Honor Bound Read online

  The moment his wheels touched down, he knew he was in trouble. The Wildcat veered sharply to the right, taken over by forces far too strong for him to overcome using his rudder.

  Time seemed to move very slowly as adrenaline started to pump.

  Either my right wheel is gone, or the strut is not fully lowered.

  No. I would already have started to cartwheel.

  I’m going off the runway, that’s for sure.

  What I’ve probably got is a punctured tire.

  The choice is to stick with it and see what happens—which means I will either run into a revetment or a parked airplane. If I don’t cartwheel first. Or to take my chances putting the nose in the ground—which means I will turn over.

  He cut the master switch, released the wheels lock, and shoved the stick forward.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then came a screech of tortured metal as the propeller bit into the earth. And he felt himself being thrown against his shoulder harness with a force infinitely stronger than an arrested landing on an aircraft carrier.

  And then the F4F flipped over on its back, and there was a horrifying screech of tearing metal as it slid across the field.

  And then, with a lurch that threw him against the side of the cockpit, the airplane stopped.

  He tried to move and couldn’t.

  You’ve got to get out of here. Dead switch or not, this thing is going to blow up.

  He managed to put his hands on the shoulder and seat-belt buckle, and to lift it. He fell out of the airplane onto the ground.

  My God, I can’t move! What did I do, break my back?

  I can smell avgas!

  Worse, he could see it leaking from a ruptured tank.

  I don’t want to go this way!

  He managed to start crawling. Every breath hurt, and he was convinced he had broken a rib, several ribs. He couldn’t use his left arm. There was no pain, it just didn’t work.

  He crawled toward the tail, pushing himself with his feet.

  God, don’t let me burn!

  And then hands, strong hands, were clutching the thin material of his Suit, Flying, Cotton, Tropical.

  He was dragged across the ground.

  More than one guy has to be doing that. Two.

  There was the whoosh of gasoline igniting.

  Whoever was dragging him stopped doing that, and suddenly someone was lying on top of him. The weight hurt his ribs.

  After a moment, a voice said: “I don’t think it’s going to blow up.”

  Some of the weight pressing him into the ground came off. Then the rest of it.

  “You all right, Lieutenant?” a voice asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clete replied, truthfully.

  He tried to roll over, to get his face out of the dirt.

  Strong hands pressed him back.

  “I think you better wait until the Corpsmen show up before you try to move,” a voice said—a suggestion that was in fact an order.

  God, he thinks my neck is broken! Or my back! Is that why I don’t feel any pain, except when I breathe?

  He heard the sound of a jeep engine approaching, and then the particular squeal of a jeep’s brakes.

  And then there were hands, fingers probing him.

  “You with us, Lieutenant?” a gruff but surprisingly gentle voice inquired.

  “Yeah.”

  “It looks like you bent your airplane,” the voice said. “Can you move your legs?”

  Clete moved them.

  “How about your arms?”

  “I know I can move the right one,” Clete said, and demonstrated.

  “I’m going to roll you on your back. If it starts to hurt, yell.”

  It hurt, but he didn’t feel much real pain.

  He found himself staring up into the face of a rough-hewn Navy Corpsman, who looked far younger than Clete imagined from hearing his voice.

  The Corpsman was manipulating his left arm.

  “Any pain?”

  “It feels like it’s asleep.”

  The Corpsman pinched his upper arm painfully.

  “Hey!”

  “How about here?” The Corpsman chuckled, and painfully pinched the skin on the back of his hand.

  Clete said, “Shit.”

  “It looks like you had a good landing, Lieutenant,” the Corpsman said.

  “What?” Clete asked incredulously.

  “I thought you guys say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

  “I didn’t walk away,” Clete argued. “Somebody dragged me.”

  “Close enough,” the Corpsman said. “What we’re going to do now is put you on a stretcher, haul you to the hospital, and let a doctor have a look at you.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, walked up to the hospital bed of First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR. Dawkins was commanding officer of Marine Air Group 21. He was a tall, thin, sharp-featured man in the middle stage of male-pattern baldness, and he was wearing khakis, sweat-stained at the armpits and down the back. Over his arm he carried a Suit, Flying, Cotton, Tropical; a T-shirt; and a pair of skivvy shorts.

  “I have been led to believe, Lieutenant Frade,” he said, handing Clete the clothing, “that you have once again disgraced the United Marine Corps. I am here to rectify that situation.”

  This was intended as a joke, but was not received that way. Frade’s face showed embarrassment, even humiliation.

  “Clete, for Christ’s sake, that was a joke,” Dawkins went on hastily. “Believe me, you are not the first aviator who…had a small bowel problem…going through something like you just went through. Including your beloved MAG commander.”

  “I used to think that ‘shitting your pants’ was just a figure of speech,” Clete said.

  “Now you know it’s not,” Dawkins said. “I’m just surprised this was your first time.”

  “Sorry about the airplane, Skipper,” Clete said, wanting to get off the subject.

  “What happened?”

  “It veered to the right on touchdown. I probably had a flat; I don’t think the strut collapsed.”

  “Feinberg told me he saw you taking hits from the tail gunner of the Betty…” Dawkins said, referring to a Japanese bomber aircraft.

  Feinberg? Who the hell is Feinberg? Oh, the New Guy.

  “…just before her wing came off,” Dawkins went on. “How many does that make, Clete?”

  “I thought I felt something,” Clete said, sitting up on the cot to demonstrate with his hands the relative positions of the aircraft. “I took her from above and to the left, and was pulling up…”

  He was naked under the sheet, and Dawkins noticed the ulcerated insect bites and the ugly blue-black of his left arm and shoulder.

  He must have really slammed into the side of the cockpit, Dawkins thought. I’m surprised nothing was broken.

  “How many does that make, Clete?” Dawkins asked again.

  Clete shrugged.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Dawkins chided.

  “Six. The Betty was confirmed?” Dawkins nodded. “Then seven,” Clete finished.

  “Seven is enough to be a certified hero,” Dawkins said.

  “Sir?”

  “There was a radio overnight,” Dawkins said. “Right from Eighth and Eye.* Your name has apparently been added to the roster of certified heroes.”

  “Sir, I don’t under—”

  “The War Bond Tour, Clete,” Dawkins explained. “A dozen certified heroes have been chosen to tour the West Coast to inspire civilians to buy War Bonds, or maybe to rush to the recruiting office. Maybe both. Anyway, you’re on it.”

  Don’t get your hopes up. At the last minute something will happen and they’ll change their minds.

  “I thought you had to have a medal to get that.”

  “Your DFC, your second, has come through.”

  “When would I go?”

  “The radio said ‘will proceed immediately.’ So if you
feel up to it, you can be on this afternoon’s R4D to Espíritu Santo.” The R4D was the Navy/Marine Corps version of the Douglas DC-3 (C-47) transport aircraft.

  “No shit?” Clete blurted.

  “A particularly inappropriate vulgarism, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Frade, under the circumstances?”

  Frade blushed. This made him look even younger than his twenty-two years.

  “Frade, you’re one hell of a pilot and a good Marine. I’m going to miss you around here.”

  Frade blushed even deeper.

  “Can I ask a favor?” Dawkins asked.

  “Yes, Sir. Of course.”

  “Stop by the office. Say, at 1400. Precisely, as a matter of fact, at 1400. The R4D leaves at 1430. I’d be grateful if you would mail a letter for me, to my wife, when you get to the States.”

  “Yes, Sir, of course. 1400.”

  I did not tell him, Dawkins thought, that there will also be a small ceremony waiting for him then, during which the Commanding General of the First Marine Division will pin the Distinguished Flying Cross (Second Award) on his chest. Like most good Marine officers, he is made uncomfortable by such events. He just might not show up. And I do want him to mail the letter to my wife.

  “I’m glad you walked away from that one, Clete,” Dawkins said, offering him his hand.

  “I’m sorry I wrecked the airplane, Colonel.”

  “What the hell, Clete, when we run out of airplanes, maybe they’ll call the war off.”

  [TWO]

  Headquarters, Sixth Army

  Stalingrad, USSR

  3 October 1942

  Oberstleutnant Wilhelm von Stearner waited patiently just inside the closed office door until the tall, taciturn, fifty-two-year-old commander of the Sixth Army, General Friedrich von Paulus, raised his eyes from the documents on his desk and indicated without speaking that he was prepared to hear what von Stearner had on his mind. He then came to attention.

  “Herr General, Brigadeführer von Neibermann asks for a moment of your time. He says it’s quite important.”

  Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Luther von Neibermann was Political Adviser to the Sixth Army. Like many—perhaps most—military commanders, von Paulus did not like political advisers. They got in the way of military operations, for one thing. For another, they had their own lines of communication to Berlin, over which they offered their own opinions of the conduct of the operations they were involved in. Von Paulus did not consider himself above criticism, but criticism from someone who was not a professional soldier was hard to swallow.

  Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Luther von Neibermann’s rank was honorary. Before the war he was in the Foreign Ministry, where he had early on been smart enough to align himself with the National Socialists. In von Paulus’s opinion, he had risen higher in the Foreign Ministry hierarchy than he had any right to, based on his intelligence and his suitability. He was a short, paunchy, bald man of forty-two, who looked ludicrous in his black uniform with the death’s-head insignia. Von Paulus loathed him, and what he stood for; but he was of course careful not to let his feelings show.

  More than one senior officer’s military career had ended when unsupported and unjustified accusations of defeatism had been leveled by a political adviser. Von Paulus was determined that wasn’t going to happen to him.

  “Did he say what’s on his mind?” von Paulus asked.

  “He said it was a sensitive matter of importance.”

  “Ask the Brigadeführer to come in, please.”

  Von Stearner turned and opened the door.

  “The General will see you now, Herr Brigadeführer,” he announced.

  Von Neibermann marched in, crossed over to von Paulus’s desk, and clicked his heels, then gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute and the now ritual greeting, “Heil Hitler!”

  Von Paulus touched his forehead with a gesture that might have been a salute, muttered something that might have been “Heil Hitler,” and then met von Neibermann’s eyes.

  “How may I be of service, Herr Brigadeführer?”

  “Herr General, it is with deep regret that I must inform you of the death in battle of Standartenführer von Zainer.”

  Von Paulus was genuinely sorry to hear this. He knew von Zainer. He had never quite understood why a man of good family, with a strong military heritage, had elected to transfer to the Waffen-SS—even though that was the path to more rapid promotion than he would have found in the Panzertruppen. All the same, von Zainer had been a good, even outstanding soldier, first in Poland, then in France, and now here.

  “I am very sorry to hear that,” von Paulus said. “Are you familiar with the circumstances?”

  “The Standartenführer was making an aerial reconnaissance, Herr General. His Storch was shot down.” The Fieseler Storch was a single-engine, two-place observation aircraft, the German equivalent of the Piper Cub.

  “The fortunes of war,” von Paulus said.

  It was typical of von Zainer to personally conduct his own reconnaissance, with the risk that entailed, although such actions were officially frowned upon for senior officers (a Waffen-SS Standartenführer held a rank equivalent to an Oberst, or colonel). But von Zainer probably had his reasons, von Paulus decided. And now he was dead, so criticism was out of place.

  “He had Captain Duarte with him, Herr General.”

  Von Paulus’s raised eyebrows told von Neibermann that the name meant nothing to him.

  “The Argentine, Herr General,” von Neibermann explained. “Hauptmann Jorge Alejandro Duarte.”

  Von Paulus, now remembering, was genuinely sorry to hear this too. The young Argentine Cavalry captain had been an extraordinarily nice-looking young man; and during the few minutes of the Argentine’s courtesy call, von Paulus had realized that Duarte did not view his attachment as an observer as a vacation from his duties at his embassy in Berlin but as a learning experience for a professional officer.

  “I don’t quite understand,” von Paulus said.

  “Captain Duarte volunteered to fly the mission, Herr General.”

  Von Paulus now remembered Hauptmann Duarte telling him—with the enthusiasm of a young, energetic officer—that he had asked for and been granted a detail to the Aviación Militar branch of the Argentinean Army. In his words: “Aircraft are the cavalry of the future.”

  He was not supposed to do that, von Paulus thought. He was an Argentine. Argentina is neutral. Taking an active role was a violation of the Geneva Convention.

  Not that the Russians would have paid any attention to his neutral status if they’d been able to lay their hands on him. That was probably his rationale for doing what he should not be doing.

  “Have we recovered the bodies?” von Paulus asked.

  “Von Zainer’s men recovered them within minutes, Herr General,” von Neibermann said admiringly. “The Storch went down in the Volga.”

  If the Russians had found the bodies and had recognized an Argentinean uniform, there might have been complications, von Paulus thought. And then he wondered, Is that what’s bothering von Neibermann?

  “Be so good, Herr Brigadeführer, to inform me of the time of the burial service. I would like to attend.”

  “Herr General, there are political ramifications of this unfortunate incident.”

  “You mean because he was flying the airplane when he should not have been?”

  “I mean because he died fighting communism.”

  “I don’t quite follow you, Herr Brigadeführer.”

  “I think the body should not be buried here,” von Neibermann said. “It should be escorted to Berlin, and turned over to the Argentinean Ambassador. I would not be at all surprised if they wished to repatriate it.”

  Von Paulus said nothing. He waited, his face impassive, for von Neibermann to continue.

  “There is enormous propaganda potential in this incident, Herr General,” von Neibermann said. “This brave officer’s unfortunate death at the hands of the communists could well serve to maintain—indeed, to
buttress—Argentine sympathy for our cause.”

  “What exactly do you think I should do, von Neibermann?”

  “I believe Captain Duarte’s remains should be transported to Berlin immediately, by air. I have been informed that your permission, Herr General, is required for space on a transport aircraft.”

  “The transport aircraft are being used to evacuate our badly wounded,” von Paulus said, thinking aloud. “And officer couriers.”

  “I respectfully submit, Herr General, that this is an extraordinary circumstance.”

  “Very well,” von Paulus said, and raised his voice: “Von Stearner!”

  Oberstleutnant von Stearner appeared almost immediately.

  “Arrange for a priority for Brigadeführer von Neibermann to transport a body to Berlin…”

  “For the body and myself,” von Neibermann added. “I think under the circumstances that is appropriate.”

  And it will give you a chance to go to Berlin, won’t it? And regale the Austrian Corporal and his henchmen with tales of your bravery at Stalingrad? Perhaps with a little luck, you might not have to come back.

  “Do it, please, Willi,” von Paulus said.

  “Jawohl, Herr General,” von Stearner said.

  [THREE]

  Headquarters, Company “A”

  76th Parachute Engineer Battalion

  82nd Airborne Division

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  1345 5 October 1942

  Captain John R. McGuire, commanding Able Company of the Seventy-sixth, had not been told why it had been deemed necessary to demolish and remove from the site the World War I power-generating station. The stocky, muscular, twenty-four-year-old graduate of West Point had been informed only that his company was charged with the mission.

  The station was situated in a remote corner of the enormous Fort Bragg reservation on what was now a 105- and 155-mm artillery impact area. It consisted of several sturdy brick buildings, now gutted, and a 150-foot brick chimney. The rusting hulks of half a dozen World War I Ford-built tanks were scattered around it, as if protecting it. Most of these were half buried in the ground, and were also now showing scars where they had been hit by artillery.

  The mission could be regarded in two ways: As a dirty, unnecessary job dreamed up by some jackass at Division Headquarters. In an artillery impact area, it would be just a matter of time until the chimney and the buildings around it were reduced to rubble. Or as an opportunity to give his men some realistic, hands-on training in demolitions and using bulldozers and other heavy equipment.