North Reich (49 page)

      
Tom put down the glass and rubbed his eyes.
 
The strain of looking for things that weren’t there was giving his headache a new lease on life.

      
“We’ve been able to ascertain that we still haven’t done much to degrade German capabilities,” he said.
 
“Worse, it looks like they were able to upgrade many of their weapons before they attacked and we cut off their supply.
 
What tanks we’ve been able to spot appear to have the new long barreled guns and those can play hell with our Shermans.”

      
Truscott nodded grimly.
 
He’d been in high level meetings with Eisenhower, Fredendall, and Marshall.
 
As a result he’d been out of touch with recent intelligence discoveries and the fact that the German armor had been improved was not good news.

      
“Please don’t tell me you’ve found that they have Panthers?” Truscott inquired.

      
“Can’t lie, sir.
 
It does look like they have a number of them and that’s bad news.
 
If they are as good as advertised, we don’t have a thing to stand up to them.
 
It looks like the krauts did a tremendous job of improving their weapons just before they attacked us.
 
Of course, they would have known that date and we were unable to do anything about their shipping before then.
 
The krauts are really much stronger than we realized, even in our worst case scenarios.”

      
“Then we can only hope that our planes and artillery can kill them before our boys get slaughtered.”

      
The Sherman was America’s best tank, but the Panther weighted in at forty-five tons and had a high velocity 75mm cannon.
 
It had a lower silhouette than the Sherman which made it harder to find and its armor was sloped so that shells might ricochet off.
 
The Sherman also had a 75mm gun, but it was considered medium velocity and inferior to what the German tanks possessed.
 
With all its faults, however, the Sherman was a vast improvement over its predecessors and was being churned out in large quantities.
 
If nothing else, the Germans might be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of American numbers.
 
Every American tank destroyed would be replaced, while every German tank killed could not.
 

The same grim math applied to manpower as well.
 
It now appeared that Patton significantly outnumbered the Germans confronting him and that his constant nibbling at German positions was beginning to bear fruit.
 
Patton was building up for a massive strike against the Germans.
 
The only question was when.

      
Truscott glanced about and saw Westover at his desk.
 
“Glad to see you make it back to us, commander, and don’t try to stand. How are you doing?”

      
Westover clutched his chest dramatically and winced.
 
“It still hurts when I exert myself, sir, but it’s getting better every day.”

      
Truscott shook his head.
 
“You belong back in the hospital, commander.”

      
“I spent enough time in a hospital.
 
I was going crazy as the officer in charge of distributing bedpans.
 
You are aware, I hope, that we think we got the U-boat that was operating in Lake Erie.”

      
“I was.”

      
“Well, we just got a news flash from the OSS that the German navy is going to try and send some others through the Welland.
 
That would raise hell with any attempts to land troops on either the Erie or Lake Ontario shores.
 
It would really be nice if we had some real warships on at least one of those lakes, instead of the small ships we now have.”

      
“Commander, based on the conversations I’ve been having, it looks like we are going to take steps to get navy ships into Lake Ontario, but Lake Erie is out of the question since the Germans still control the Welland.
 
A couple of coast guard cutters and an ice-breaker are all we have right now, along with a couple of dozen converted yachts and such that we’ve loaded down with machine guns and small cannon.
 
All of which makes it imperative that we stop those U-boats from getting through before we launch any attack along the Niagara front.”

      
With that, a thoroughly perturbed Truscott stalked out of the room with Downing trailing him.
 
“Well,” said Tom, “that got a rise out of him.
 
Just wonder what the navy’s going to do about getting their ships down the St. Lawrence gauntlet.”

Patrol Torpedo boats, commonly referred to as PT boats, were small, made of wood, agile, and quick.
 
Depending on their manufacturer, they were about eighty feet long and, depending on their armament, generally carried fewer than twenty men.
 
They were designed as ship killers and their principal weaponry was a pair of torpedoes.
 
In that, they were like the slightly larger German E-boats.
 
While there had been discussions about introducing them to the Great Lakes, it had not been attempted since it was considered that the route down the St. Lawrence was both too long and too dangerous for the fragile but lethal craft.

      
At this point, someone had an idea.
 
Why not send them by train on specially designed flatcars and introduce them to Lakes Erie and Ontario?
 
There was some resistance from Navy brass because of potential damage to the boats until Admiral King stepped in and decreed that it should happen.
 
Any damage, he added, would simply be repaired.
 
At that point, opposition prudently ceased.
 
A dozen boats were stripped down and sent north under tarpaulins and false superstructure to Rochester, New York.
 
At night and in secrecy, they met up with their crews who had enjoyed Pullman accommodations
en route
along with their train’s well stocked bars.
 
They agreed it was a great way to run a war.

      
To the crews’ surprise, their boats no longer had torpedo tubes.
 
Instead, the craft had been converted to what were referred to in the Pacific as PT gunboats.
 
Additional machine guns and 40mm cannon had been added.
 
The 40mm shells would not penetrate the armor of larger warships, but there weren’t any large enemy ships on the lakes and the 40mm shells would penetrate the hull of a U-boat.
 

      
Their job was to seek out and destroy any German ships on Lake Ontario.
 
It was understood that another flotilla of PTs would disembark at Cleveland and attempt the same on Lake Erie.

      
The crews spent several days orienting themselves to their new ships and the additional weaponry.
 
They then cruised at night to areas just east of where the Niagara River empties into Lake Ontario.

      
Canfield found the three boats assigned to his area well camouflaged and with their crews ready for bear.
 
There was real concern that American planes might mistake them for German ships, so a big white star had been painted on the top of each boat.
 
Hopefully it would suffice.

      
While he was glad to have the boats near, he found the crews, and especially the skippers, to be just a little arrogant and overconfident.
 
None had seen war.
 
Most of the tiny flotilla’s officers seemed to all be rich kids with experience handling yachts and such.
 
It was clear that they looked down on the infantry, especially National Guard troops they considered little more than farmers in uniform.
 
No matter that Canfield and his men had already dueled with the Germans and damaged an E-boat.
 
The PTs were here to win the war.
 

The most self-important of the group was Lieutenant Randy Lionel, who bragged that he spent most of his youth sailing yachts in the Atlantic and felt that the lake was nothing more than a pond.
 
Canfield fought a strong urge to spank him.
 

      
A few nights later and radar showed a suspicious craft a few miles offshore.
 
Within minutes, two of the PT boats were racing away, while the third, to the crew’s dismay had to stay behind, denied their quest for glory because of engine problems.
 

      
A short while later, and the night sky was lit up by tracers and the sharp sounds of multiple explosions.
 
Canfield tried to listen in on the PT boats’ radio frequency, but there was too much screaming and yelling to figure out what was happening.
 
It was clear, however, that the young crews were in the fight of their lives.
 
A large explosion lit up the horizon, and it was soon followed by a second.

      
“Jesus,” said Dubinski, “no way those little boats could survive that.”

      
Canfield sadly agreed.
 
Either both American boats had been sunk or severely damaged, or maybe it was one American and one German.
 
Either way, he prepared his men to receive wounded and ordered his artillery to prepare to cover their return.

      
After an eternity that lasted maybe an hour, shore based radar showed one blip heading slowly towards them.
 
“Get medics out,” Canfield yelled and then realized they were already alert.

      
One PT limped in.
 
It was Lionel’s.
 
As it drew closer, they could see burn marks and bullet holes.
 
The boat was listing to port and taking water.
 
With almost its last gasp, it made it to shore where whoever was driving it beached it.
 

      
Canfield’s men ran out to help rescue the crew.
 
Wounded were handed down and gently placed on stretchers.
 
One of them was Lionel.
 
He’d lost both legs and was mercifully unconscious. Canfield jumped on board and was shocked by the damage and the bloody carnage.
 
He almost slipped on the gore.

Finally, he grabbed a young petty officer.
 
“What the hell happened out there?”

The sailor laughed bitterly.
 
“Our skipper was senior to the other captain so he assumed control.
 
He had us charge right up to the German with our guns blazing, just like it was some fucking western movie.
 
Lieutenant Lionel was one of the first ones hit.
 
Between us, we think we got the E-boat, but half our guys are killed or wounded and I don’t think anybody got out of our other boat.
 
It just flat exploded and disappeared.”

The sailor turned away.
 
Canfield could see that the boy was near tears and who could blame him?
 
The only good news was that the U.S. Navy could replace its losses while the damned Kriegsmarine couldn’t.
 
At first light, which was only a couple of hours away, they would send out small boats to look for survivors.
 
He doubted there would be any, but it had to be done.

Canfield decided he needed a beer.

Tony was shocked when four strong Italian soldiers grabbed him and hustled him outside the prison compound.
 
They laughed as they threw him in the back of the truck, hurting his ankle and causing a wave of pain to run up his leg.
 
It went away after a minute, so he guessed it wasn’t broken again.

      
Tony’s Italian was good and he even recognized two of the guards, guys who’d seemed like good ones who wanted to chat all the time about the United States.
 
They’d even discussed families and wondered if they were somehow related.
 
Both of them had wanted to go to the states, New York City in particular.

      
So what the hell had he done to deserve the rough treatment? Now, none of them would talk to him.
 
He thought he heard one of them mumble something about sub-killer and Gestapo as they departed the camp and his spirits sank.
 
Being turned over to the Gestapo was beyond frightening.

      
They drove around for about half an hour until they drove the truck through the wide doors of a large warehouse.
 
The four men pulled Tony to the ground and stood there laughing at him.
 

Finally, one of the ones he’s thought of as friendly said, “Goodbye Tony.
 
It’s been great.”

      
With that they threw him a bag and disappeared through a door that led to the rest of the warehouse.
 
Puzzled, Tony opened the bag.
 
It contained clothing and a handwritten note that said, “Change into these.”