on the straight and narrow, ’cause they’re all we’ve got to work with.”

  “I agree, and—” Joel began, when the red scramble phone on his desk suddenly rang loudly. As he reached for it, they heard heavy explosions from the south-east portion of the base. Both realized they were not ordinary bomb range sounds.

  “ACP-2, Colonel Knight speaking,” Joel said briskly.

  “This is Central Command: RADAR and visual sightings confirm attack imminent, your base. Scramble alert aircraft, I say again, scramble your alert aircraft.”

  Joel slapped the button that started the Air Raid siren before dialing the alert shack. As the phone rang, he heard the throaty, window rattling roar of a pair of P-47s taking off. They were immediately followed by two others.

  Chappie peered out the window, “Alert birds are off.”

  Joel hung up and dialed the ready room. “Colonel Knight here; what’s the status of our aircraft?”

  “Sir,” came the laconic reply, “there are seven birds down for maintenance, and nine available for flight.”

  “We are under attack: get all available birds armed and preflighted ASAP. Tell the OD [Officer of the Day] to call every pilot on the roster until he gets those planes manned and airborne.”

  He dialed Master Sergeant Hillborne at the maintenance shop.

  “Hill, Colonel Knight. Is the P-61 fueled? Can you arm it? Good. Get it preflighted and started ASAP. Get Johnson there, too; we’ll need the RADAR. Do you feel up to running the guns?” He paused. “Good, I’ll be there in ten.”

  He grimly turned to Chappie, and said with frustration, “I knew they’d hit us again before we could stand up! Keep after the OD to get those birds airborne; I’m taking up the Black Widow.” Inside, his gut was a tight knot.

  Another explosion, much closer, shook the windows, followed by several more.

  “Get to the bomb shelter! Take the office crew with you,” Joel shouted over his shoulder as he raced out of the office.

  Several more explosions, very close, were smaller, but sharper in sound.

  Those aren’t bombs, he decided, are they rocket shells?

  Joel looked up as he ran, and saw white, smoky streaks race down from the sky. They slammed into buildings and destroyed several trucks. Then, to his horror, red-orange explosions burst above the aircraft revetments, and his heart sank. Those air-burst shells were filled with shrapnel, to destroy or damage parked airplanes. None of his planes had even moved yet.

  The staff car’s tires squealed as he screeched to a stop, and raced to the Black Widow. Its props were spinning slowly. Hillborne had just finished the pre-flight.

  “We’re ready, Colonel. Pre-flight’s done. Johnson is warming up his set.”

  Joel glanced to the west, in the direction that the now vanished German formation had flown through the scattered clouds.

  “They’re going for Philadelphia! Let’s go!”

  He ducked under the nose gear door, and quickly climbed up into the cockpit. Hillborne was right behind him, and squeezed past to take his place in the gunner’s seat just behind and above Joel’s. Johnson, with his own access at the rear, was behind them both, getting the RADAR calibrated.

  Joel glanced at the engine instruments and ran the control wheel through its range of motion. Ready! He signaled the ground crew to remove the wheel chocks. He called for taxi clearance; in minutes, they were climbing hard, turning westward in the direction of the vanished German formation.

  “Got ‘em on the scope yet, Johnson?” he shouted over the roaring engines.

  “We’re at extreme range, Colonel, but it looks like there’s a bunch of them,” the Marine said. “There are smaller targets around them – probably our Thunderbolts.”

  “OK. Give me a heading.” Joel quickly turned to the heading and glanced again at the instruments. Everything was in the green. Good. He set the radio frequency, and snatched up the mic.

  “Central Command, ACP 2 [Airborne Control Point] airborne at 4-7 after the hour, west bound and climbing through 1-7 thousand feet. Armed and up. Over.” The last comment informed the controllers his RADAR was working; they didn’t want to reveal their capabilities before they became obvious.

  Central Command acknowledged his call.

  “CC, ACP 2; what fighters are airborne? Over.”

  “ACP 2, CC. We have four P-47s, plus six P-40s from Washington. New York has P-400s standing by; Navy has F6Fs at Lakehurst and Pawtuxent standing by. Over.”

  That’s only ten fighters airborne, Joel thought, and keyed his mic.

  “CC, ACP 2. Recommend scramble New York and Pawtuxent at this time. Call Wildweed NAS and Ocean City NAS to see if they can help. Call when on station. Over.”

  “CC, roger. Out,” came the reply. The Naval air stations at Wildweed on Cape May and Ocean City had similar missions to Millville’s old one.

  They were too late; the Germans had already dropped their bombs. Now, the formation was wheeling left, headed south along the Delaware River. Hundreds of deceptively puffy clouds of black smoke dotted the sky. Philly’s antiaircraft guns were hammering away, but Joel knew he was in as much danger from them as the Germans. He saw heavy smoke and explosions roiling out of the big DuPont munitions plant.

  There was fire and smoke all along the riverfront, too, as ships and warehouses burned. He saw two of his P-47s weaving back and forth but strangely not closing in for the kill. Before he could radio them, white rocket gun streaks from two of the bombers converged on one of the P- 47s. To Joel’s shock, it exploded in a brilliant flash, and fell in thousands of glittering pieces toward the river below. One of his men had just died. His stomach turned sour.

  A P-40 shot in from the other side of the formation, its guns blazing. It to
o exploded and fell away broken. The P-40’s wingman pulled up, aborting his attack. With sudden, bitter realization, Joel understood: the rocket guns had a much longer range than the 0.50 caliber guns on the Thunderbolts and P-40s; they couldn’t get close enough to shoot without being shot themselves.

  “CC, ACP 2. Advise all fighters the Germans have the range on us. Their rocket guns go out a thousand yards at least. Scramble, I say again, scramble the P-400s. Advise them to use only use their cannons. Over.”

  The P-400s were an older version of the mid-engine Bell P-39 without engine superchargers. Great Britain had turned them down for poor performance. Each had a huge 37 mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub.

  “Hill, did you arm the 30mms too?” He knew that the four 30mm cannons buried in the sides of the P-61’s fuselage had a little longer range than the 0.50 caliber machine guns.

  “Roger, Colonel, but only about two dozen rounds each – all we had time for,” came the reply. Normally there would be 200 rounds each.

  “Well, boys, until the P-400s get here, it’s up to us.”

  He turned toward the formation and grimly chose his target.

  Chapter 70

  10 April 1944

  Near the South East Delaware Coast

  0711 Hours

  First Encounter

  As they rapidly closed in from above the bomber formation, Joel suddenly realized he was seeing six propellers on each plane, not four.

  “Hill, do you see six props on those Krauts?”

  “Yeah, I sure do, boss; all of ‘em have six! And they’re a lot bigger than I thought. Ya know, sir, I don’t think these ships are the same as what you saw over New York City.”

  “You’re right, these are bigger. Don’t look cobbled together, either. I think we have a whole new problem to solve,” he added needlessly.

  A P-47 slashed across in front of them, firing its eight machine guns at the trailing German bomber. White rocket shells reached out, and the P-47’s right wing disintegrated in a brilliant flash. Joel watched open mouthed as the fighter snap-rolled viscously onto its back. Then to his intense relief, the pilot left the stricken plane. In a few seconds, a parachute opened. Joel silently thanked God for sparing the pilot.