There was Major Lou Edmonds, a forlorn weatherman; and last, old Colonel Swede Swenson, who had put down a string of airfields in the Assam Valley and Bengal Valley and Kunming and would again supervise air installations.
“In the few days since I have arrived to assume this command you people have treated me to a monumental amount of bitching about living quarters and being torn away from families. This goddamned mission is not part of the occupation country club. You are here to work, and what I mean is, if you don’t have a coronary in two months I’ll know you’re not putting out.”
Hiram Ball Breaker was back in the saddle. He hadn’t changed a bit, they thought.
“This mission is to be considered as war. You might encounter a little less flak, but if the Russians don’t fire it, depend on me. Now, as for getting yourselves out of this mess, consider twenty years ... if you’re lucky.”
Jesus Christ, Swede thought, I’ll bet the old bastard couldn’t wait to get back into uniform so he could start chewing asses.
“I expect a full survey of the situation and your reports within twenty-four hours. Remember, an aircraft grounded is of no value. Until spare parts get here we have to cannibalize. Now get in gear and come back with answers.”
The first blow to Stonebraker was the recall of Barney Root to Washington, with General Buff Morgan named the new USAFE chief.
Hiram, like Chip Hansen, was not a member of the WPPA (West Point Protective Association) and had had innumerable run-ins in the past with Morgan.
“Buff, this is Crusty. What kind of crap are you giving my people on housing.”
“Just hold your water.”
“Hell. My people have been pulled away from their families on twenty-four hours’ notice. I hate to disturb this magnificent occupation plant, but I suggest you move your country club to the suburbs and give us the housing so we can get at our work.”
“Now, you just wait a minute there, Crusty.”
“Got no time to wait. I have a thousand technicians coming in in the next couple of days and I’m not going to hold up this mission because the grand occupation country club won’t get moving. I have to have six hundred billets immediately.”
Buff Morgan grumbled that he would get on it. An old scenery chewer himself, he held the lifeless phone in his hand cursing at it for two minutes after Stonebraker hung up.
Stonebraker had come in like a hurricane. Buff Morgan was upset ... everyone in USAFE was upset.
Stonebraker noticed a young officer pace about in his outer office, had spotted him before the Staff meeting.
“You!”
“Me, sir?”
“You. Get your ass in here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, General. All I know is day before yesterday orders came for me to report here directly to you.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“Andrews Air Force Base.”
“What’s your name?”
“Beaver, sir. Woodrow Beaver.”
“Beaver! Goddammit, you’re not Beaver!”
“Begging the General’s pardon, I regret that I am Woodrow Beaver. At least, I’m quite certain I am.”
“Hell, they sent me the wrong Woody Beaver!”
“It looks that way, General. I suggest, therefore, I return my ass to Andrews immediately.”
“Not so fast, Beaver. What do you do?”
“I’m a PIO officer.”
Stonebraker chuckled. “Two Woody Beavers and both PIO people.” He squinted closely at the young officer. “You don’t look too bright to me.”
“I am extremely bright.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. I said you didn’t look like it.”
He had learned his first lesson in living with Hiram Stonebraker ... never back down.
“Beaver. I’m going to give you forty-eight hours to learn to be PIO for this mission. Take the office next to mine and come back tomorrow with extremely good suggestions.”
“Yes, sir.”
Perry Sindlinger returned from message center and handed a teletype to the general.
CLINTON LOVELESS AO 359195 HAS REPORTED TO MATS, WESTOVER, REQUESTING SPACE TO WIESBADEN. SAYS HE IS A MEMBER STAFF, MAJOR GENERAL STONEBRAKER. HE HAS NO ORDERS. ADVISE AND FORWARD ORDERS.
“I’ve already answered,” Perry Sindlinger said. “It will be good to have Clint here.”
Clinton Loveless arrived at Wiesbaden in the middle of the night dazed by the sequence of events following his departure from New York. Judy’s tears, Pudge Whitcomb’s asthmatic laugh, the children’s bewilderment all fogged together and an utter weariness was sealed by a bouncy bucket-seat flight across the Atlantic.
Perry Sindlinger was at the ramp to meet him. They drove back to the general’s headquarters in the center of Wiesbaden, where, in the middle of the night, carpenters were knocking walls out of adjoining buildings to expand the work area.
“Hello, General,” Clint rasped.
“It’s about time you got over here. I’ve got a plane standing by at Rhein/Main to run you to Berlin tonight.”
Clint bucketed down a quart of coffee while Perry and the general brought him up to date.
“Hansen’s trouble shooter, a Colonel O’Sullivan, will meet you at Tempelhof. You get together with the Germans in the Magistrat and find out just what it is going to take to feed these people. Cut everything to the bone. Swede and Buck Rogers are in Berlin looking over the air installations and ground facilities. See them. Come back with a rounded, thumbnail picture.”
“Yes, sir. What are we landing in Berlin now?”
“The day I took over the command, a week ago, we put down a thousand tons with the British.”
“How far can we push this?”
“With the present setup, not another ounce.”
Clint understood, and got up to leave. The general gave ever so slight a nod that said he was glad Clint had come.
“By the way, sir. What am I?”
Stonebraker scratched his head. “Lieutenant Colonel, I think, vice chief of staff, or something.”
“Air Force or Army?”
“Air Force. We’re all Air Force. Even Buff Morgan and his country-club set.”
The situation was worse than Chip Hansen or the President realized. Stonebraker’s chief of staff told him bluntly that if C-54’s didn’t arrive, the whole mission would turn into a fiasco.
They were short on every kind of personneclass="underline" weathermen, crews, mechanics, engineers, radiomen, radarmen, office personnel, cooks, doctors, carpenters, drivers.
Housing, food, medical facilities were substandard. Rhein/Main, the key base outside Frankfurt, was at 150 per cent of capacity with more people pouring in each day. There were no beds and a food shortage loomed. Rhein/ Main had the worst living and working conditions of any American air base in the world. It was called, without affection, Rhein/Mud.
With lives left dangling all over the world in a peacetime mission, morale was bound to collapse.
Air Installation reported that the two American bases of Rhein/Main and Y 80/Wiesbaden were inadequate in length of runways, taxiways, hardstands, fueling facilities, loading and unloading facilities, hangar space, dump space, administration buildings, and all lighting; flood-lights, approach lights, hangar lights were below standard.
Communications told General Stonebraker that most existing equipment was obsolete. Beacons and ranges to and from Berlin could not control precision flying in the narrow corridors. There was no ground-controlled approach system to “talk down” pilots in bad weather.