Canfield decided his best bet was to leapfrog. One platoon would turn into the first radar station area while the rest of the company continued down the dirt road to the other sites. He would take the first one.
Leading two jeeps and three trucks, they turned down the access road, stopping just short of the gate to the radar station compound, or at least where it once had been. The gate was open and off its hinges. A couple of bodies lay nearby. One young soldier was clearly dead, but a lieutenant was breathing but unconscious. It was nearing dawn and they could see fairly clearly. The place looked destroyed and abandoned. The control building was a smoldering wreck and the radar towers lay on their sides like dead animals. The worst part was the sick-sweet stench of burned flesh. He’d smelled it first at house fires when he’d been working as a cop. Canfield had a sergeant radio in a brief report confirming their worst suspicions.
“I’ll bet you they’ve all cleared out,” Dubinski said as he looked around nervously. “You want I should take some men around the back of the place?”
“Do it.” Dubinski nodded and took a squad on a patrol around the back of the compound. Canfield ordered those men not involved in the probably hopeless but necessary task of checking the burned buildings for survivors to stand down and be careful not to shoot their own side.
A short while later, Dubinski returned with four men in tow. Two of them were wounded but all were conscious and angry. Their senior man was a buck sergeant with a bandage around his head.
“Fuckers jumped us. We were on the lookout when they rode up to the gate, bold as brass, and led by a cop car. Hell, we thought it was more help, maybe even relief, so we relaxed. But then they shot the lieutenant and the kid at the gate and roared in, shooting everything in sight. Me, I got lucky. I had just gone off duty and gone out back for a smoke when the shit hit the fan.”
Canfield had no doubt what his other units would find — just more of the same. Still, they would confirm the obvious. He would leave a squad to protect the survivors and would call in for medical assistance. His men could stop looking for survivors in the burned ruins. He mentally kicked himself for not having brought ambulances with him, but he didn’t have any immediately available and his orders precluded waiting.
Now it was really getting light out. “I think the Germans have long since cleared out,” Canfield said. “They probably had small boats stashed along the shore and are halfway to Toronto by now.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Dubinski said. “Be downright dumb to hang around and wait for us to show up, and I don’t think the Nazis are dumb.”
No they are not, Canfield thought. He froze as he heard the sound of airplane engines. A few moments later, a long, ribbon of what they quickly identified as German aircraft began flying over them, all heading south. Intuitively, he knew that several other streams of enemy planes were also crossing over the U.S. border and heading to their targets.
“Bastards,” Dubinski screamed, “you fucking bastards!”
Chapter Eleven
Confusion reigned at the Pentagon, even more so than normally, thought Tom Grant. Everybody and his brother was screaming for information and nobody had any. There were rumors galore, but very little in the way of facts. Something big and bad was unfolding along the border with Ontario and nobody was quite sure what. Had the Germans actually attacked a week early? If so, an American enemy had again caught the United States with its pants at least half down.
Truscott burst into the room, followed by Eisenhower. This very early morning there was no engaging grin on Ike’s face. He looked like he wanted to kill.
“Gather around and let’s summarize,” Truscott said. Grant noticed that Ike stayed in the background. “To the best of anyone’s knowledge, what is happening in Detroit?”
Major Schuman responded. “Sir, it’s becoming clear that good sized raiding parties crossed the river at several locations and have commenced blowing up industrial facilities. We know that the Ford Rouge plant is burning at a number of places, along with the Willow Run plant that makes B24 bombers. We believe that a trainload of German soldiers came out of the railroad tunnel under the Detroit River and simply raced up the tracks to the factory that produces tanks and are blowing it up. From what we’re getting from telephone calls and short wave radio, the raids are ongoing and the Nazis haven’t pulled out. It’s likely that other factories will be destroyed as well.”
Ike finally spoke. “Then they’re stupid. They can’t destroy those facilities. They can only damage them, and we can repair them fairly quickly. They may be down for a couple of weeks, even some months, but destroy them? Hell, no!”
“And Patton’s on his way,” Truscott added with a smile. Patton had been ordered to keep his divisions at least fifty miles away from Detroit and the river, but apparently had permitted some good sized elements to “patrol and maneuver” much closer to the city. They were on their way, mad as hell and armed to the teeth. Patton had a history of twisting some orders and disobeying others.
“What about Fredendall?” asked Colonel Downing. “Is he moving men towards the river?”
Truscott glared at him. “Apparently he’s digging in.” Truscott’s expression made it clear what he thought of Fredendall’s decision.
Fredendall was Marshall’s fair haired boy and was supposed to be a real fire breather. This night, however, he hadn’t moved. Tom and Downing shared a glance. Had the almost infallible General Marshall made a mistake? It wouldn’t be the first time that someone with a solid peacetime record failed when the guns began firing. He recalled that Fredendall had never led troops in combat and wondered if he was freezing under the reality. If you didn’t count the incident on the Canadian freighter, Tom hadn’t led men in combat either, but he wasn’t in charge of an army.
Truscott changed the topic. “Grant, what about the radar sites?”
“General, I can confirm that there’s been no response from them, either by phone or radio. The 27th regiment has patrols out, but it looks more and more like they were all blown up by saboteurs, just like what’s happening in Detroit.
Tom wondered if Major Canfield was involved in checking the radar sites. Probably, he thought. The man knew the area.
Ike stood and paced. A cigarette dangled from his mouth and it occurred to Tom that neither general had gotten much sleep this night. Why, he wondered? Was it possible that they suspected, even knew, that the German assault would come this Saturday and not the next? He would have to ask Alicia if she’d heard anything from Camp Washington and then wondered if she’d tell him even if she knew.
Tom wasn’t done with the bad news. “We are being further hampered by the fact that electricity is out in a number of places in upper New York State and in Michigan.”
“So we’re blind,” Ike said. “Well, let’s do what we can. First, the men we do have along the border just became human spotters. Get them along that radar gap with radios and telescopes. We might not stop the first attack, but we sure as hell can stop the next ones. At least we’ll get a little warning.”
“Are we going to get planes in the air?” asked Downing.
Truscott laughed harshly. “And send them where? The German HE111 has a range of more than fourteen hundred miles, which means it can fly from Toronto to Washington and back with no problem. Yeah, we’ll go on alert and have planes up to protect those areas. We may be wasting our time, but we have to do something.”
Truscott looked at Grant who had turned aside. “You don’t agree with that, major?”
Grant sucked in his breath. It never paid for a mere major to argue with a two star general. “Sir, I think there may be a pattern in their attacks. Yes, I don’t think we can rule out a bombing raid on either New York or Washington, but it seems to me that they are going after industrial targets. If I’m right, I really think they’ll make a big push to hit steel producing facilities at Pittsburgh, and maybe just nuisance raids on New York or Washington.”