“At this moment, Colonel Frade, a small convoy of Air Force vehicles, under the command of a captain, is attempting to drive to Berlin. The convoy consists of two trucks and a jeep. One of the trucks is a mobile aircraft control tower. The other contains supplies.
“There is an autobahn—a superhighway patterned after the New Jersey Turnpike—running between Hanover, which is in the British zone, and Berlin. More specifically, more importantly, to the American zone of Berlin.
“The Soviets have blocked the autobahn at Helmstedt—at the border between East and West Germany. It’s just over one hundred miles—one hundred seventy kilometers—from Helmstedt to the American zone of Berlin. If the Air Force people can get past the Helmstedt roadblock, they can be at Tempelhof in under three hours. Once there, they will immediately put the control tower into operation.”
“Sir, what air traffic are they going to control?” Frade asked.
“At first light, Piper Cubs—L-4s—flying between General White’s Division Rear, on the Elbe, and Berlin. At about oh-nine-hundred hours, an Air Forces C-54, having flown out of Frankfurt, will contact Tempelhof Air Forces Field and ask for approach and landing instructions. After it discharges its cargo, it will again contact the tower, to file a flight plan back to Rhein-Main. And once it crosses the East/ West Border, a South American Airways Constellation will be cleared by Rhein-Main to proceed to the U.S. air base at Tempelhof.
“The idea is that not only do we have a right to fly into Berlin, but we are in fact doing it.”
“Sir, with respect,” Frade said, “it seems that scenario depends almost entirely on this Air Forces captain being able to talk his way past the Russians blocking the highway.”
“In other words, ‘Is there a Plan B?’ Yes, there is. In the event the Mobile Control Tower can’t get past the Russians at Helmstedt—it may, as the Air Forces captain is actually one of us, a bright chap, and actually a lieutenant colonel, and we may be lucky—but if we’re not, an Air Forces C-54 will take off at oh-eight-hundred from Rhein-Main and head for Tempelhof. It will have aboard air traffic controllers and their equipment. And me. Once that’s up and running, we shift to clearing the SAA Constellation for flight to Tempelhof.”
“And what if the Russians shoot down the C-54?” Frade asked.
“We anticipate that—probability eighty percent—they will attempt to turn the C-54 with threatening aerial moves by their fighters. We anticipate that these fighters will be YAK-3s.”
Peter von Wachtstein offered: “If you get in a fight with one or more of them, Dooley, get him to chase you in a steep climb, and then, in a steep dive, turn inside him. Try to get his engine from the side; it’s well armored on the bottom.”
“What makes you think Dooley might get in a fight with them?” Mattingly asked.
“You’ve fought YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I was shot down twice by YAK-3s,” von Wachtstein said, “before I learned how to fight them. Put your stream of fire into his side.”
“I hadn’t planned to get into the rules of engagement yet, but since the subject has come up,” Mattingly said, “Colonel Dooley, you will select four of your best—and by best, I mean most experienced, levelheaded—pilots and by oh-seven-hundred tomorrow brief them on what is expected of them.
“You will escort the C-54 from the border across East Germany to Berlin. I’ve got an information packet for you with more details, but briefly here, on takeoff from Rhein-Main, the C-54 will circle the field until attaining an altitude of ten thousand feet and a cruising speed of two hundred twenty-five miles per hour—as fast as a C-54 can fly. General Halebury told me that inasmuch as fuel consumption is not a factor—it’s right at two hundred seventy miles from Rhein-Main to Tempelhof—that extra speed would be justified both by reducing flight time and making it easier for the faster P-38s to stay with it.
“The C-54 will then fly northeast on a straight line to Berlin. The compass heading will be forty-eight-point-four d
egrees.
“This is your call, Dooley, but General Halebury suggested that you place your aircraft two thousand feet above and that far behind the C-54. This will, the general suggests, place you in the best position to interdict any Russian aircraft intending to divert the C-54 from its course or altitude.”
“Sir, with respect, General Halebury is not a fighter pilot,” Dooley said. “I’d like to go a little higher.”
“Well, then fuck him,” Frade offered. “What does Halebury know? Do it your way, Dooley.”
Mattingly’s head snapped angrily to Frade. But when he saw the smile on everyone’s face, including that of General Gehlen, he didn’t say what he had originally intended to say.
Instead, he said, “I suppose I should have known it was too much to hope that you could contain your wit.”
“Did this general have any sage advice as to how Dooley and his guys are supposed to interdict the YAKs?” Frade asked. “You’re talking about bluffing them, right?”
“I think I’d rephrase that,” Mattingly said. “What Dooley and his aircraft are going to have to do, presuming the YAKs appear, is make them think it would be ill-advised for them to threaten the C-54 by flying dangerously close to it.”
“And the way I’m supposed to do that is fly dangerously close to the YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I don’t see any other way to make them behave, do you?” Frade asked seriously.
“The Russians will be under specific orders,” von Wachtstein said. “If those orders are to shoot down the C-54, they’ll do just that. Without warning. If their orders are to harass the C-54 with the thought that might make the C-54 pilot turn around, that’s all they’ll do. Unless, of course, there’s someone very senior in one of the YAKs, in which case they would follow his lead.”
General Gehlen suddenly spoke up: “I agree with Graf von Wachtstein’s assessment of the Russian military mind. And I would suggest further that when they are faced with a force that is capable of causing great damage, they will back down.”
“Unless, of course, General,” Mattingly said, “they come out to meet the C-54 with the intention of shooting it down to show us how unwelcome we are in Berlin.”