Alternate Generals (38 page)

Moelders knew that the Allies knew what
he
was doing. Even after taking out their reconnaissance flights. "As a cloak of secrecy, we operate like a sieve," muttered in hiding under the snarl of Merlin engines. Allied fighter sweeps were relentless.

Thank God for the V1 sites. Stupid, random weapons to his mind. Good for drawing off vast tonnages of Allied bombs. The Allies did much better shooting V1's out of the air than they did hitting their bases. But let them try. Gave them something to bomb that was not one of Moelders' airfields.

At once he was hauled back to explain to the Führer what he thought he was doing; why was he taking fighter cover away from Berlin; and why were those jets going operational without bomb racks on them?

Aides cringed outside the doors of the Führer's inner sanctum, expecting the young general to reemerge carrying his handsome head under his arm.

Moelders had brought back pictures of English harbors.

Watery blue eyes scanned with incomprehension, amazement. Couldn't understand, would not believe what he was seeing. "Where did you get these?"

"I took them myself."

The Führer stared in the shock of being blind-sided. He'd been advised that the Allies were planning an invasion, but this. This. No one had dared describe this to Adolf Hitler.

Moelders added, "Every harbor looks like that. The buildup along England's southern coast is so big the whole island is tilting."

Hitler had gone white with rage. The bearer of bad news waited.

The voice came very soft, directed inward, "I have long known my generals are not telling me everything they know. What of the north? You didn't take any pictures of Patton's army."

"Too easy. It's almost as if they want us to take pictures of that stuff."

Softly, almost a dare, "And where do you think the attack will come?"

There were 800 miles of coast to defend.

"Mein Führer, I don't care where they think they're coming."

The eyes grew quite round. Forelock drooped across ridged brow. Waited for him to explain that. Better be good.

"I wouldn't cower in my house waiting for a thief to break in. I would storm out and hit him." His finger landed on a picture of Southhampton Harbor crowded with transport ships, their netted decks packed with tanks. "Here."

Hitler rose, vibrating. He gave Moelders his head all right. And threw the reins and everything else he could call to bear in behind him against England.

He wanted the roads of France lined with antiaircraft batteries. Mines. He wanted mines in the Channel. And aircraft. Why was aircraft production at a pitiful 1000 planes a month?

The Owls came in the moonlight, when they could see, in case the Allies jammed their radar. HE 219's were new in the West. Quick, versatile, they had been keeping the Bear at bay on the Eastern front.

The London Blitz had ended three years ago. So when the air raid sirens wailed back to life, one had to assume it was another V1 rocket strike. Either that or another spasmodic terror raid on London. Those seldom came anymore.

The sector controller saw the plots rising over France, over Belgium, over Norway, swarming, and heading toward England. A mass of them. Too many targets.

Scramble, they ordered. Scramble everybody.

But as the raiders crossed the coast, they dropped bundles of
Dueppel
radar-reflective foil, and they turned.

Allied fighters rose to meet an attack on London that did not come. The Owls veered and struck no deeper than the coastline—the harbors and the coastal airfields of Hawkenge, Manston, Tangmere and Lympne.

All the AA in the world ripped open the skies to give the intruders a 90-mm salute. The guns only fired to 12,000 feet at night so as not to hit friendly fighters.

The enemy bombers were high and the friendly fighters were over London.

As the first wave of bombers retreated, they left some targets burning bright enough for the second wave to see. The second wave did not even need the pathfinder flares to light the way. They skimmed in under the radar, popped up over target and skulked off low over the water.

The British claimed nine intercepts. The Germans counted three losses to groundfire.

But night bombing was never very accurate—almost as accurate as night intercepts—and Moelders wondered if they'd inflicted any real damage.

During the London Blitz, daylight used to bring an end to the bombing. Dawn's first light this day brought an enormous wave of bombers, largest yet. Some of them carried guided bombs, the kind the Luftwaffe sent against ships. The Owls were coming after the troop transports that would carry the invasion forces for Overlord.

Tempests and Spitfires and Mustangs stacked up over the coast to greet them.

A German guided bomb was on a wire, so there was no radar to jam. But the bomber needed a straight run to guide the bomb down by sight.

By God and Supermarine, they were not going to get one.

"Tally ho! Tally ho!" a Tommy called the attack.

"Watch for the fighter cover! Watch for the fighter cover!" the Allied fighters warned each other as they closed in for the kill.

The bombers straightened out for their attack run as if the interceptors were not there. As if they had guardian devils. Something was wrong.

The Hun bomber could not be here alone, even as the controller was reporting no plots overhead.

The Allied fighters craned their necks. Squinted into the sun for fighters. They had to be here.

They came from below like sharks. They looked like sharks with their blunt-point noses and swept-back wings. And they climbed over you before you could twitch, tearing into your crate with 30-mm cannon as they whistled past.

"What the hell are those!"

A barrage of excited voices broke out in Moelders' wake. He cursed himself for going too fast. Got in some strikes, not concentrated enough to bring the kite down. Woke them up though.

"Did you see his tail fin!"

"Did I see—!" A sputter. "I didn't see
shit
!"

"Have a care there, Yank. There
are
ladies on the R/T."

Quick apologies to the dulcet-voiced ground controller and back to yelping after the jets.

There are Huns on this frequency too
, Moelders wanted to say. Had told his own squadrons to shut up on the radio. All the voices were English.

"Gotta be the Red Baron himself!"

"He's dead, you clot."

"He's right there and I want him dead!"

Moelders pulled up high and clear to turn for another strike. Looked round for his wingman, Karl.

"Sorry, Yank. This one's mine. See those chevrons? I believe that's a ruddy Hun winco."

It's a ruddy Hun air marshal, if you don't mind.
Indignant. Singled out a target. Checked the aft fuel tank. Okay to dive. Pushed the throttle. Stomach flew back into the tail section.

"Here he comes. Here he comes—"

"I got him I got him I—oh hell."

"—There he goes. Shit off a shovel."

No kill. Too fast again. Diving like lightning. Approaching critical .86 mach. No shudder. The sweet fighter will let you kill yourself without warning. Eased back. Glanced back. Nest of them after him. Calling him a coward, bastard, sod.

Fine
, Moelders thought as a raging tower of orange flame belching from below told him an Owl had struck something fuel-laden. At least some of the bombers had gotten through while these boys were chasing his scalp. Would not want to explain himself at that debriefing. Weird impulse to instruct them on the priority of targets.

He'd slowed to pull up. Queasy. The hounds were still baying on his tail. Closing now.

"Come back here, you coward! I got you now! I got you!"

You boys do know that I always fly with a wingman . . . ?

"Reg! On your six! On your six!"

Karl's voice: "
Abschuss!
"

Homeward to paint another mark on his wingman's tail fin and review the mission.

Knew the news wasn't all good. His daylight bombers received a proper pasting from the RAF and the USAAF fighters. There were simply too many of them, too eager.

He'd even lost a 262 to a propeller-driven crate. Been sucked into a tail chase with a Spitfire YO-D over Tangmere. Old tactics don't work in a new aircraft.

The pilot did not survive. You can't crawl out against
g
's in a diving 262.

At least the wreckage had fallen into the water, not into British hands.

The jets should have struck the Allies with terror. There was no terror in a Mustang's heart. They made you feel rather like one of the royal stags at the Reichsjaegerhof. Not something to be feared. Something to be bagged.

Keen. They were all keen. All the young men who had missed the
Kanalkampf
—the Battle of Britain, they called it on the far side of the Ditch. Those that had been too young. They were jolly eager to get into it now.

The overeager Tommies were good for taking out a few of their American friends. A Mustang had the same angular wings as Tommy's old nemesis, the ME 109E. Of course, Moelders knew he had sent no short-winded 109's against England this time. So he told his Luftwaffe, if it looks like a 109, shoot it.

The next wave was a huge success. Bombers at 30,000 feet without fighter escort. The maiden ops of the Arado 234 jet bomber.

The Arados had scant defensive armament—two guns, rear-firing, the only view an Allied fighter would ever get of them. Didn't have to fire them. No one even came close.

The Arados dropped their babies and came home unmolested. Landed under an umbrella of flak to beat back the Mustangs that dogged them home.

Could have used a dozen more squadrons of them. But it was a miracle he had any. During Moelders' tenure as Director General of Equipment it had been a battle to keep production focused on a few workable designs, while egos thick as enemy groundfire kept threatening to funnel resources off to someone else's pet project.

The first day would prove to be his luckiest. From there he learned just how big and angry a hornets' nest he'd kicked.

Still it had been the right decision. The only decision. What else was there? Wait for the ground troops to come to shore? He shuddered. Wouldn't that have been one of history's colossal blunders? The Allies had to be thinking twice about launching all those men into the water now.

Dieppe. Hoped they remembered Dieppe.

The Allies were quick to bring the battle back to France. Straightaway they rooted out the airfields with the long runways to hit the jets on the ground. Rat-catching, they called it.

Pounding of 88-mm guns announced their coming. And soon the humming of heavy engines.

Viermots
. B-17's. Saw them lumbering over the horizon under a Mustang cloud as his 262 surged into the air with racks of 55-mm rockets under either wing. Resist like hell punching the throttle. Felt like a landbound walrus on takeoff.

Became an archangel at altitude.

Even angels blanched at the sight of an oncoming box of B-17's. A fortress of fortresses, bristling with weapons. How to attack it? The top? From underneath? Sides?

They were already here and he had run out of options.

Head on it is.

Released the safety on the rockets, turned into the attack. Radioed Karl, "Follow me."

"
Vati
, do you know what you're doing?"

Knew full well he didn't. No one had ever attacked a box of
viermots
with a jet before. Making up tactics as he went along.

Closing speed was ungodly. The big bombers loomed. Got huge just like that.

Karl: "
Vati
, where are we going?"

"Don't blink. And when you break, break upward."

Screen full of B-17. Swear he could see the pilot's eyes.

"
Los!
" Rockets away and wrench the column back. Climb!

Vision narrowed into a tunnel. Tunnel to a dot. Grunt against
g
's. Ease out of the turn.

The tunnel widened. Swallow back nausea. Karl whooping in his ears. "That'll make you forget your wife!"

Not habit-forming
. Blink. Swallow hard. Swallow again. Look back where his B-17 hobbled, smoked, dropped from the box.

Waves of boxes behind it dropped bombs on his runway.

Prayed his Erk had found a safe place to hide.

Smell of J2 fuel doing loops in his stomach.

Trying to climb high enough to turn and hit again. Anytime you give up speed, there's always a Mustang waiting for you. It was a law of nature.

Lost track of the other half of his
schwarm
. "Fritz, are you here?"

Fritz's voice: "I have eighty-nine of them cornered."

Turned. Raked up a straggling
viermot
with cannon fire.

Then searched for a place to put down.

His alternate airfield looked like the face of the moon.

Had a sudden memory of jabbing a landing on a muddy runway during the Phony War. Gear had stabbed in the soft ground. Done a truly capital nose-over. Do that in a jet, he'd get worse than a stiff back. Jets burned like hell. Like hell itself.

Couldn't really picture himself without skin.

Still reluctant to abandon ship. Ended up landing on a highway. French farmer, sweating rivers, drove them back to their gutted airfield. Erks in black coveralls busy as ants.

Both sides had learned during the
Kanalkampf
that a destroyed airfield does not stay destroyed. Put out the fires. Fill in the holes. Ferry the 262's back to the field and we're in it again.

Fighting more furious than he could ever remember. Losses were staggering.

The objectives of the combatants were the same as they had been that summer of 1940; only reversed. Now, while the Allies needed to gain complete air superiority to cover their invasion force, the Luftwaffe need only survive until autumn when the English Channel grew teeth.

It was the kind of battle you don't know you've won until much later. A thing
not
happening was certain only in retrospect.

The days of spring bled and smoldered and rained together. Worst weather in twenty years.