Authors: Robert Conroy
It was common knowledge that Russia had interned some American and British fliers and wasn’t keen on returning them. Winding up chopping frozen rocks in Siberia was not a pleasant option.
Kent chimed in. “Again, I suggest we turn north and west in hopes of finding the Baltic. At that point, I further suggest we stay over the water until we hit Denmark, and I mean that figuratively and not literally.”
“Good.” agreed Phips. “And then we can cut the angle by flying over Denmark. I don’t think the krauts will waste sending fighters after one lousy lost bomber.” Of course, he thought, nobody thought their little flight of eighteen bombers would have been attacked by so many German fighters.
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Kent said, and Stover sullenly nodded agreement. “But when are you going to dump the bombs? We will need that fuel if we’re going to make it back.”
“I don’t have a target,” Phips said.
Stover shook his head in disbelief. “Christ, Chief, we’re only a couple of thousand feet over Germany. The whole fucking country’s a target. Just drop the damn things.”
Phips thought for a second and decided he agreed. Finally he felt he was doing the right thing. Maybe he could recover from this nightmarish day. Back in England, he’d be criticized for his mistakes and the loss of Carson, but maybe, just maybe, he’d be allowed to learn from those mistakes and fly again. Regardless, his first job was to get his crew home.
“Just for the record,” he said, “does anybody see anything that even remotely looks like it could use a good bombing?”
Stover’s eyes were the sharpest. “Looks like a cluster of buildings coming up in the woods to our right front. And I don’t see any red crosses or anything.”
“Got it,” said Cullen, the combination nose gunner and bombardier. “We’ll use the Norden and drop bombs in their helmets.”
It was a feeble attempt at a joke. The super-secret Norden bomb-sight was better than what anybody’d had before, but it was far from precise. Even at their low altitude, they’d be lucky to hit the compound.
“What the hell?” Phips said in surprise. Antiaircraft guns had opened up at the last second and black puffs of flak were exploding well above them. Whoever was down there was as surprised as he was. At least their shooting was off.
The bomb bay doors opened and more cold wind whipped through the plane. They might be closer to the ground and it might be the middle of summer, but it was still like being in a savage winter storm. A few seconds later, the bombs fell, and
Mother’s Milk,
freed from their weight, lifted. Now Phips and the Milkmen really began to feel that they might just make it back to England.
“Anybody see if we hit anything?” Phips asked.
The only one with a view of the target was Ballard, the tail gunner. “Well, sir, we did hit the ground. Seriously, some of the bombs did fall in that cluster of buildings. Not a clue as to what kind of damage we might have caused. Looks like we’ve outrun the flak, though.”
And we’ll probably never know what we hit, Phips thought. An unwanted realization popped into his head. If they did make it back, he’d have to write a letter to Carson’s family explaining how he’d died heroically and painlessly when the poor guy had really died screaming and bleeding all over the plane like a stuck pig.
A few hours later they had crossed Denmark and were again over water. They sighted a gray smudge on the horizon. Kent assured Phips it was England, Mother England, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. They were very low on fuel. A pair of British Hurricanes flew by and took up position on either side. They were used to nursing cripples and would guide
Mother’s Milk
back to an airfield. They’d be on fumes when they landed, but they had made it. It was the middle of June 1944. Allies had landed in Normandy and the men of the
Mother’s Milk
were still part of the war.
Finally, Phips could relax. He did wonder just what they had managed to bomb on their first and so far only run over Germany. He hoped to God it wasn’t a girls’ school or an orphanage. But then, how many girls schools were protected by antiaircraft guns?
* * *
Colonel Ernst Varner walked away from the undistinguished one-story wood building that was jammed with the military hierarchy of the Third Reich. For the moment it was the site of the OKW, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the headquarters of the German military. The Wehrmacht controlled the regular army, the Heer; the navy, the Kriegsmarine; and the air force, the Luftwaffe. A walk in the surrounding woods was what Varner needed to clear his head. The air within the building was stale in more ways than one.
Varner had been inside a few moments earlier and had actually heard Adolf Hitler speak emotionally and illogically about solutions to the military dilemma confronting Germany. And, the more he heard his Fuhrer pontificate, the more he realized the little man with the mustache was delusional at best.
Varner hadn’t always felt that way about his Fuhrer. As a younger man he’d been an ardent supporter of Hitler and an early member of the Nazi Party, which had, in part, helped him reach his current rank at the age of thirty-eight. Of course, being a legitimate hero and combat veteran who’d seen action in both France and Russia hadn’t hurt, either. His wounds suffered fighting the Russians were still healing and it was decided that he would serve better as a staff officer and aide to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the army’s Chief of Staff and a man Varner had come to realize was little more than a spineless toady. Keitel would not question Hitler’s orders no matter how preposterous they were. And many of them were well beyond preposterous. The chief of operations, General Alfred Jodl, was even worse. Both would simply nod and send men out to die.
Varner had been told he’d soon be promoted to general, but now wondered if it was worth it if he had to suffer working for fools like Keitel and Jodl.
Varner reached for a cigarette and recalled that he had given up smoking at the insistence of his wife, Magda, and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Margarete. They said it was a disgusting habit. Varner agreed, especially since the only cigarettes available in wartime Germany were absolute shit rolled in paper. He’d picked up the smoking habit to contain stress while fighting the Red Army outside Stalingrad. Now he needed to combat the stress of listening to Hitler.
“Here,” said a voice from behind.
Varner laughed and took a cigarette from a fellow staffer, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. They had met in the hospital while being treated for their respective wounds. The darkly handsome Stauffenberg had lost his left eye, right hand, and two fingers on his left hand when his vehicle had been strafed in North Africa. Varner had been wounded in his upper left arm and shoulder, and doctors were still trying to remove shrapnel that moved and sometimes caused him great pain. Varner was shorter than the lean and aristocratic Stauffenberg. He was stocky, like a tank. This was serendipitous since Varner’s specialty was armor. His dark hair was thinning and he was thankful that Margarete got her pixy looks from Magda, a woman he thought was far above him. Varner would never be mistaken for a blond and blue-eyed Aryan superman.
Between the two of them, they managed to light up. As always, the cigarettes were awful.
“Why aren’t you in there with the others?” Varner asked.
Stauffenberg almost snorted. “Because it’s too crowded and they don’t need me to help them make their mistakes. I think it’s incredible that there’s still doubt as to whether the Allied landings in Normandy are the real thing or are just a feint. The Fuhrer does seem to be coming around, however, and no longer insists that Pas de Calais is the eventual main target instead of Normandy. However, the decision has come too late to throw the Allies out.”
Varner was surprised at the other man’s candor. Stauffenberg’s comments were dangerously close to a criticism of Hitler, which was not a wise thing to do, especially for a relatively low-ranking staff officer, hero or not. Disagreements had a nasty habit of being interpreted as treason. Some very high-ranking generals had argued with the Fuhrer and were now languishing in obscurity.
He and Stauffenberg, while friendly and cordial, were not close enough to share intimate thoughts, and Varner wondered just what the other colonel was thinking. Was he being sounded out, and if so for what purpose? Rumor had it that Stauffenberg was not an enthusiastic supporter of either Hitler or the Nazi Party. Well, Varner now had his own doubts.
Varner decided to make light of it. “I left because it was obvious I wasn’t important enough to stay.”
Stauffenberg laughed. “Perhaps being unimportant is a good thing. If you’re careful, you can become invisible.”
Casually, they walked farther from the building where the meeting was taking place. It was in the headquarters complex and command center near the Prussian city of Rastenberg. Hitler liked to come there to be away from Berlin, a city he heartily detested because of its perceived decadence. Hitler had few vices. He rarely drank and ate sparingly. Varner thought Hitler had a mistress, a plump blonde named Eva, but no one was certain. Varner decided he didn’t care.
Berliners returned the favor and did not appear to love Hitler as much as other parts of Germany did. Most of the field marshals and generals vastly preferred the luxuries and flesh pots of Berlin. Varner would have preferred being in Berlin, but only because his small family was there.
Sirens went off and antiaircraft guns began to fire.
Varner automatically looked skyward. “What the devil?”
A plane appeared, flying low and fast. A bomber.
Dear God,
he thought. It was an American B17.
The two men ran to a slit trench and dived in just as the bombs began to explode. The earth shook with the power of the bombs and Varner felt he was back in Russia with Red Army artillery shells raining down on him. He tried to control his fear. Shock waves washed over him and he realized he couldn’t hear. Dirt and debris rained down on them.
Finally, he sensed there was silence and lifted his head. Stauffenberg lay still in the bottom of the trench. His skull had been crushed by a falling piece of metal, and his one eye was dangling out of its socket. Varner crawled out of the trench and gasped in horror at the desolation. Then one thought occurred to him. What about Hitler?
He lurched to the building he’d just left. It was in ruins. There were great clouds of smoke, but little in the way of flames came from it. Survivors were staggering about and a handful of people were trying to pull others from the wreckage. It was utter chaos and he realized that some people were screaming as his hearing returned. Nobody was in charge. He realized that Germany might have just lost her leadership. Whatever doubts he might have about Hitler, he could not allow Germany’s enemies to realize she was leaderless.
Varner took a deep breath. He would be the man in charge. He grabbed a dazed looking lieutenant and two confused enlisted men. His hearing had largely returned, although his voice sounded tinny to himself. “You. Go to the radio center and shut down all communications. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Do it on my authority on behalf of the Fuhrer and if anyone balks, kill them.”
The three men saluted and ran off to do his bidding. He did the same with a handful of others, sending them to the gates of the compound. Again, his orders were that nobody comes in and nobody goes out.
Recovery efforts at the devastated building seemed to be progressing. Medics were crawling around through the mound of rubble. One of them was holding a dismembered leg, and there was a row of bodies on the ground. Several survivors walked around in a daze, their uniforms torn to shreds.
Varner forced himself to look at the dead. Keitel, the man he’d referred to as a toady lay face up with a look of perpetual astonishment on his face. A medic informed him that Jodl was badly wounded, with both of his legs blown off and would be dead within minutes.
He was about to ask about Hitler, when a desperate shout and howl of emotional pain came from the men searching the rubble. They had found the Fuhrer.
Debris was removed and a doctor climbed down beside the pale and crumpled body of Adolf Hitler. Varner followed. Hitler’s eyes were open and staring at the sky. He wasn’t moving. “Is he alive?” Varner asked.
The doctor shook his head sadly. Again it was time for action and Varner realized what had to be done. “Doctor, you are quite wrong,” he whispered. “You will announce that he is badly wounded and must be taken to the clinic. You will do it immediately and without anyone seeing his real condition.”
The doctor, stunned, was about to argue when he realized what Varner was telling him. “Stretcher!” the doctor yelled. “We need a stretcher now! Get the Fuhrer to the clinic immediately. His life may depend on it.”
Hitler’s limp remains were put on a stretcher and covered with a blanket that exposed only part of his head, presenting the illusion that he still lived. The bearers almost ran to the clinic with the doctor alongside. Varner was now comfortable that only he and the doctor knew that Adolf Hitler was dead.
* * *
Jack Morgan, Captain, U.S. Army, wondered just what the hell was so important that the naval officer commanding the LST had summoned him. He also wondered just what the hell he was doing on an LST heading for France in the first place. He was an Army Air Force officer, even though he’d washed out as a bomber pilot, and American air bases were in England, not France. He’d assumed he’d be used by the air force in some capacity, but sent to France? Never. Even more important, why?
He had no idea what naval protocol was as he approached the bridge and, in the words of Rhett Butler in
Gone With the Wind,
he frankly didn’t give a damn. The LST was supposed to take him from Dover to the beaches of Normandy where he would depart and find a military unit that wanted a washed-up bomber pilot. This was a complete shock. When he’d been first posted to England, he’d logically thought that he would be assigned as a staff officer at an air base. Now he had no idea what was going to happen to him.