Red Inferno: 1945 (28 page)

Zhukov brought his anger under control. “I am fairly certain that the Americans will withdraw quickly to the Weser when the Leine is crossed. The battles from the Elbe to here have given them ample time to prepare their defenses along the west bank of the Weser. I think you will advance rather quickly for the next few days after crossing the Leine. No, that is not my main concern.”

“Then what is, comrade?”

“The war in the air, Vassily. I am afraid we are losing it. I had feared that would happen. We have been losing planes and men at a faster rate than I thought would occur. Stavka thought, and I agreed, that it would take the Americans far longer to move additional planes from the Pacific than it has. Worse, the fuel situation will be more critical for the air force than it will be for us.”

Chuikov found neither statement hard to dispute. Since realizing that fuel depots were high-priority targets for the Allied planes, he had introduced a system of fuel distribution within his armies, which, although less efficient than depot storage, did have the benefit of disbursing the precious commodity. Some of his commanders had carried it to an extreme. They were reintroducing the expedient used in the early days of the war of strapping fifty-five-gallon drums of fuel to the outside of the tanks as a ready reserve. Many tanks carried more than one drum since no one was really certain when the next shipment would arrive from the scattered division or corps reserves.

Even though the T34s ran on diesel, which was less combustible than gasoline, storing it on the outside was still a dangerous practice. A rocket or a .50 caliber tracer could easily ignite the diesel and turn the tank into a very large iron torch. Even the American bazookas, ordinarily ineffective against a T34’s armor, could prove lethal if they found the fuel.

Yet what had Zhukov meant when he said it would be even worse for the air force? “Comrade, how can it be harder for the air armies? After all, they do not have to drag their reserves around under the noses of the enemy like we do.”

Zhukov chuckled. He was fond of Chuikov, who had fought and won at Stalingrad and then led the storming of central Berlin. “Correct, Vassily, but the difference is more subtle. We can manufacture large numbers of planes as replacements, but what about the replacement pilots? If they are to be effective, pilots must be trained in all aspects of flying.

“Vassily, we still have the vast spaces where they can be trained, and thousands of young men eager to die for Mother Russia, but we no longer have the fuel needed to train them properly. We have just given directives that the pilot training flights will immediately be cut by two thirds. Therefore, when replacements arrive at the front, they will be scarcely know how to take off and land. They will be easy prey for the Allies. The same restrictions will be true for tank drivers, but it will not be as serious a problem to overcome.”

Chuikov was dismayed. If that occurred, the aerial cover he counted on to support his massed armor and infantry attacks would be shredded and the enemy planes could rain hell upon his formations.

Chuikov was aghast. “Comrade, I need air support. If the air force continues to deteriorate, the Allies will do even more to savage my transportation system. If they are successful at that, it will not matter how many tanks and guns they produce in the Ural Mountain factories; they won’t get here! It makes no sense to protect properties in Romania and the Caucasus that have already been destroyed and cannot be fixed in time to be of any help to us! Did you not explain this to Stalin?”

Zhukov was not put out by the younger man’s vehemence. It was something he felt himself. “Stalin was adamant.”

Chuikov rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Does this have anything to do with the rumored American superweapon?”

Zhukov blinked. How the devil did Chuikov know about that? “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

Chuikov laughed derisively. “Well, comrade, let me tell you something. I do not believe in superweapons any more than I believe in goblins and ghosts.”

“I hope you are right,” Zhukov said.

Zhukov was not certain what the Americans were up to. He knew only that it was supposed to be a giant bomb. But what sort of giant bomb? He had seen the effects of giant bombs, blockbusters, but the size of the bomb was limited by the weight and bulk that a plane could carry. The blockbusters were impressive, but not that devastating and surely limited by aircraft technology.

Zhukov was puzzled. Just how much larger could the American monster bomb be? If it was larger than the mammoth blockbusters, just what would they use to carry the monster? he wondered. Perhaps Chuikov was right. Perhaps it was all a deception on the part of the Americans to scare first the Germans and now Russia. How could there be such a thing as he had heard rumored? And how could it be that Stalin had fallen for the deception?

CHAPTER 21

T
here were two sets of hospitals in besieged Potsdam: military and civilian. Most of the medical personnel were military but still found time to help out at the main civilian hospital, located in a ruined hotel. Work had been done to seal windows and roofs, but the building was still stark, drab, and poorly ventilated.

With the need for her services as a translator diminishing, Lis found herself with time on her hands and a need to do something useful. Working at the hospital was an easy choice.

“Look at them,” she said to Logan. “This shouldn’t be happening in the twentieth century.”

Lis was wearing a dirty smock and her short hair was a mess. She was tired, but appeared satisfied. She admitted that the work took her mind off the terrible things she’d seen and it permitted her to help others.

Jack couldn’t argue. Rows of beds were filled with people whose conditions wouldn’t normally exist in the type of civilized society he was used to. Starvation, malnutrition from bad food, dysentery from contaminated water, and even a few cases of scurvy were present. In addition there were numerous cases of wounds from the intermittent shelling and from gunfire. Civilians were always getting killed or wounded, but, other than the occasional callously ignored body by the roadside, this was the first time he’d seen real evidence of it.

Thanks to the renewed airdrops, there was minimally sufficient food and the military was providing bandages and medicine. One colonel had complained about scarce resources going to their former enemy, but the doctors had basically told him to shove his complaints up his ass. They reminded the colonel that they had taken an oath to help, regardless.

In a separate room she would not let him enter were a group of women. They had been gang-raped, beaten, and sometimes mutilated by the Soviets as they took revenge for similar atrocities committed by the Germans during their advance in Russia. Unspoken was the fact that such would have been her fate if the Reds had taken her and would still be if Potsdam fell.

“Most of them are not ready to come out into the world, and certainly not to be stared at by a strange man. Some will never be ready. They will be put in asylums once this is over.” She smiled wanly. “I hope.”

She showed him the children. There were only a dozen of them. “The children and the old people are the weakest and most have simply died. These are the lucky ones.”

“As was Pauli?”

“Yes.”

Several children stared at him, shyly and hesitantly. He was an American, and they were now taught that the Americans were the good guys. Some had casts and bandages and all looked reasonably well fed.

A couple, however, stared blankly into the distance. “They’ve walled themselves off, haven’t they?” he asked, and she nodded.

Finally, they passed a family of five, two adults in their thirties and three small children. They were gaunt and filthy, although otherwise they appeared unhurt.

“Every now and then a miracle occurs,” Lis said. “These people arrived yesterday. Somehow they managed to make it through the Red Army lines and up to your defenses without being hurt. They said their guardian angel was watching over them, and I believe it.”

Jack could understand getting through the Soviets. They were overconfident and sloppy and ripe for a counterattack if only the Potsdam defenders had the resources. The real luck came in not getting shot by nervous GIs. He didn’t ask if the woman had been assaulted. It was far too common an occurrence to even think of asking.

“These refugees said that the Russians are stripping the land bare of food and leaving the Germans to starve. You Americans are so unlike them. You wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?”

“That might depend on how hungry I was,” he said grimly. “So don’t canonize us just yet.”

But he would relay the offhand comment to General Miller’s headquarters. Were they aware that the Reds were out of food as well? Scrounging and stealing from locals could feed the Red Army only for so long. At some time, they would run out of food and get very, very hungry. And what would they do then? Of course, by that time everyone in Potsdam could be starving as well if the food drops were cut off.

Or would the presence of any food at all in Potsdam make it a more desirable target by this Bazarian person?

Lis squeezed his arm, and they stepped outside and breathed in the fresh air. “I wanted you to see the hospital. If the Russians make it in, they will all be brutally murdered. I’ve heard what happens when they storm a hospital. It will be an orgy of horrors.”

Jack shook his head. That could not be permitted to happen.

C
OLONEL
P
AUL
T
IBBETTS
sucked in the mild, cool air of Iceland. After the stifling heat of Tinian in the South Pacific, he found it refreshing. He did wonder just how cold it would get in winter if this was what they called summer.

Considered one of the best pilots in the air force, Tibbetts had flown as personal pilot for Generals Mark Clark and Dwight Eisenhower, and was now the commanding officer of the 509th Composite Group. A demanding and superbly organized taskmaster, Tibbetts had received his orders to pack up and right away move halfway around the world. He had loaded the massive B-29 Super Fortresses with essential supplies and a number of ground personnel and, after several refueling stops, had landed on the cold ground of Iceland. None of his men were surprised at the suddenness of their change of orders and direction. They all knew what was happening in Europe.

The rest of the 509th’s people and equipment would come over on slower C-47s. The 509th consisted of 15 aircrews of 9 men each and an enormous ground crew of 1,700 men, all experts in maintaining and servicing the B-29s.

One thing about Iceland did please him. There were few other air force personnel about to give him and his men a hard time. On Tinian, they had been the butt of jokes and teasing from other bomber crews since all the 509th seemed to do was train or go on reconnaissance runs over Japan. They never went on real bombing runs and they never appeared to go in harm’s way. While just about everyone assumed they were training for something special, the fact that they never shared in the danger of bombing Japan frankly pissed off a lot of other aircrews.

Tibbetts’s men did know they were training for something special, only they didn’t know exactly what either.

Training had begun in Wendover, Utah, and then moved to Tinian, and now, with the Russian menace on the horizon, to Iceland. Technically, Iceland was part of Europe. The part that shits, one of his sergeants had said upon seeing the place, and to a certain extent Tibbetts had to agree.

Training for the 509th generally consisted of taking off, maneuvering, and landing with enormous weights in the bomb bay. The pilots also had to contend with extra quantities of reserve fuel which made the Super Fortress a difficult plane to handle. They had also made practice runs with a strange-looking bomb that was filled with ordinary explosives. Without anything being said, the pilots clearly understood that they were training to drop some other, new kind of bomb.

Tibbetts had proven scathingly demanding of his pilots with regard to accuracy and timing. Only he knew that the decision had been made to use pilots to guide the bomb and not drop by radio control, since no one knew just how the atomic bomb would behave.

All in all and despite the confusion resulting from the sudden move from Tinian, he was satisfied. His men were responding magnificently, as he’d known they would. That left only the question of a target, and his men were speculating openly on the obvious—that the new bomb would be dropped on a Russian target. Only he in the 509th knew that they would shift to England before their attack and that it would not be on Moscow or any other major Russian city.

Use of the bomb, therefore, would be tactical and not strategic. It also meant revising and rethinking the tactic that had the pilots of the 509th flying in isolated groups of three over the Japanese islands. The purpose was to get the Japanese used to the sight of the small groups of bombers and their relative harmlessness. He would have to reinstate it over Europe, where Russian airpower was much stronger than that of the depleted Japs. It saddened him to think that some of his planes might be lost in such training, but it was a price they would have to pay. The B-29’s maximum ceiling was 36,000 feet, which put it at the same maximum as some of the Red fighters.

One of his pilots, a very young major, walked up to him, grinning. “Hey, Colonel, we’re getting up a group that’s gonna find a sauna in town. Are you interested?”

“Not now, thanks,” Tibbetts responded politely. Sweating in a sauna didn’t appeal to him. He’d sweated enough on Tinian.

“By the way, sir, I drew Berlin in the target pool. I think I got screwed out of five dollars. There’s nothing left in Berlin to bomb, is there?”

Tibbetts smiled slightly. “Nothing that I know of. Consider yourself thoroughly and royally screwed.”

The major walked away. They both had known that Tibbetts wouldn’t be interested in finding a sauna, and he hadn’t given out any information regarding a target. What the major hadn’t known was that Tibbetts didn’t know the target either. It didn’t matter. Someone would tell him when the time came. He had too many other things on his mind to worry about that.

W
HEN THE
S
OVIET
infantry reached the Leine River, they did not stop. Instead, the shock troops swarmed across in an assault that was effective because it was so unexpected and illogical. Logical thinking dictated at least waiting until the launches and small boats were ready, or until the soldiers could be covered by artillery and air, or if their armor could cross with them. In this case, General Chuikov had told his men to grab anything that would float, and swim, wade, or paddle their way across.

It helped that the Leine was not a major obstacle. In some places, a man could have stood on one bank and thrown a rock to the other. Thus, the Americans had been shocked and confused by the sight of hundreds of Russian soldiers running into the water and emerging wet and bedraggled on the other side. It simply wasn’t the way Americans fought, and many a local commander was caught off guard.

American retaliation came quickly, and the Soviet infantry on the western bank quickly found themselves scourged by American artillery and mortars. Attempts to reinforce the tenuous foothold on the western bank were mauled and few reinforcements reached the other side. Those that did dug in and waited for help. It was the armor’s turn.

Suslov looked through the hatch as the column’s lead tank gingerly approached the water. The battalion’s colonel thought the river could be forded, and there was only one way to be certain. If that was the case, they could save hours that would otherwise be spent waiting for engineers to build a bridge, hours in which the American planes and guns would continue to pound the bridgehead, shelling and bombing the other vehicles that were lining up to cross.

Suslov opened the hatch a little higher so he could see just a bit better. He was not going to poke his head all the way out. There was too much danger from snipers and from all the shrapnel and lethal debris that was flying around

The tank selected to test the river eased itself into the water like some giant jungle beast. Maybe a hippo, Suslov thought. It paused as the water deepened and its treads churned brown mud and froth. The tank got about halfway across when it lurched, settled deeper into the water, and stalled.

“I think it hit a mud pocket,” Suslov commented.

“Fairly logical,” said Latsis drily. “After all, it is a river.”

“Aw, shit,” snapped Suslov. “Look at those damned fools.”

The tank in the middle of the river had quickly attracted the attention of machine gunners on the American side, and the water around it was splashed by bullets. While in potential danger from American artillery or an airplane, the crew of the stuck tank had nothing to fear from machine guns. Even if bullets should hit the fuel drum strapped behind the turret, the possibility of explosion was not all that great. As Suslov and the others knew, those drums were now fairly empty and they were awaiting replenishment. The tanks would have to go forward on what they had in their internal tanks.

The driver’s hatch on the grounded tank opened and a man climbed out. He was quickly followed by a second while the turret hatch opened and the other two crew members joined them. They paused for a moment on the tank as if they were afraid to jump into the water.

“Hurry,” Suslov hollered even though they were too far away to hear.

Almost immediately, one of them went limp and fell into the river. Suslov could hear the sound of bullets hitting metal as the machine guns rained shells on the tank.

“Help them,” he yelled, and the machine gun by the driver began to chatter as it searched for the source of the American fire. He presumed it was Latsis doing the shooting. It was too late. As if swept by a wind, the remaining crewmen fell into the water and slowly floated away.

“Damn it.” Suslov pounded his knee. “What a waste.”

Latsis ceased firing. There had never been a real target. He had been trying to provide indirect cover for the now dead tankers. The Americans were too well hidden. “At least the comrade colonel used his head. That was one of the replacement tanks and crew, inexperienced chicklings.”

“What do you mean?” Suslov had a feeling he was not going to like the answer. Latsis had been acting even more strangely lately. Just the other day Suslov had caught him slashing an American corpse.

Latsis chuckled. “Haven’t you noticed? Whenever something like this comes up, the colonel sends out one of the new chicklings. If we lose one of them, who cares? They had no experience anyhow, and another new tank with four or five warm bodies will show up sooner or later. But if he loses one of us, his elite, then his loss is irreplaceable.”

Suslov thought of telling Latsis he was full of crap, but the man was probably right and Suslov wasn’t particularly upset about not having to take on the muddy little river. He scarcely knew the new tankers. They had arrived a couple of days ago, all fresh-faced and eager, and now they were dead.