At that moment, General of the Air Force Carl Andrew Spaatz got up and restored order “Men and women of the United States Air Force, this is your charge: master and kill the enemy with the utmost efficiency and ferocity, as you have been trained to do, and you will never lose the fight. You are now excused; return to your posts.” The most senior Air Force Master Sergeant called out “Ten-HUT!” and all present filed out, as soon as the President and Chiefs of Staff of the Army and the Air Force were clear of the hangar.
As Generals Eisenhower and Spaatz accompanied the President in the limousine, the President asked them both, “How are the plans progressing, gentlemen?” They proceeded with their portion of the briefing, before they got to the White House. When they arrived there, they were joined by the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alexander A. Vandergrift, and sat down to business.
Before they started, the President pressed an intercom button “Would you please send in Special Agent James Carroll and General Kenney?” “Yes, Mr. President” was the response from his receptionist. A moment later, both General George Kenney and James Carroll, who was a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations and former Assistant Director under J. Edgar Hoover, step into the room and waved to seats at the table by President Truman. Carroll was tapped by President Truman, and the late General “Hap” Arnold, to head the Army Air Force’s new Office of Special Investigation, tasked with rooting out security risks in the nation’s combat aviation services. On the Navy’s side, the Office of Naval Intelligence’s counterintelligence service has weeded out several spies and communist sympathizers, and Special Agent Carroll has done yeoman’s work over the past several months in making progress toward the same end. To date, there are quite a few Army Air Force officers and enlisted men in the Leavenworth Penitentiary due to his efforts. And not a few of those had high security clearances, which necessitated their being held in solitary confinement.
“Agent Carroll, would you please brief us on the progress of your investigation as to communist infiltration of the nation’s air forces?” said the President. Carroll stands up “As you well know, Mr. President and gentlemen, there was a serious issue with information being passed onto Soviet agents, resulting in their foreknowledge of our battle plans and their knowledge of our tactics and equipment. As a result of a deep and humanly-thorough investigation, I have reason to believe that we have completely vetted every security-clearance holding member of the U.S. Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps and the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence. It is my belief that we can reasonably trust the members of our planning staffs to move forward toward the next step of this war: the impending counteroffensive.” All the flag officers were now listening intently to him now.
He continued “as a result of this strenuous investigative effort, I can confidently recommend that the Strategic Air Command be reintegrated into the United States Air Force, provided that my security recommendations are strictly followed. It is my further belief that a Defense Intelligence Agency should be formed to oversee a coordinated counterintelligence effort to ensure that this level of infiltration of our most effective and sensitive military resources never happens again.” All the men nodded their agreement, none of them except for the President caring very much for the Central Intelligence Agency, especially in light of the fact that they have been draining away their best and brightest intelligence assets and resources over the past few months. Spaatz and Kenney pass a non-descript look between each other, then the President speaks up, after the generals have digested the information for a moment “To ensure that the security recommendations of Agent Carroll are rigidly enforced, Generals Spaatz and Kenney will oversee the formation of a permanent Office of Special Investigations within the Air Force, with Carroll in charge. Agent Carroll will be inducted into the Air Force Reserve, with the rank of Colonel, to perform this duty.” All the men again nodded their agreement.
The President continued “If we have finished with this, let’s move onto other business, gentleman. General Eisenhower, how is the progress of the Corps of Engineers’ building the new airfields in Turkey and on Cyprus?” “Progress is steady, Mr. President, considering the secret nature of the operation. A parallel project in Palestine by the Free Russian Air Force is also progressing, near a place called Tel Aviv. There are intelligence reports that local Jewish paramilitary units are providing security for the rebel Russians.” General Eisenhower told the President. “Do you trust these Russians, General Eisenhower? Can we collaborate with them to get these projects finished in the allotted time? More importantly, do we have trusted friends among them?” the President asks. General Vandergrift speaks up “We have had some informal dealings with these people in China. They seem to be fairly straight-forward, if somewhat crude, and they tend to keep their word, no doubt to advance their own agenda. Perhaps we may not have friends among them now, but they could be useful strategic allies.”
Fleet Admiral Nimitz joins the conversation “I think we need to proceed cautiously as far as enlisting these rebel Russians as our allies. ’Enemy of my enemy’ will only go so far, considering that recent history is replete with allies turning on us. Otherwise, I think it is a capital idea to use them to knock the Soviets off-balance and gain the upper hand.” President Truman nods and asks Nimitz “How goes that special project in Newport, Admiral?”
“Proceeding on schedule, Mr. President. The conversions are proceeding according to plan, and training is going faster and rougher than I would like for the Marines and Naval aviators, but I’m absolutely positive that all will be ready by X-Day, sir.”
President Truman nods and they all discuss strategy for a while longer, before he dismisses them for the day. He takes a moment to reflect on what a terrible responsibility was dumped in his lap by Frank Roosevelt, “You dirty lucky bastard” he thought.
Chapter Nineteen:
The Big Bang
The flight over the East Mediterranean was uneventful. Nick was amazed at how comfortable this beauty was compare to the B17s he had started out in. He couldn’t imagine being at this altitude going for this distance in any other aircraft. He could actually stretch out a little and he had a view from the gunner position. The only gunner position that still had a gun was the tail gunner. All of the other guns had been stripped and the aircraft filled with machines for measuring all that was necessary to determine how to drop an atomic bomb from as high as possible while passing through what might be a 200 mph stream of air who knows how thick.
That wind at high altitudes had first raised its ugly head over Japan. That was why LeMay had decided to come in under it and use fire bombs. Of course this negated all the features that made the B29 a special plane. The Japanese where helpless by that time, against any kind of bomber. Their fighters had been decimated in various battles over the Pacific and their anti-aircraft guns and radar were not that formidable. Oh they did get lucky far too often but not enough to deter LeMay.