No Less Than Victory, Page 2

  The disaster in France has brought a change to his army that not even Hitler appreciates. Where once the Germans were ruled by vast army groups headed by field marshals, now, with the mad scramble to survive, the army has re-formed into smaller units under the command of junior officers. These units are far more autonomous than any that have existed before, and so, in the confusion and chaos of a fight in a place like the Hürtgen Forest, German officers who are cut off from rear command have far more ability to make the best fight for the situation they face. Though the generals still hold sway, the average German soldier becomes much more important.

  In the east, the Russians have battered German forces to such an extent that even a delusional Hitler is aware that he must have some major breakthrough, some enormous success to turn the tide. He reasons that the weaker enemy is in the west, and that the Americans and particularly the British are culturally and philosophically not so different from the Germans they confront. Hitler believes that a major defeat of those forces will bring the western Allies to the peace table, and that Hitler can easily persuade them to join the greater cause and strike against their common enemy, the Russians. What seems to be perfect logic to Hitler does not sway his generals, but there can be no argument. He forms a plan, a major offensive at a time and place that no one will expect. He is certain that when his plan succeeds, the war will be won. His dreams of a Thousand Year Reich will yet be realized.

  Wars are won by people who actually go out and do things.

  —GEORGE PATTON

  BASSINGBOURN AIRFIELD, NEAR CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND NOVEMBER 14, 1944

  He was already cold, ice in both legs, that same annoying knot freezing in his stomach. The plane shimmied sideways, and he rocked with it, felt the nose go up, could see the ground falling away, the B-17 climbing higher, steeper. Just in front was another plane, and he could see the tail gunner, moving into position, facing him. They were barely three hundred feet above the ground when the plane in front began to bank to the left, and his plane followed, mimicking the turn. Out to the side, the predawn light was broken by faint reflections of the big bombers just behind and to the right, doing the same maneuver. There were sparks from some of the big engines, unnerving, but the mechanics had done their job, and once full daylight came, the sparks would fade away.

  They continued to climb, as steeply as the B-17 would go without stalling, every pilot knowing the feeling, that sudden bucking of the nose when the plane had begun to stop flying. But the bombardier could do nothing but ride. During takeoff, he was only a passenger, the pilot in the cockpit above him doing his job. He leaned as the plane banked into a sharper angle, knew they were circling, still close to the plane in front, more moving up with them. Some were already above, the first to take off, but they had disappeared into thick cloud cover, his own now reaching the dense ceiling, the plane in front of him barely visible. Wetness began to smear the Plexiglas cone in front of him, heavy mist from the clouds. In training, he had been told that the bombardier had the best seat in the plane, as far forward as you could sit, right in the nose, a clear view in every direction but behind. Even the pilot couldn’t see downward, had to rely on the planes flying in formation beneath him to keep their distance. But in the dense cloud cover, there was nothing to see, streams of rain still flowing across the Plexiglas, and now, blindness, the clouds thicker still, no sign of the plane in front of him at all.

  Behind him to the left sat the navigator, silent as well, staring into his instruments. The blindness in front of them was annoying, then agonizing, the plane still shimmying, small bounces in the rough air, the pilot using his skills to keep his plane at precisely the attitude of those around him. The bombardier leaned as far forward as his safety belt would allow, searched the dense gray above them for some break, the first signs of sunlight, made a low curse shared by every American in the Eighth Air Force. British weather …

  There had been nothing unusual about this mission, the men awakened at four in the morning, a quick breakfast, then out to the massive sea of planes. The preparation and inspection of the plane had been done by the ground crew, always in the dark, men who did not have the flight crew’s luxury of sleeping as late as four. But as they gathered beside their own bird, eight of the ten-man crew pitched in, working alongside the ground crew for the final preparation, while the pilot and copilot perched high in the cockpit ran through their checklists, inspections of their own. Like the other crewmen, the bombardier had helped pull the enormous props in a slow turn, rolling the engines over manually, loosening the oil. He knew very little about engines, had never owned a car, never earned that particular badge that inspired pride in the mechanics, a cake of grease under the fingernails. But oil seemed important to those who knew, maybe as much as gasoline, and the need for plenty of both wasn’t lost on anyone. If the ground crew said the oil needed to be loosened up, then by God he would pitch in to loosen it up. After some predetermined number of pulls, the chief mechanic gave the word, and the pull of the heavy prop blades became easier, the slow stuttering of the engines, the small generator igniting the sparks that would gradually kick each of the four engines into motion. The crews would stand back, admiring, their efforts paying off in a huge belch of smoke and thunder, the props turning on their own. Even the older mechanics seemed to enjoy that brief moment, swallowed by the exhaust, the hard sounds rolling inside them, deafening, all the power that would take this great bird up to visit the enemy one more time.

  With the engines warming up, the pilot had given the usual hand signal, the order to climb aboard. The bomber’s crew would move toward the hatches, and the veterans could predict who would be first in line. It was always the newest man, this time a show of eagerness by the ball turret gunner, a man who did not yet know how scared he should be. As the crew moved toward the hatches, the men who stayed behind had one more job, offering a helping hand, some a final pat on the rump, or a few words meant to impart luck. There were customs now, some of the ground crew reciting the same quick prayer or making the same pledge, to buy the first drink or light the first cigarette. See you tonight. Give those Nazi bastards one for me. Some had written names or brief messages on the bombs themselves, usually profane, a vulgar greeting no one else would ever read. All of this had begun at random, but by now it had become ceremony, and the brief chatter held meaning, had become comforting repetition to all of them. There was another ceremony as well. As the crew passed beneath the nose, each man reached up to tap the shiny metal below the brightly painted head of an alligator, all teeth and glowing eyes. The plane had been named Big Gator, some of her original crew insisting that she be endowed with a symbol of something to inspire fear in the enemy. No one had asked if any Germans actually knew what an alligator was, but the flight engineer had come from Louisiana bayou country, and he had made the argument that none of the others could dispute. Not even the pilot had argued. As long as the painted emblem was ferocious, Big Gator worked just fine. This morning, they were embarking on their thirty-second mission, and thus far, only one man had sustained more than a minor combat wound: the ball turret gunner, replaced now by this new man who seemed to believe he would shoot down the entire Luftwaffe.

  With longevity came even greater superstition, especially for the ground crew. There was a desperate awareness of the odds, of fate. Thirty-one successful missions was an unnerving statistic by now, rarer by the week. It was the reason for all the rituals, the most religious among them believing that God must somehow be paying particular attention. If someone said a prayer, the same prayer, it might encourage a Divine smile toward this bird that would bring these men home one more time.

  The superstitions were reinforced by the number of combat missions they were required to fly, what had become a sore point to every crewman in the Eighth Air Force. Originally, each crewman was expected to complete twenty-five missions, a number that had become some sort of magic achievement. As a man passed twenty, the rituals became more intense, some drawing one more X on
the wall beside their beds, some refusing the poker games for fear of draining away their luck. Then the number of missions had been raised to thirty, and the grumbling had erupted into unguarded cursing toward the air commanders. But the missions continued, the superstitions adjusted, and the new men, the replacements, seemed not to know the difference. After a time, word had come, some officer knowing to pass along the order and then duck for cover. The number had been raised to thirty-five. The protests had erupted again, but the brass had been inflexible and unapologetic. As the bombing campaigns intensified, the flow of new crews from the training centers was too slow to keep up with the need for more and more aircraft. That was the official explanation. But word had filtered through the hangars and barracks that the number of missions had been raised because so many of the crews were being killed. Experienced crewmen had already begun to grumble that thirty-five might become a luxury, that someone far up the chain of command had already decided the number would continue to rise. The men who had seen so many from their own squadrons fall out of the sky were beginning to believe that they would have to fly as many missions as it would take for them to be killed.

  The bombardier’s name was Buckley, and at twenty-two, he was no older than most of the ten men who flew the Big Gator. The engineer was the oldest, close to thirty, and looked it, a fierce, big-shouldered Cajun. The rest of the crew started at age nineteen, the gunners usually the youngest, and Buckley thought of the pilot. Hell, he looks like he’s twelve. Someone called him Captain Babyface. He’s my age, I think. Seems like a good Joe, but who knows anymore? So far so good.

  The pilot had come only two weeks before, a replacement for their original pilot who had washed out. It had been one of those unexpected human explosions, the pilot simply coming apart after twenty-four missions. There had been no hint it was coming, no one suspecting a problem, but somewhere over France, on the way toward their target, the plane had suddenly banked and then fallen into a steep dive. Even through the noise of the engines, he had heard the pilot screaming, others reacting violently, shouts throughout the plane. The chaos was complete, something of a fight in the cockpit, the engineer and the copilot wrestling with the man, a terrifying minute that brought most of the crew forward. The navigator had climbed up from the nose to help, but Buckley had to stay put, knowing that he could fly the plane using his bombsight if it came to that. As the terrifying seconds passed, he had stared straight ahead, eyes locked on the ground rising up in front of him, his back pressed hard into his seat. Then the plane had leveled out, someone’s sure hands at the controls, and the answers had come quickly. The pilot had started screaming, something about dying, that it was his time. But the man’s hysteria had been quieted with a hard crunching blow to his head from the butt of a .45. No one had been eager to take credit for actually cracking a pistol over the man’s head. They all knew that some idiot officer at the inquiry, some wet-eared major who had never faced the enemy, might go by the book and try to call it mutiny. But the guy went nutso, Buckley thought. Just fell to pieces. Whoever busted his head saved our asses. Had to be Lieutenant Marlette. That damn engineer loves to make out like he’s gonna kick asses for no good reason. Good thing, too. If we’d have kept diving like that, the damn wings were gonna come off. Buckley could see that pilot in his mind, a few years older, handsome in that Hollywood kind of way, the pilot who gets the girl. Wonder what they did to him? Court-martial? They didn’t tell us anything. The crew had heard rumors, of course, and Buckley thought, it’s the same old crap they held over our heads through training: You wash out up here, and they’re gonna stick a rifle in your hands and send you to the infantry. I guess I’m supposed to believe that. But if a guy goes crazy in a cockpit, what makes those jackass officers think he won’t do the same thing in a foxhole?

  He leaned back in his small hard seat, knew that beneath the thin cushion, a half-inch piece of steel had been fastened to the frame. The veterans had learned quickly to buddy up to someone on the ground crew who had access to spare parts, and for a case of beer or a bottle of Scotch you might get someone to slip a piece of extra armor into place. It was unauthorized, the steel considered contraband by the commanders, added weight the plane did not need. But even the new pilot never said a word. No doubt, Buckley thought, the captain’s sitting on one of his own. If anything comes up from below, at least the jewels might have a little protection. He might be new, but he’s not a moron.

  The new pilot, Captain Henry Carlson, had no choice but to settle in quickly with his new crew. In two weeks, he had already flown seven missions, a terrifyingly quick indoctrination. He seems pretty smart, Buckley thought, but he’s a little weird. Bad enough somebody called him Captain Babyface, but now, he says he won’t get a haircut until he goes home. Calls that his good-luck charm. He survives his first couple weeks, so he decides he won’t change a thing. Does that mean he doesn’t take showers either? Don’t need to know that. That’s the copilot’s problem.

  He stared ahead into the gloom, felt the cold spreading through his legs, the temperature dropping quickly. He reached out, fumbling for the switch that would put the blessed heat through the wiring in his boots and coveralls. At high altitude, the air was numbing, any exposed fingers useless in minutes, even the gloves barely adequate. After a long couple of minutes, he could begin to feel the heat, what there was of it, enough to ease the pain of frozen toes. But still he shivered, his arms clamping tightly around his thick jacket. The overalls took longer to warm up, but even then he knew the shivering wouldn’t stop.

  It was like this every time, the shivering coming long before the plane actually left the ground. None of them talked about it, no one would risk revealing the secret, would risk the ribbing and the shame of simply being afraid. Buckley had wondered about that, how many of these men were as scared as he was. He glanced behind him, saw the navigator scanning his instruments then writing something on a small pad of paper. Buckley looked out front again, thought, he never says anything during the warm-up, during the climb. Maybe he’s as scared as I am. If he’s not, he’s a fruitcake. I don’t want to know that. Just so he gets us out there, gives me someplace to dump these eggs, and then gets us the hell back home.

  The heat was increasing in his overalls, and he flexed his toes, the numbness wearing off. He looked back toward the other side, saw the flak jacket hanging on the hook he had made from a piece of the plane’s wiring. He struggled to shift in his seat, held by his safety belt, wrapped as well by the thickness of his clothing. Like most of the others, he wore long johns and his uniform beneath the overalls. Over that he wore a thick fleece-lined leather jacket. Once airborne, each crewman put on his oxygen mask and flight helmet. After ten thousand feet or so, the air thinned out enough that any man could black out in seconds if he didn’t get his “juice.” Buckley had played with that idea in training, thought, how bad could it be? There’s still air, right? Hell, there’s enough to keep the plane flying. But he found out quickly that passing out gets you a reprimand and, sometimes, one whale of a headache. He put his hand on his mask, tested the flow of oxygen, then reached down beneath his seat. He kept a spare carry-around oxygen bottle there, something every crewman had at his fingertips. The primary oxygen masks were attached to hoses, and if a man had to leave his seat, the mask stayed put. He nodded to himself. Yep, those little bottles were somebody’s damn good idea. He put his hands against his chest, felt the parachute, thought, I guess this is too. Regulations called for each man to wear his parachute, but most of them did as Buckley did now: released the strap on one side so the chute hung loosely off one shoulder. Despite the fear, it was a defiant gesture, reinforced by the stupidity of peer pressure, a show of swaggering confidence that they wouldn’t need the thing anyway. But there was a more practical reason to keep the chute out of the way. It interfered with the final article of clothing, the flak jacket. And bravado be damned, every man wore his flak jacket. He pulled it over his shoulders, saw the navigator doing the same.

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nbsp; Suddenly they broke out of the gray blindness and he saw a dull blue sky, a bright splash of light on the horizon. He let out a long breath, stared ahead, couldn’t help feeling impressed, the sky crowded with so many of the big birds, flocks of B-17s in the same arcing turns, formations coming together, a myriad display of triangles, stacking one above the other. They flew in groups of three, one plane in front, the other two behind each wing of the leader. That formation was one of a dozen just like it, thirty-six planes in a much larger pack, clustered as tightly together as they could safely fly. The squadron was only one small part of an extraordinary armada, and he could see most of them now, spread far into the low sunlight.

  The great flocks of bombers continued to gather, nine hundred planes arriving from different airfields, taking long minutes to complete their final formation. Like the other crewmen, the gunners, the engineer, and the radioman, Buckley could only wait while the pilots did their jobs. But the training was good, and Buckley marveled at that, knew that whatever made a pilot capable of doing this, of bringing together this massive show of power, he deserved to outrank the rest of them.