Eagles at War (7 page)

An Opel
Blitz
truck packed with brown-uniformed SA storm troopers rumbled by, the men waving and shouting with the truculent boozy humor of bullies on a spree.

As she neared the corner, she heard the sound of breaking glass and the wavering high-pitched scream of an old man. Lyra sprinted ahead to find the storm troopers using clubs to smash the windows of a jewelry shop. In front of the store, four of the men were kicking the source of the now diminishing screams; others were picking at the glittering but inexpensive items that had been left in the window for show. Enraged, Lyra burst among them, grabbing an uplifted club and jerking a surprised storm trooper backward to the ground. She screamed, "Stop at once, or I'll report you to Goebbels!" She glanced down in horror at the old man, his head crushed and bleeding.

The Nazis reacted as if on maneuvers, quickly circling to surround her, weapons at the ready. The obviously intoxicated leader, built like a howitzer shell, all bullet head and sloping shoulders, paused to appraise her.

"Kameraden,
maybe there's something better to do than teaching dirty old Jews a lesson."

Lyra backed away step by step as the SA leader moved forward. The other storm troopers formed a rank around her, smiling and joking with each other now, the injured man forgotten on the pavement.

Suddenly, headlights illuminated the group against the shattered remnants of the storefront. Henry Caldwell jumped the curb to plow among them, the chrome bumper of his Buick staff car shoving them apart like an icebreaker, separating them from Lyra. One man ripped off the American flag that flew on the right front fender, while another pounded on the cover of the fender-mounted spare with his club, knocking the rearview mirror off. The storm troopers were obviously confused, uncertain as to how far they could go, wanting to destroy the car, afraid to do so, but still not willing to back down.

Caldwell reached back and opened the door behind him.

"Get in, Countess."

The SA leader stood weaving at the front of the car, his truncheon slapping against his hand. In slurred, broken English he said, "Clear out, Yank. You've no business here."

Six of the troopers had their guns aimed at the car. Rifle bolts clicked and Lyra screamed—she knew too well what the sound meant. The troopers, some Great War veterans and some dough-faced hooligans from the street, were clearly anxious to shoot, waiting only for a signal or a threat. Caldwell knew that the situation had gone critical; he had seen men like this before, angry strikebreakers coming to the mines, preferring to kill rather than argue.

"Don't say anything, don't make any sudden movements," he cautioned her. Calling to the storm troopers' leader he said, "I'm General Caldwell, United States Army. I'm with the American Embassy. Let me proceed at once."

"I don't care if you are President 'Jewsevelt.' I want that woman for interrogation. Turn her over and clear out before I break your head."

Caldwell eased out the clutch, rolling the Buick's big front wheel over the SA man's foot, sending him screaming in pain back toward his truck. Caldwell burned rubber accelerating into the street as the troopers fired.

***

Chapter 3

On September 1, 1939, a new world war proved that
everyone
could be wrong. The English and French believed they could appease Hitler, and were blindsided by the infamous Ribbentrop/Molotov pact. The Poles so believed in their own strength that their colonels boasted about how quickly they could take Berlin. The Russians believed they could buy time by sending Hitler tributes of raw materials and foodstuffs. The Germans believed that the English and French would not honor their guarantees to the Poles. And the United States believed that it would remain neutral, as the law required.

The Allies watched Hitler like a frog watches a snake, hypnotized by impending doom, allowing him to split the war into two distinct halves, each with time and events moving at vastly different rates. In the East, Germany savagely liquidated Poland in a war of blazing swiftness. In the West, nothing happened except for loudspeakers blaring propaganda messages and bombers dropping leaflets.

In America, President Roosevelt was preparing to run for an unprecedented third term, pacifying the isolationists by stressing U.S. neutrality and issuing an embargo order on the sale of arms to belligerents. At the same time he began an unprecedented peacetime military buildup, spending that helped pull America from the mire of its ten-year Depression.

In the face of the nightmare, individuals tried to live "normal lives."

*

Dayton, Ohio/January 15, 1940

Frank Bandfield had never felt more helpless, somehow an intruder at Patty's bedside in the ward where other women also labored. She lay asleep, vulnerable, her fragile beauty marred by deep circles of fatigue and pain, her mouth, normally so sweetly shaped, slack and open as she gasped for breath.

A small radio, its fractured brown plastic case friction-taped together, was quietly vibrating to the tune of "Pennsylvania 6-5000." The tired night nurse, sprawled in the chair, her uniform rumpled and hair straying out from under her cap, sat tapping a thermometer in rhythm to it.

Patty was in her eighth hour of labor. Bandfield had stopped patting her hand, not wishing to awaken her. She groaned as another contraction hit her, his own insides grunting and compressing in sympathetic reaction.

She lapsed back into sleep. He sat watching her, torn between admiration for her courage and utter relief that she would never have to undergo a similar agony. This was it; two children were enough.

With Charlotte, Patty had started labor about three in the afternoon, and the baby was born at eight. Now that worried him; if the first olive out of the bottle had been easy, the rest should be even easier. He'd missed Charlotte's easy birth and had almost missed this one. He had just come back from observing the outnumbered Finnish David bringing the Russian Goliath to a halt in the Winter War, and Henry Caldwell had already cut orders for him to go to Brazil, where the quasi-Fascist government was in the market for some new airplanes.

Bandfield knew he was fortunate to have the confidence of the most important man in the American aircraft industry. Caldwell's genius was keeping a dozen balls in the air at a time. He had the Curtiss P-40 production line rolling. Boeing was cranking up B-17 production, and Consolidated had flown their XB-24 at December's end. And that was just the current stuff; for the future there was a competition for a whole series of fighters and for a huge superbomber that could bomb Germany from the United States!

Caldwell was even more deeply involved with Elsie—he'd told Bandy privately that he wanted to marry her. He was talking about having children and Elsie hadn't even consented to an engagement. Bandfield worried that Caldwell was going to trip himself up. It was stupid to have an affair with the "personal assistant" of the president of an airplane company he was doing business with, yet Caldwell seemed to feel he could manage it. Bandfield was certain that Elsie would exploit the relationship.

Caldwell needed to be careful. The Air Corps was growing, bringing in young, ambitious hotshots eager to make general. And it was no different than any other organization—there would be sharks circling Caldwell, especially now that his influence had spread so far.

Recognized as Hap Arnold's right-hand man—although his help getting Arnold his position was not generally known—Caldwell had a moral authority far beyond his rank, gained by his knack for reaching across organizational boundaries. Caldwell had not just done people favors—he'd gone out of his way to create situations where he could do them. He had markers from the right people everywhere, and he used them judiciously as he imprinted his personality on the entire Air Corps. Perhaps his infatuation with Elsie was good, a sign that he was, after all, a mere mortal, not like the comic strip guy, Superman.

Patty groaned, and he picked up her hand. "I felt something move, Bandy—you'd better get the doctor." Two hours later, a baby boy was born, six pounds and four ounces of red-faced fighting fury. Bandy loved the sight of him, his little features compressed into prunelike wrinkles, tiny blue eyes peeping out at the strange new world, lungs loudly protesting the strange new order of things. Bandy had already picked out a name for his son: George Roget Bandfield—George for his father, whom he still loved deeply despite his desertion, and Roget for his best friend. Later, he sat again at Patty's bedside as she slept, happier than he'd ever been, aware of just how lucky he was.

*

Cottbus, Germany/July 13, 1940

Captain Helmut Josten felt that he was the unluckiest man in Germany. The woman he loved wouldn't marry him, and he was being dragged down a gravel path by a fat little Nazi to a meeting for which he didn't even know the reason. Behind them, the entourage of staff officers were struggling out of the convoy of flag-decked Mercedes sedans to stretch their legs.

Honorary SS
Obergruppenfuehrer
Kurt Weigand was almost running to stay ahead of Josten's crisp military stride. From the back he looked like a gingerbread man, so short that the tip of his SS ceremonial sword dragged in the crushed gravel of the path. Weigand's hand continually caressed the Hitler-duplicate mustache underneath the bobbed fleshy knob that was his nose. In 1916, during the first attack on Fort Douamont at Verdun, a French trenching spade had smashed into his face, breaking his nose and cheekbones, and knocking out his front teeth. The spade had provided the only angular relief to an otherwise perfectly round head and body. Almost bald, his remaining hair close-cropped, Weigand was essentially featureless—except for his eyes, which hinted at the complexity of his personality. When he spoke, their pale blue gleamed with the expectant happiness of a new puppy. Yet those same eyes were never still, always moving and recording, continuously assessing the value of every person and every event to himself.

Josten tried to get a feel for the meeting. "Sir, you flew with the Director in the World War, did you not?"

"Yes. After Verdun I was no longer fit for duty in the trenches, so they let me train as a pilot. That's the way they did things in those days—they felt you didn't need to be well to fly. We flew in the Richthofen
Geschwader,
through the great early days of 1918—and the sad last days, too. I've not seen him since. What unit are you with?"

"Jagdgeschwader
26; we're stationed on the Channel coast."

"You know the Director?"

"We flew together in Spain. He's a man of great vision."

They were early for their appointment. Traffic had been light on the drive from Berlin, and there had been no delay at the gates of the Focke-Wulf factory. Josten was infuriated that it was Saturday, and everyone was off. Here they were, a full year into the war, and an aircraft factory was closed for weekends like some routine business. He knew that it was in part the labor shortage, but it was also a national attitude. Germany had not yet become serious about the war; perhaps the victory over France had come too easily. The guard on the gate was a symptom, casually waving them through the gates with only a cursory glance at the driver's identity papers.

Weigand paused to catch his breath, surveying the flat countryside. A few years ago it had been farmland; now there was an aircraft factory and, on the opposite side of the runway, their destination, the Hermann Goering Aerial Weapon Establishment. It was a perfect spot for an airfield, but a study in contrasts. On the Focke-Wulf side, sunlight reflected off the tall windows of the long manufacturing building; below, shadows enfolded the low-set engineering offices arrayed alongside. The buildings were laid out in the new German style, well separated to avoid bomb damage, with plywood shutters to cover the windows if the RAF ever got that far. Even though the factory was shut down for the weekend, it had a purposeful military look, with fire hydrants well spaced and clearly marked and directions to bomb shelters posted every hundred yards.

In contrast, the Aerial Weapon Establishment area looked like a small city park, well landscaped and with gravel-covered paths curving through the pine forests. After a sharp right turn in the path, the plant lay before them, submerged in a shallow meadow so that it was invisible from the road. It was startling. The two men had both expected to see another aircraft factory, sawtooth roofs of steel and glass buildings, chimneys smoking. Instead, they saw a rambling wooden complex, a gigantic spiderweb of frame hangarlike buildings, all connected to a central administrative office by covered walkways. At the far left was a huge, grass-covered hillock, two hundred meters long and a hundred meters wide, studded with artificial trees.

They were greeted at the door of the administrative office by a primly dressed woman of fifty, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, a white lace blouse buttoned to the neck.

"Greetings, gentlemen. I am the Director's personal assistant,
Frau
Schroeder. He sends his apologies; he is taking a physical therapy treatment and won't be able to see you for a few moments. You know, his injuries ..." Her voice trailed off apologetically.

Josten found a chair and assumed the approved position, hands on his knees, gloves folded in his hat. He kept his mouth shut. It was one thing to chat with Weigand as they walked along the path, quite another to speak to him in front of a third party.

Weigand walked around inspecting the walls, covered with photos of most of the Nazi leaders. In the place of honor was a huge, silver-framed photo of the Fuehrer, personally signed, the ultimate gift in the Third Reich. He whistled to himself—his old comrade was obviously well thought of. The trip might be worthwhile after all.