As Frade lifted off in the Storch from the Jorge Frade airfield—with Martín and Welner aboard—he had a poetic thought, one based on the work of Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
Patricios to the left,
Horse Rifles to the right,
Forward the light airplane,
Onto the island of death
Flew the Three Stooges!
Clete picked up enough altitude so that the Storch wouldn’t attract attention and then flew over and just beyond Buenos Aires, far enough out over the River Plate so that he would be out of sight of anyone on the shore.
This thinking, he reasoned, would also be in the mind of whoever was commanding the Horse Rifles invasion force—stay close enough to the shore so as not to get lost sailing up the estuary, and yet far enough offshore to avoid detection.
[TWO]
En route to Isla Martín García
River Plate Estuary, Argentina
1655 16 October 1945
“I think we have found the invasion fleet,” Cletus Frade announced over the intercom. He pointed downward to the right.
There was no response from his passengers.
Six “river” boats, each maybe fifty feet long, were moving up north in a rough double “V” formation. That seemed unnatural for anything but an invasion fleet.
He pushed the nose of the Storch sharply down to get a closer look.
“Why else would those boats be moving in a formation like that?” he wondered aloud over the intercom.
And again there was no response from his passengers.
He looked over his shoulder at Father Welner and General Martín. They were crammed in the backseat. Neither of them wore the rear headset.
Well, that explains their silence, especially after that dive.
He had two thoughts as he mimed for them to put on the headset.
Both look terrified—as if they are going to piss their pants.
I wonder if Otto Skorzeny and Benito Mussolini looked like that when another heroic Storch pilot such as myself on a rescue mission such as this flew them off that mountaintop in Italy?
Then he had another thought: Will Tío Juan’s fate follow Il Duce’s violent end?
Father Welner got the headset on first.
“What are we doing?” he asked, with great concern—or maybe terror—in his voice. “Is something wrong with the airplane?”
Why does it surprise me that he got the headset on before Martín?
By now I should have learned to never underestimate the wily Jesuit.
With great effort Clete resisted the temptation to solemnly advise the priest to prepare to meet Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.
“I think we have found the invasion fleet,” he repeated.