Even though they’d gotten safely to Lake Erie, the skipper was nervous. He’d heard rumors that there might be German submarines on Lake Erie. Certainly, there were subs on Lake Ontario which ran directly to the ocean.
The captain ordered extra lookouts, although he had no idea what he’d do if they spotted a sub besides radio for help and pray. He’d run the crew through several emergency drills and they all understood that the danger was real. They might be drills today, but they could be the real thing in an instant.
Even with additional eyes, no one spotted the white trail in the water in the fading light. The torpedo hit the middle of the Walker Simpson, just below the bridge, blowing the instantly dead and dismembered captain into the sky. The Simpson’s back was broken and she split into two almost equal halves. The stern sank quickly while the bow stayed afloat, giving the men on that half enough time to get rafts and a lifeboat into the cold waters. Of the crew of thirty, eight survived, although three were injured.
As they climbed or were pulled into the lifeboat, several of them saw the silhouette of the German sub outlined against the sky. One of the men had been in the navy during the first war, and understood that U-boats liked to attack their prey while on the surface and at night.
The senior surviving officer was the first mate. It was he who decided that all survivors should go in the lifeboat and huddle for warmth, and that the dead that bobbed about them would be put in the rafts. Even though they weren’t on the trackless ocean, Lake Erie was still very large and no one could see the shore. How long, they wondered, before they were rescued. Even though it was coming on spring, the weather was still cold and the water was deadly frigid.
The first mate said they should stay close by the floating portion of the ruin. If it sank, they would begin to row their way towards Ohio. In the meantime, they hoped that the wreck was far easier to spot than a lifeboat. All of them wondered if the radio operator, among the dead in the stern half, had managed to get off any kind of SOS.
They were not spotted until the dawn and by a PBY operating out of Cleveland. The radio operator had indeed gotten off a quick SOS before dying. It didn’t say what ship or where but it was enough to start a search.
News that at least one U-boat was operating in the western Great Lakes stunned the American planners in Washington, along with the crews and owners of the ships that plied the Great Lakes. Nothing was safe.
Three days after the assault on the radar line, Colonel Charley Canfield and his battalion found themselves dug in along the coast to the east of the now shattered line at the point where the Niagara River entered into Lake Ontario. They were far from alone. Other units were converging on the area, and scores of anti-aircraft guns poked at the empty sky. The radar towers were being repaired and replacement crews had been assigned. To Canfield it seemed apparent that the advantage held by the Nazis would be short lived.
The only thing that bothered him was why they were bothering to dig in as deeply as they were. Dubinski had the same thought. “What the hell are we doing making a fortress here? It ain’t as if the krauts are going to invade. They’re going to have a hard enough time hanging onto what they have in Canada once we get our act together. This is too much like that Maginot line in France for my taste.”
“No argument,” muttered Canfield. The work they were doing was resulting in bunkers made of sandbags and steel beams. Machine guns, anti-tank guns, and rifle pits pointed in all directions. Their position would be enormously strong and easy to defend, but from what? Yes, they were at war with Germany and yes there were Germans across the river, but it was common knowledge that the Nazis didn’t have the landing craft needed to cross the river and didn’t have the manpower to hold any land they seized.
Canfield shrugged. “The orders come from General Fredendall and I don’t like arguing with generals.”
Like all of his men he’d much rather be at home and not on the front lines, no matter how safe the bunker might make him. The construction was so obvious the bunkers might also be targets for the Luftwaffe. No, Canfield would much rather be at home with his wife who would probably tell him that joining the National Guard had been a bad idea. At his age, he could have avoided the war altogether.
Air raid sirens began to scream. Men swore, grabbed their helmets and ran for cover. Canfield and Dubinski had been outside and away from the bunker. They quickly decided it was too far away, so cover in this case meant hiding in a slit trench. Anti-aircraft guns began to fire and he looked up. A flight of German HE111 bombers moved with deceptive slowness across the sky. These were the same type of craft the Germans had used to bomb Washington. Smaller planes, fighters, flew with them.
“They’re bombing us,” Dubinski said in disbelief.
The two men hugged the bottom of their trench as the bombs struck around them, making the earth quiver and deafening them. Only faintly did Canfield hear the sound of cheering. He pulled his face from the dirt and looked up at the sky. The precise German formation was breaking up as other small planes darted in and out of the bomber stream.
“Just look at that, chief, I mean colonel. Those are our planes.”
Canfield’s hearing was slowly returning. Yes, American fighters were ripping the Germans. As he watched, a Heinkel blew apart, sending pieces of plane and crew towards the ground.
The brawl in the sky didn’t last long. Burning and damaged planes tumbled while others tried to disengage. More and more American fighters arrived, and the German forces turned back towards Canada with a swarm of American fighters on their tail.
Dubinski and Canfield got out of the trench, shook the dirt off their uniforms, and headed back to their bunker. There was just one problem — it wasn’t there anymore. A bomb had struck the top, penetrated, and exploded, leaving a smoking crater where their so-called safe bunker had been. He called for the two men he’d left behind and they sheepishly emerged from another trench. They’d apparently taken his absence as an opportunity to go outside and get some fresh air. He wouldn’t yell at them. He’d done the same thing.
“Damn,” said Dubinski. “We need better quality control with our bunker-building. That could have been us real easy.”
“In which case, Mrs. Canfield would start dating again. Damn it to hell.”
Captain William Landry, twenty-five, loved the army and really loved being a U. S. Army Ranger. He was an aggressive young man even though he was only five foot-six and whip thin, and he always strived for excellence. He’d pushed himself through both airborne and ranger schools and graduated from both with very high marks.
What he didn’t like was hanging on to a raft and half swimming in a wide, cold river while dragging a bag of equipment that he would need when he reached the other side. If he’d wanted to swim at night in water so cold his nuts were screaming, he’d have joined the navy.
Worse was the fact that he would be killed if he or any of the dozen men with him were spotted. Worse than that, the damn river had a strong current that was sweeping him well south of his planned landing site. He would land on the German side of the St. Clair River, but nowhere near his destination. Shit-fuck, he thought. Leave it to the army to forget about the strength of river currents. He would not fight the current. That was a sure way to exhaustion and death. He let it take him south and hoped his men understood. The river was less than a mile wide, nothing for a strong swimmer and they were all strong swimmers, but the cold and the current were magnifying the distance and sapping their strength.