The Aviators Read online

  "Yes, Sir."

  [TWO]

  Near the Village of Grosse Rollen Kreis Hersfeld, Hesse,

  Federal Republic of Germany

  1455 Hours 12 December 1963

  Colonel George F. Rand, who was forty-four years old, exactly six feet tall, and weighed 165 pounds (ten more than he had weighed when he had graduated" with the class of 1940 from the United States Military Academy at West Point), was sitting in a jeep on a small, snow-covered knoll near Hersfeld, in Hesse, overlooking the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.

  He was dressed in a borrowed parka and what he thought of as a Royal Canadian Mounties hat, which was furry and had built-in earmuffs. At the moment he had the earmuffs down. Because he had not pinned colonel's eagles to either the hat or the shoulders of the parka; he was virtually indistinguishable from the PFC who sat beside him at the wheel of the jeep.

  He had borrowed the jeep and driver from the motor pool of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, giving as explanation to the motor officer, a captain, that he wanted to run into town. That was not true, and the lie made him a little uncomfortable. But he rationalized the guilt away by looking at what he was doing as "thinking Jesuit": the ends justify the means-sometimes. If he had told the truth about why he wanted the jeep-that he wanted to have a look at a patrol actually on patrol-his arrival at the border would have been preceded by a flock of radio messages warning anybody of the 14th Cav near the border that one of those asshole brass hats from Seventh Army was running around loose up there, so cover your ass. Or words to that effect. At the very moment Rand was doing his own checking out, the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment was being officially inspected by a team under the personal direction of the Inspector General of the Seventh United States Army. That luminary, also a full colonel, was not especially pleased to have Colonel Rand around while he and his people were doing their thing, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Colonel George F. Rand was Chief, Combat Readiness Branch, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, Headquarters Seventh United States Army. It was his responsibility to know the state of combat readiness of each of the tactical units in Seventh Army. And if it was not what it should be, it was his business to see that training was implemented to bring everything up to snuff.

  The Inspector General had argued, however, that it was his job to go onto the scene and check out what was there. He was supposed to do the inspecting and report his findings through proper channels. This procedure would ensure that, in due time, the proper information would be made available' to the Chief, Combat Readiness Branch, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, Headquarters Seventh United States Army, for whatever purpose he wished.

  Colonel George F. Rand was perfectly willing to have the IG and his platoon-sized entourage of experts count and inspect the rations in the combat stocks, and see that the ammunition in the bunkers would go off if necessary, and have a look at the other indicators (disciplinary actions, the AWOL and reenlistment rates, and so forth) of a unit's morale and efficiency. And he would not only believe what the IG told him, he'd be grateful for the information.

  But Rand was not satisfied with that. He was convinced that his own responsibilities did not begin when the IG's reports landed on his desk, and that they went beyond whatever actions the IG's reports might suggest. His conviction in this case was based on long personal experience in the Army, in and out of combat, as well as on his own reading of the strategic and tactical situation the 14th Cav actually faced:

  The conventional wisdom, which actually had its start with the Allied and Soviet troop disposals at the end of World War II, was that if the Russians decided to attack Western Europe, they would move from East Germany into Hesse, in the American Zone. The Soviets and their surrogates, the East Germans and the Poles and the rest of what had become the Warsaw Pact nations, would attack with a massive employment of armor and strike toward the Rhine, the English Channel, and into France. All these forces would go through Seventh Army like a hot knife through butter. Or at least so the theory held.

  The geography of the area will permit a massive flow of tracked vehicles and their supporting equipment through only one relatively flat area, near Fulda. This area is known as the Fulda Gap.

  If the Russians did decide to come through the Fulda Gap and make for the Rhine, the training responsibilities of G-3 would be put on the shelf, and the plan's (which was another way of saying, operational) responsibilities would be of paramount importance.

  Colonel Rand did not personally think the Russians would ever try to come through the Fulda Gap. In his professional judgment, for one thing, they seemed to be getting pretty much what they wanted without waging a major war. Why fight the United States when you don't have to? For another, he was unable to believe that they would be able to secretly marshal the tanks, artillery, and troops, much less the incredible amounts of food, fuel, and ammunition they would need without getting caught at it.

  In Colonel Rand's scenario, the moment intelligence (which is to say anything from a guy on a bicycle to the most esoteric electronic detection by satellite) picked up a Warsaw Pact buildup of the magnitude necessary to come through the Fulda Gap, other forces, political and military, would come into play.

  Colonel Rand had no doubt whatsoever that the Russians would continue to try to satisfy their historic hunger for territorial expansion. That hunger went way back before. the 1917 Revolution, before there were communists to give it new meaning and ideological force. And he believed it would continue long after communism ended up on the rubbish. pile of history. But he didn't believe that expansion would begin here at Hersfeld -despite the conventional wisdom. In other words, he did not seriously believe that the 14th Armored Cavalry would be on the receiving end of the first blow.

  Even so, he operated on the premise that it would. And consequently, he devoted a great deal of his effort and thought preparing and planning for an event he didn't think would happen.

  He did this partly because he was a soldier who believed, quietly but firmly, that a soldier is honor bound to carry out his orders to the very best of his ability-even if he has profound doubts as to their wisdom. And some of it was because he knew that he was entirely capable of evaluating a politico-military situation and coming up with the absolutely wrong answer. He had demonstrated this once before, early in 1942, when he was a young officer still wet behind the ears. It was then his professional judgment that to permit the Philippine Commonwealth to fall to the Japanese would be more than just a stupid geopolitical blunder, it would be simply unthinkable. Or at least so it appeared to him from his own personal vantage point. Rand was stationed on the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

  It was absolutely clear to him at the start of 1942 that the logical way to fight the Second World War was to permit the Germans and the Russians to bleed themselves dry of materiel and personnel, while at the same time diverting the bulk of American military assets then available to reinforcing the Philippines and fighting the Japanese to a standstill. Eventually, what was described accurately at the time as the sleeping colossus of American industrial might would get its act in gear, and war production not needed to contain the Japanese could be diverted to Europe. By that time the Russians would have worn down the German war machine.

  Colonel George Rand had had plenty of time to consider how wrong his assessment was. "The aid" that he and everybody else in the Philippines expected tomorrow, or the next day for sure, had not come. Meanwhile the Japanese were forcing American troops down the Bataan Peninsula.

  And still no aid. And yet they still expected it even after they'd lost the Bataan Peninsula and were being shelled round the clock on the fortress island, of Corregidor.

  The aid hadn't come on the Death .March either. Nor had it come when Lieutenant George F. Rand, in absolute violation of the Rules of Land Warfare prescribing the treatment, of captured commissioned officers, had been loading pow
der into land mines in a Korean factory, while existing on a baseball-sized ball of rice a day plus an occasional dried fish.

  But something can be learned, if not salvaged, from any experience, and Colonel George F. Rand believed that he had the rare professional experience of service with troops who were asked to, provide more than should have been asked of them-troops facing impossible odds while simultaneously running out of food, ammunition, rations, and hope.

  So if his estimate of the Soviets was wrong, and they did decide to come through the Fulda Gap, the troops of the 14th Armored Cavalry would be to World War III what the 26th, Cavalry had been in the Philippines. They would fight until they ran out of people and ammunition and hope, and then they would be rolled over.' Thus Rand considered it his responsibility to know, as well as he could, exactly how long the symbol on his map that stood for the unit would represent an asset in place-rather than a gravestone marking where a unit had been.

  Part of the information he needed to make that judgment would come from the IG, and part of it from the action and casualty reports that would flow when hostilities began. But an important factor in making that judgment would be an actual assessment of the troops: Would they do what could reasonably be expected of them, or fold quickly,? Or would they earn themselves a place in military history as the 26th Cavalry had? Could they too be a unit that would go on fighting long after they really had nothing to fight with, and in the knowledge that "the aid" wasn't coming, and that ,a rational human being would conclude that further resistance was pointless?

  And Rand had decided-not only with the 14th Armored Cav, but with all Seventh United States Army tactical units that would be in trouble if the balloon went up-that the only way to make that judgment was to go take a personal look.

  After War II, Rand had commanded a company, and later a battalion, and in Korea a regiment. He knew what happened when a unit was about to be honored by the visit of an inspector general and his platoon of nit-pickers. A company, battalion, or regimental commander put his best equipment and his best people on display for inspection. And he sent the worn-out equipment and the misfits, commissioned and enlisted, someplace where they would be out of sight.

  Such as on patrol now, when the rest of the regiment, all shined up, was on display for the IG in the Kaserne.

  Rand believed that you don't judge a unit's efficiency by looking at its best men and at its newest and best-maintained equipment. You do it by finding out where the junk and misfits are being hidden, and by looking at the equipment you find, and, more importantly, by, talking to the officers and men.

  A patrol appeared, two hundred yards away and a hundred feet below where Rand's jeep sat. Three jeeps, and two M-48A5 tanks, moving at fifteen or twenty miles per hour down an icy, snow-covered dirt road, twenty yards from the first (of three) fences separating West Germany from East Germany.

  Rand watched them for a moment, and he was sure that the parka-clad figure in the front seat of the lead jeep had seen him as well.

  "OK, son," Rand said to the PFC at the wheel. "Let's go talk to those guys." The jeep moved slowly and cautiously down the knoll until it reached the road, and then turned left, in the direction of the patrol.

  "Stay on the road," Rand ordered.

  The two jeeps stopped, nose to nose. The parka-clad figure in the lead patrol jeep Jumped out. He was wearing a Royal Canadian Mounties hat, too, but he did not have the ear flaps over his ears. There was a second lieutenant's gold bar pinned to the front of the cap, and when Rand looked a little closer, he saw bars pinned on the parka.

  I know why they hid this guy, Colonel Rand thought. He looks as if he'll be fifteen next week.

  The Lieutenant looked at Rand, searched for and found no insignia of rank,... saw the somewhat battered face, and-logically concluded that he was dealing with a sergeant.

  "Is there some reason you're blocking my way?" he asked.

  "Official, but not arrogant, Rand decided. Second lieutenants, especially young ones who know they look young, tend to be arrogant.

  "Unless you're headed for something that won't wait, I wanted to have a word with you, Lieutenant," Rand said. "I'm on patrol," the Lieutenant said. Rand knew that the Lieutenant was beginning to question his first snap decision that he was dealing with a sergeant. Rand decided to take him off the hook.

  "My name is Rand, Lieutenant," Rand said. "I'm a colonel on the Seventh Army staff. I wanted to look at a patrol. The Lieutenant saluted. Crisply."

  "Sir, Lieutenant Shaugnessy, Commanding Patrol B, Region Three. Sir, I did not see any insignia of rank.'"

  "I borrowed the parka," Rand explained. "I'd like to talk to your men and have a look inside the tanks. But before we do that, I expect you'd better tell them why you've been stopped and by who, and why."

  "Yes, Sir," Lieutenant Shaugnessy replied.

  There was radio equipment and a radio operator in the back of the jeep. The radio operator had heard the conversation.

  "Blue Fox, Blue Fox, This is Blue Fox Bravo," he said.

  "Go ahead, Blue Fox Bravo." The radio operator extended his arm and handed the microphone to Lieutenant Shaugnessy.

  "This is Blue Fox Bravo Six," Shaugnessy said into ,the microphone. "We have halted near Position Barbeque Three Six, and are conversing with Colonel Rand of Seventh Army. "

  "Say again, Bravo Six?" Shaugnessy repeated the message.

  "Blue Fox Bravo Six, advise when resuming movement."

  "Affirmative, Blue Fox. Blue Fox Bravo Six, out." Rand was pleased with what he had seen. Not only were the radios working, which was not, in his experience, always the case, but the operator and the Lieutenant" had followed the approved radio procedure. More important, from Rand's viewpoint, was the way the radio operator had behaved. He was alert and he had tried to be helpful. If he hadn't liked his boy-faced lieutenant, for instance, he would not have started to call their headquarters until he was told to. And then, after he was told, he would manage not to make contact, so the Lieutenant would stand there before the brass hat from Seventh Army with egg on his face.

  Rand walked to the jeep. The radio operator looked as if he were two weeks older than the Lieutenant. He had the drawstring of his parka hood drawn tightly around his face.

  He had been wearing goggles; they were now pushed up on his forehead.

  "They maintain your radios all right, son?" he asked.

  "Yes, Sir," the radio operator said.

  "Do I detect a slight hesitation?" Rand asked, smiling.

  "You really want the truth?"

  "Yes, I would like the straight poop."

  "I generally fix my own radios," the radio operator said.

  "Because Third echelon Maintenance can't, or won't?"

  "What happens, Sir, is when you swap boxes, the way you have to, you're liable to turn in a radio with a little malfunction, like a diode blown or something. And what you get back is a radio looks like it got" run over by an M -48.

  "And doesn't work?" Rand asked sympathetically.

  "Oh, they work all right, the guys in the shop know what they're doing, but they don't give a rat's ass what it looks like. . ." He paused, obviously remembering that he was talking to a senior officer and had gone too far, too profanely. ". . . Sir." Rand was pleased. He was not much of a spit-and-polish soldier, and he thought there was entirely too much time wasted within the Army making things glisten that would work as well lubricated and painted olive drab. But it was also true that a soldier who cared about how his equipment looked was likely to take better care of it than one who didn't.

  "How do you like this job?" Rand asked.

  "Better'n sitting around in a maintenance van, Sir," the radio operator said.

  "Blue Fox Bravo, this is Blue Fox. Blue Fox Bravo, this is Blue Fox." The radio operator shrugged apologetically and spoke to the microphone.

  "Go, Blue Fox."

  "Is there a Colonel Rand with you? I spell, Roger, Able, Nan, Dog."