He staggered to the open hatch, looked down at the ground thousands of feet below and had the sickening realization that he could be dead in a couple of minutes if his chute didn’t open, or if he slammed into the plane’s fuselage, or if the kraut shot him. He hoped his death would be painless. He jumped into the ferocious wind, counted to ten and pulled the cord. It opened and he whimpered a thank you to a God he’d been beginning to doubt. The German fighters weren’t interested in him. They followed the bomber as it began a spiral and then crashed into the ground.
As he neared the earth, he saw vehicles coming down a nearby dirt road. They looked military. He took out his pistol and dropped it. He was not even going to try and fight his way out of this mess.
Tony landed and heard his ankle snap. Waves of red-hot pain roared up his leg and he blacked out. When he came to, he was on a cot in a tent. A German officer looked down on him dispassionately and informed him that he was a prisoner of war and would be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
“Where are you going to take me?” he managed to ask, even though he was losing control of his tongue. He’d been given some morphine and he was slipping off to sleepy-land.
The German laughed harshly. “There’s a prison camp outside Toronto. Even though it’s run by the SS and the Gestapo, I’m sure they’ll treat you with the respect you deserve.”
SS? Gestapo? Oh shit, he thought as the drug finally took over.
Grant and others from Truscott’s staff were in trenches about twenty miles east of Detroit. The Germans were two miles away and their defense line ran from a few miles east of Sarnia on the St. Clair River and Lake Huron and down to Chatham just north of the Lake Erie coast. The Germans had dug deeply in and it was understood that other defensive lines were being built a few miles beyond that. It was clearly understood that piercing this line would be the first of many, a fact that totally infuriated General Patton who wanted a war of maneuver, not a series of set piece battles that consisted of attacks on fortified positions.
The night before, Patton had angrily informed Ike and Truscott that bloody, set-piece battles of attrition would ultimately wear down the Nazis, but that the price in American dead and wounded would be enormous.
“That kind of fighting is what cost the British control of North Africa,” he raged. “We have to pry the krauts loose and get them on the run. We can’t do it with airborne troops, not just yet, but we can do it with bombers.”
Tom had been in the far corner of the room and understood the problem with using paratroops. The two airborne divisions the army had didn’t have armor or heavy artillery. When the time came, their job would be to upset and destroy enemy communications and logistics, holding on until the American heavy forces arrived. Trouble was, nobody could guarantee if and when relief would show up. Therefore, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would have to sit and wait. They were not happy either.
Tom also thought Patton was too disparaging of British tactics. From what he’d read, the battle of attrition they’d lost had been pushed on them and was not what they’d wanted. Regardless, the swastika now flew over the cities of Alexandria and Cairo, and the Suez Canal was German.
Patton would attack with one armored division and one infantry. These would be followed up by two more infantry divisions who would exploit the breach made by the initial assault. Patton had wanted at least one more armored division, but the transition from the M3 tanks to the M4 was taking longer than anybody expected.
Patton had grinned at his small congregation. “We’ll make do with what we have. We’ve been hitting them with artillery for days now, and we are now going to pound the crap out of them with bombers. I’ve laid on two hundred B17s and another two hundred P47s to escort them and paste whoever’s left standing.”
Truscott hadn’t been so certain. “You’re counting heavily on two things: first that the bombers can hit the target effectively and, second, that the Germans will even be where you expect. If we were so easily able to spot their trench line, maybe it’s because they wanted us to see it and hit the wrong spot.”
That had sobered Patton, but only for a moment. “Lucian, you know as well as I do that nothing’s certain in this world, but I am confident that we can hit them and hurt them and push them back. Will we open them up? Probably not, and maybe not the next time or the time after that, but, sooner or later, they will have to crack and then break. They don’t have a choice. Ultimately the Nazi bastards will be overwhelmed. And if they should happen to collapse today, we’ll be ready to chase them all the way to Toronto.”
On cue the bombers appeared overhead, the roar of their engines interrupting their conversation. They’d been staged from the Wayne County Airport that was near the Michigan city of Romulus and the Willow Run facility. The men looked up eagerly as the planes continued on from the west and towards the German lines. Colored smoke flares had been ignited to show the air force just where the American lines ended.
Grant stared through his binoculars and saw the bomb bay doors open and strings of bombs start tumbling down. In short order, they impacted around the German fortifications, sending up huge debris clouds and making the ground shake.
Another wave of bombers followed the first and Tom had the feeling that the bombs were falling closer to where they were watching. When the third wave hit, he and the others were certain of it. The bombers were unloading early and the attack was creeping back to where they were watching.
“Down,” Patton screamed. Everyone hugged the earth as the explosions drew closer.
“Call off the fucking bombers,” Truscott yelled. Tom heard someone trying desperately to get through to the air force.
Bombs exploded all around them. The concussions lifted them off the ground and slammed them back down. The explosions were deafening. Tom heard screams and realized it was his voice. I don’t want to die, he kept thinking.
The bombing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Tom staggered to his feet. Patton had a cut on his cheek and his right arm hung limply. Truscott appeared dazed but unhurt. Tom checked himself. He had a bloody nose and there was a ringing in his ears.
A young lieutenant rushed up to Patton and said, “Let me get you to a hospital.”
Patton shook his head angrily. “No goddamn hospital. Get the attack going right now and just like we planned.”
Truscott grabbed Patton’s arm. “George, we just bombed our own men. Some of our boys must have been killed or wounded.”
“Don’t you think I know that? All the more reason to attack. We can’t let them die in vain. The first bombs must have damaged the kraut lines. The German shits who survived are doubtless laughing their asses off at us and won’t be expecting the rest of the army to come charging right at them.”
Grant’s head was still buzzing as he turned his binoculars to the scores of Sherman tanks heading towards the Germans. Overhead, P47s streaked in strafing and dropping their own bombs, this time accurately since they were flying lower. Patton let out a whoop and jumped into his jeep. He waited for the combat vehicles and fighters to clear the area and ordered his driver forward.
Truscott and one of his key aides found another jeep, while Tom and Bryce found another. “Why the hell did they drop short?” Tom snapped at the air force major.
Bryce grimaced. “It’s the way they’re trained. The lead bomber drops on target and the rest unload when they seem him do it. Inevitably, the bombs creep back. Since the target would be obscured by the first bombs, nobody knows a much better way of doing it and don’t suggest bombing north-south instead of east-west because that would make the bombers fly over a lot of enemy turf full of people who’d be shooting at them, and then try to hit a thin ribbon of fortifications from high altitude. Any way you look at it, most bombs are going to miss. We just should have had our troops and us farther back.”