Victory and Honor (Honor Bound 6)

“I thought,” Ashton said, “that we had total air superiority over Berlin. How did this Hanna Reitsch manage to do that?”

“The story is that a Fieseler Storch landed on the Unter den Linden,” Dulles said. “Is that possible? Who do I ask, von Wachtstein or Frade, if that’s possible?”

“It’s possible,” von Wachtstein immediately replied. “No problem whatsoever.”

“What’s the Unter den Linden?” Clete asked.

“A wide boulevard near the Reichschancellery,” von Wachtstein explained. “It used to be lined with linden trees. You could get in and out of there in a Storch without much trouble at all.”

“Presuming,” Dulles said, “that there were not perhaps fifty or so Russian fighters in the area supporting the Red Army who would welcome the opportunity to shoot down such an airplane.”

“Who’s this Hanna Reitsch flying the Storch?” Frade said. “How good a pilot is he?”

Von Wachtstein laughed.

He then explained: “Hanna Reitsch is a woman, Clete. And she’s a much better pilot than you or me.”

Clete raised his eyebrows and nodded. After a moment’s thought, he offered: “And Russian fighters wouldn’t be a problem for the Storch if the pilot knew what she was doing.”

“What?” Ashton challenged. “You think a fighter couldn’t shoot down that little observation plane.”

“Once upon a time, Bacardi,” Clete said by way of explanation, “on an island far, far away called Guadalcanal, a Marine pilot was flying around over the jungle in a Piper Cub that he ‘borrowed’ from the Army. He was directing artillery fire and suddenly became aware of a string of tracers coming his way. He looked over his shoulder and saw that he had two Zeros on his tail. Not knowing what to do, he made a sharp right turn and went down on the deck. The Zeros made a three-sixty and had another go at him.

“The Marine went even lower in his humble Cub, then made another right turn. The first Zero flew over him, and the second tried to make a right turn and flew into the trees. The first Zero made two more passes at the little Piper Cub and then gave up. I tried to claim the Zero that went into the trees as a kill, but they said no dice. For one thing, you can’t claim a kill if the enemy plane went down because of pilot error, and for another, you can’t claim a kill if you are flying a Piper Cub stolen from the U.S. Army.

“So, to answer your question, Major Ashton, a female who is a better pilot than Hansel or me, flying a Storch—which stalls at about thirty miles an hour—would have no trouble avoiding Russian fighters.”

Dulles said, “You’re agreed that it’s possible that Hanna Reitsch could have flown Hitler—for that matter, any two people—from Berlin to Norway. Is that so, Peter?”

“Yes, sir. It’s possible,” von Wachtstein replied. “I submit, however, that the real question is: Is it plausible?”

Dulles looked at him a long moment. He said: “We have to proceed on that possibility. The mission obviously is to locate U-997. How nice it would be if we could capture her. And even if the outrageous tale proves to be exactly that—the Hitlers and others are not aboard—then she most certainly will be carrying other valuables.”

“How the hell can we possibly do that?” Frade said. “Definitely not with SAA’s aircraft or certainly not Peter’s Storch. We’d need heavily armed military assets in order to actually capture a sub—and certainly to sink one, if it came to that.”

“Right, Cletus. What’s been discussed is that there are enormous numbers of long-range aircraft—bombers, B-17s and B-24s—now available in Europe to search for submarines. But I don’t think that’s going to be of much help except in the waters between Norway and the English Channel. Once the submarines get into the Atlantic—as some of them probably have already—they will head southwest for the Atlantic and soon be beyond the range of any aircraft looking for them.

“Similarly, although a bomb group has already been ordered to Sidi Slimane in Morocco, I don’t think it will be of much use. As soon as they can get there, the submarines will be deep into the Atlantic, beyond the reach of aircraft.

“At some point west of Europe and North Africa, Eisenhower’s—SHAEF’s—authority ends, and the military command is that of the Navy. They will be ordered—as soon as I can get to Washington and convince Admiral Leahy of the necessity to do so—to begin searching for these submarines. I don’t think they’ll have much luck, but the effort will have to be made.

“Insofar as sending B-17s and/or B-24s here to Argentina or Brazil, that has been considered and decided against. Brazil has asked for such aircraft in the past and, in the probably justified belief that they would use them against Argentina, their request was denied. And obviously we couldn’t send them to Argentina and not to Brazil.

“So, what happens now is that when I get to Washington, I am going to try to get you authority to call upon the B-24s we presently have at Canoas should you need them to deal with any enemy submarines you find, either offshore or within Argentine waters.

“That brings us back to that basic premise. The best—indeed almost the only—hope we have to either sink or capture the submarines in question is Team Turtle. And in doing so, you will not only be up against the Nazis involved in Operation Phoenix but against substantial numbers of our countrymen, in and out of uniform.”

Dulles stopped, looked thoughtful as he sipped his drink, then went on:

“Considering how everyone now has the OSS in their crosshairs, I was about to make an attempt at giving you a stirring pep talk about overcoming great obstacles. Then I remembered the best pep talk I ever heard. How many of you have seen the movie Knute Rockne, All American? With Pat O’Brien playing Rockne?”

I don’t believe this! Clete thought.

Our distinguished OSS deputy director is going to inspire us by quoting from a movie?

Is that the booze talking?

Everybody indicated that they had seen the motion picture, and Clete now saw some of the men showing curious expressions.