The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II (43 page)

“Kiss the ground good-bye, boys. We’re moving out.”

More men were gathering, questions, where, what the officers had told him. Adams pushed past them, stood in front of his tent.

“Tomorrow at dawn. Be ready or get left behind. All I know is, we’re pulling out of
here.
Wherever we’re going, it’s gotta be paradise. No place can be worse than this.”

31. EISENHOWER

ALGIERS
JULY 1, 1943

H
e had been making the rounds, visiting the various division commanders, the Americans who would lead Patton’s invasion force. Bradley’s Second Corps now consisted of the First Division, veterans of the Tunisian campaign, along with the Third and Forty-fifth Divisions, men who had spent most of the Tunisian campaign training for what would follow. The armor accompanying Patton would be his former command, the Second Armored Division, who, since they’d fought their way ashore in Morocco, had mostly been confined to training and security duty around Casablanca. The British commanders were firmly in the hands of Montgomery, and Alexander had done as much as could be expected in coordinating the two wings of the attack. Most of the controversies had been settled, the pressure of the impending attack finally outweighing local concerns.

On both fronts, the first strike would be made by airborne troops, Montgomery’s wing led by British paratroopers and a vast armada of troop-carrying gliders. Patton’s wing would be led by the men from the Eighty-second Airborne Division, paratroopers only, the 505th Regiment, with the 504th set to follow by a day or more. Eisenhower had studied every map, every unit’s command roster, had shaken the hand and looked into the eye of every man whose job it was to lead their soldiers into a fight that by all measures might be the greatest struggle the Allies had yet confronted.

Around his headquarters, there was plenty of speculation, idle talk, men only able to guess what would happen once the troops reached the beaches. Some were outright dismissive of the Italians, assuming that the superior equipment of the Allies would easily prevail. Others, including Eisenhower, weren’t so sure that the Italians would simply collapse. For the first time, they were fighting on their own soil, defending their homeland. With every handshake in every headquarters, he had heard confidence, was grateful for the grit and backbone of men like Terry Allen, and the Third Division’s Lucian Truscott, the Forty-fifth’s Troy Middleton, Second Armored’s new commander Hugh Gaffey. There was inexperience of course, none but Allen’s Big Red One having yet faced German and Italian resistance. But Eisenhower had to believe that Patton’s faith in Bradley and his confidence in the division commanders were well-founded. If anyone could smell out weakness, it was George Patton.

The one string of doubt that ran through the entire operation was the use of the airborne. The Allies had never launched a large-scale airborne assault, and the one time they had relied on airborne troops at all, the night landings in Algeria, the results had been dismal. Eisenhower knew that the 509th’s experiences in Operation Torch were a dangerous experiment and could have been a far more costly one. Eisenhower had his doubts then, the same doubts he had now. In London, when the final decisions had been made for Operation Torch, Wayne Clark had convinced Eisenhower to give the go-ahead to send the 509th to capture the two airfields near Oran. Clark had become a champion for the paratroopers, the most enthusiastic among Eisenhower’s senior officers. But Clark would not be at Sicily, and neither Patton nor Montgomery were wholly convinced that paratroopers would accomplish their mission, especially since they were to be dropped at night, behind enemy positions, onto completely unfamiliar ground. In theory, the paratroopers served two purposes, capturing a vital target before the enemy could prepare, and rattling the enemy by surprising them with a powerful armed force that suddenly appeared where no one was supposed to be. But during Operation Torch, weather, poor coordination, and bad luck had combined to scatter the men of the 509th across a vast stretch of North Africa, and only a small number had actually accomplished anything close to their mission. Now, Operation Husky called for a massive airdrop of thousands of men, who would be expected to capture vital enemy strongholds, hold down key intersections, and generally disrupt the enemy’s ability to launch an effective defense. If the paratroopers of the 505th were as scattered and confused as the 509th had been in North Africa, their jump might be suicidal. Eisenhower gave his approval with gut-churning reluctance.

Even as the warships were moving into range of their targets onshore, and the landing craft were poised to expel their men onto the beaches; even as the paratroopers were loaded and stuffed into the bellies of the C-47s—the final decision lay in Eisenhower’s hand. If he felt that conditions had changed, or some critical error had been made, the power was his to pull the plug. The enormous machine could simply be ordered to…stop.

T
he men had chosen their seats, one man hanging a large map on the hooks fastened to the wide, empty wall. The map showed western Russia, red lines, circles, symbols that were all too familiar. The briefings on the fighting in Russia came not from information gleaned from Soviet sources, but from British intelligence, and such innocuous sources as reporters who wrote for
Stars and Stripes.
It was one ongoing mystery, that as much as Russia was committed to the defeat of Hitler’s army, as much as Stalin begged and browbeat the Allied leaders to draw German forces away from his battle lines, the Soviets simply wouldn’t provide any substantial information about what was happening there. Eisenhower had to wonder at that, as much as he wondered at the amazing behavior of the French. No matter that we’re all on the same side. No one trusts anyone else.

The man at the map raised a pointer, and in front of Eisenhower a man spoke.

“As you can see, sir, we’re projecting a setback for the Germans along this line—”

“Sir!”

Eisenhower looked past the assembled officers, saw Beetle Smith at the door.

“Sir! Sorry to interrupt. Something very important has arrived.”

Eisenhower saw the envelope now, the heavy wax seal, the bold black letters, already knew what was written.

Supreme Allied Commander—Eyes Only

Eisenhower stood. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but this will have to wait. You are dismissed.”

The officers were quickly gone, and Smith stood in the doorway, said, “There’ll be no visitors, sir. Call when it’s all clear.”

“Fine, Beetle. Thanks.”

The door closed and Eisenhower stared at the envelope, slid a finger under the wax. There were several reports, typewritten pages, one signature at the bottom of each page: Alan Brooke, the British chief of staff, Churchill’s closest adviser, and one of the few men who had authority over Eisenhower himself. He read slowly, carefully, absorbed the details, felt a chill, sweat on his forehead. Good God. This could be…well, a bloody damned disaster.

He put the papers back into the envelope, looked toward the small fireplace. The papers would be destroyed, no chance that anyone outside his own office would ever seen them. No, not yet, he thought. He ran the names through his mind, the only men in the entire theater who could know what the reports contained. Air Marshal Tedder was on Malta, and he knew that Admiral Cunningham was at sea. That leaves only one, he thought. And dammit, he needs to know this right now.

He opened a drawer beside him, dropped the envelope inside, looked toward the closed door.

“Beetle!”

He waited for the footsteps, the door pushing open.

“Call Alexander. I need him here
now
!”

I
t was called Enigma, the encoding machine the Germans had relied on to scramble their vital communications since before the war. Throughout every major campaign, Hitler’s generals and intelligence officers had transmitted their messages using the Enigma codes. From Russia to France to the U-boats in the Atlantic, from Norway to North Africa, German orders and messages of the highest priority were sent by the encoding device that German intelligence believed was simply unbreakable. They were wrong.

The work had been done primarily by Polish mathematicians, aided by French intelligence agents, and in early 1940, the astonishing results had been conveyed to the British. One by one, the Enigma codes were being broken. As the Germans revised their codes, an enormous number of cipher experts were monitoring the German transmissions, revising their own decoding of the German communications. The work was being done now at Bletchley Park, a compound of offices surrounding a stately mansion, some fifty miles northwest of London. The actual work performed in the compound was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the entire war and had been given the name Ultra, shorthand for “ultrasecret.” Ultra was so well guarded that only a handful of senior commanders knew of its existence, and fewer still knew that the German codes had been laid wide-open for the Allied command to read.

A
lexander read the reports, Eisenhower watching him, waiting for the change of expression.

“Good God, man. Is this certain?”

“Seems pretty clear to me.”

Alexander scanned the papers again. “It’s gratifying that the Germans have swallowed our deceptions. This mentions the buildup of defenses in Sardinia and Crete. Cunningham’s flotilla is doing all they can to be noticed, showing every sign they’re heading for the eastern Mediterranean. Looks like the Nazis have noticed that. Good work, there. Could pull some Luftwaffe people off in that direction, take some of the pressure off.”

“Dammit, Alex, I’m not concerned about Sardinia and Greece. The Germans have moved two panzer divisions across the Strait of Messina, including the Hermann Göring Division. That’s a hell of a lot of armor. Read it again. Kesselring’s report to Berlin spells out the disposition of the German defenses throughout this whole theater.”

Alexander stared at the papers. “I don’t understand that. Why would he do that? And why now? Obviously, by the way he’s moving his troops around, he’s convinced Sicily is our target. But why in blazes would he send so much detail to Hitler? He’s listed every unit he’s placed on Sicily, every reserve unit on Sardinia, all of it, spelled out with perfect clarity.”

Eisenhower thought a moment. “He’s covering his ass. Hitler hasn’t ever given the Mediterranean the attention he should have. Now, he’s probably not giving Sicily a second thought. Berlin knows we’re coming, but they don’t know exactly where, and I bet there’s a hell of an argument about it. We’d have good reasons to hit them at Sardinia or Greece, and somebody’s probably convinced we’re going into southern France. Hitler doesn’t want to hear all that; he’s still looking at Russia.”

“But why would Kesselring—”

“He thinks we’re coming to Sicily, and he wants everyone to know about it. If he’s wrong, no one will really care. If he’s right, he’s a hero. Especially if he puts two panzer divisions up our ass.”

Alexander stared at the papers, handed them slowly to Eisenhower. “What do we do about it?”

“Not a damned thing. You know that. We can’t suddenly change our troop deployments because of this report. We can’t tell Patton or Monty they’re marching into two panzer divisions. Any hint gets out that we’ve been reading their mail,
any
hint, and the Germans will scrap Enigma altogether. We get one staff officer captured with some scrap of paper that mentions Ultra, any hint that we know about those panzers, and Bletchley Park might as well shut down.”

Alexander was silent, both men understanding the gravity of what Eisenhower was saying.

“You’re right, Ike. All of it. I suppose we could try to add to the infantry’s antitank capabilities.”

“With what? We’ve got bazookas that have never been tested in battle, handed to men who’ve never fired one. Heavy artillery can’t be brought ashore until the infantry has secured the beachheads. If two hundred Tiger tanks suddenly pop up on those sand hills, no infantry’s going anywhere. Damn this!”

“What of the paratroopers, Ike?”

The word punched him in the gut. “Dammit. We can’t say anything to the Airborne. Nothing. Not a damned word.”

“Could be a bloody mess.”

Eisenhower sat back in the chair, looked past Alexander, felt the hard twist in his stomach, too many times now. “Nothing we can do about it, Alex. Right now, we’re still a
go
on the tenth, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Not necessarily, Ike. We’re a go only if you say so. We might be sending our people into something they can’t get out of. How do you explain that later on?”

Eisenhower was growing annoyed now, didn’t want these kinds of questions from a subordinate. Every senior commander who knew this extraordinary secret had already faced his own moral dilemma, none any more than Churchill himself. Churchill had known in advance of at least one bombing raid against a specific British city during the Luftwaffe’s brutal campaign against British civilians. But no warning had been issued, no one prepared to expect the attack. Eisenhower had never discussed this sort of thing with Churchill, but now he was facing the same kind of awful dilemma. And, like Churchill, Eisenhower could say nothing at all, could give no warning to his troops, could offer no hint that would betray the vital secret.

“There is nothing we can do, Alex. I’m under the same orders you are. Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall, Brooke, every one of them is holding this secret inside him, and every one of us knows that people have died because we couldn’t mention it. But I have to believe that breaking those codes will eventually win us the war.”

“No matter how many men we lose in the process?”

Eisenhower rubbed his hands together, fought to keep his temper. “I’m not going to debate morality with you, dammit. This is a war, not a cricket match. We didn’t start this, and if we lose this thing, we’ll be worrying about a lot more than our moral compass. You have your orders. Right now, Operation Husky is a go for July tenth. Do you understand that?”

“I quite understand, Ike. However, I will allow myself a brief prayer for those paratroopers.”

MALTA—JULY 9, 1943

It was close to midnight, the moon lighting the land around him, rolling grasslands, and out to the southwest, the vast open sea. Far out in the darkness lay the coast of Tunisia, the massive airfield at Kairouan, the starting point for 264 C-47 transport planes. He stared at the black sea, the dancing flickers of light, the moonlight broken by the boiling rage of the water, whipped high by the hard wind. He looked up now, no sound but the wind. He had hoped to hear the motors, that the sounds might guide his eye to one or more of the formations as they passed overhead, Malta serving as one of their navigation points. The air people had told him to look for flickers of white light, the reflection of moonlight off the planes, the only visible sign of the first great wave of the assault.