Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (13 page)

Galland listened, his dark eyes dancing, interrupting
occasionally only to ask a pertinent question. It was obvious that he knew a great deal, that Wendel and others had been briefing him, and it was equally apparent that his enthusiasm was growing as he learned more. No mathematician, he insisted upon going over and over the equations that translated pounds of thrust into horsepower. It seemed impossible that the relatively small, light Junkers engines could produce what the engineers claimed, the equivalent of 900 kilograms of thrust at sea level, an output that would climb with an increase in speed. When told that the estimated speed of the 262 was about 885 kilometers per hour, Galland smiled. That was 225 kph faster than his Messerschmitt Bf 109, and he frankly doubted such a leap forward to be possible.

He sat there, impassive, going over the figures, then finally nodded, for even if the Messerschmitt and Junkers engineers were wildly optimistic, by as much as 50 percent, it was still a fantastic step forward. And if they were accurate—and in his heart he hoped they were; he knew their work—the results would be utterly sensational.

The last Junkers man to speak almost as an aside mentioned that the performance figures would be obtained even if low-quality diesel fuel was used instead of aviation gasoline, and Galland stood up. He had heard this before, but he wanted clarification and got a long exposition on the combustion factors that allowed diesel oil to produce the power they estimated. He stood for a moment, silent. This was a key factor. Even if the performance estimates all were all wrong, it might still be important enough to insist that the jet go into production. Germany was already desperately short of the rotgut eighty-seven-octane fuel that was the standard issue. Moreover, there were larger piston engines being planned, and they would certainly require higher-octane fuels that were going to be virtually impossible to obtain.

At last he slapped his hand down on the desk and said, “Let’s go. I’m ready. Roll that Turbo out and let me try it.”

A Mercedes staff car drove them to the end of the runway where two beautifully prepared aircraft, the Me 262V3 and V4, waited. Both were washed and polished and Wendel climbed into the first aircraft, which had flown almost twenty times in the last three weeks. Galland had been carefully briefed on the toe-tapping takeoff technique Wendel had developed and watched closely as the Messerschmitt test pilot took off, sending the fighter hurtling down the runway nose high, then at the 800-meter mark tapping the brakes, rotating the nose down, and gathering sufficient speed for flight.

Wendel put on a dazzling eighteen-minute flying show, demonstrating the speed, roll rate, climb, and slow-flight capabilities of the airplane. While Wendel flew, engine technicians emphasized to Galland how important it was to handle the throttles gently—no jamming them forward as was sometimes necessary in piston engine fighters but rather manipulating them evenly and easily, to avoid stalling or overheating the engines.

Wendel landed with the usual spectacular but harmless sheets of trailing flame from fuel pooled in the nacelles. While the airplane was being refueled and inspected, he talked to Galland again about the takeoff technique. It was imperative to bring the engines up to speed slowly and together; if one engine failed at takeoff speed, it would spin the aircraft to one side, careening it off the runway and probably causing a catastrophic crash.

Galland’s smoke timing had been perfect; he ground the stump of the big black cigar into the ground, clambered up into the cockpit, and sat, going over the instruments while Wendel talked him through starting the first engine. It seemed to start normally enough, and Wendel leaped down, leaving Galland to start the second. At that moment the first engine burst into flames. Unaware, Galland kept looking at the throttle quadrant, concentrating on a smooth start of the second engine. A mechanic leaped on the wing, pounded Galland on the shoulder,
and pointed to the fire. With his long experience in emergencies, it took Galland only seconds to disconnect his seat belt and parachute and dive over the side, hitting the ground in a rolling motion, before being up and running to where the others was waiting. A fire crew swarmed over the burning engine, blanketing the flames with their fire extinguishers.

Galland was unshaken by the incident. He understood how temperamental jet engines were and that over time these would be more reliable and less prone to catching fire. He signaled impatiently to Willy Messerschmitt that he would fly the other aircraft.

Both engines of the Messerschmitt Me 262V4 started uneventfully, and Galland eased it out to the runway, unable to see straight ahead over the long nose, S-turning to make sure he didn’t taxi into something. He lined up exactly in the middle of the runway, with his tail wheel resting on the lip of the asphalt. Galland advanced the throttles carefully, steering with the brakes at first, then, as the rudder became effective, with the rudder pedals. As speed gathered he was struck by the comparative silence, the lack of torque, and the slow but rapidly building acceleration. At precisely 180 kph he tapped the brakes, the nose leaned down, the elevators caught the air, and seconds later he was airborne, climbing faster than he ever had before. Galland was not poetic, but he had an instant mental image of a flight of angels pushing the airplane in its headlong climb.

He saw at once that the Me 262 was a war-winning weapon, far superior to anything the enemy had, able to take on any Allied fighter. A flight of four 262s could destroy much of a bomber formation in a single pass. As he flew, he tested the airplane’s capability, banking it ever more steeply, diving and climbing, carefully adjusting the power, and always keeping his eye on the rapidly declining fuel gauges.

To the west of the field he spotted a larger airplane and
immediately headed for it. In less than a minute he discerned that it was one of Messerschmitt’s other advanced projects, the four-engine Me 264, the so-called
Amerika Bomber.
The huge aircraft was on a routine test flight near the field, and Galland promptly climbed to carry out a classic fighter attack, moving from high in the rear to below and past the “target.”

He flew the same pattern he might have flown in his 109 fighter and found that he whipped by the bomber so swiftly that he wouldn’t have had time to fire his guns. He realized that just a few seconds of miscalculation might have seen him fly not by but into the Me 264, thus effectively smashing two important test programs—and himself—in one ill-considered pass.

Sobered by the experience, he flew back to the field, made a conservative pattern, and landed, convinced that in the 262 Germany had found a way to win the air war. Now all he had to do was win a battle with the Air Ministry and convince them to build enough of the 262s.

June 7, 1943, Berlin

Fritz Obermyer had declined to fly to the meeting in Berlin, though Ernst Heinkel himself had offered him a seat in one of the two comfortably equipped He 111s making the short trip. Obermyer preferred to travel by train, as crowded as they were. Even the uncertain schedules, always subject to delays by bombings, had an advantage, providing him an excuse to come up a day early to be sure he was on time. He had faced his share of dangers on the Western Front during the war and again during the decade of street fighting that had preceded Hitler’s accession to power in 1933—he refused to accept the risk of flying when he could. Besides, there was no room on the plane for Müller, and where Obermyer went, Müller followed.

Although there were continual calls from the party and the government to reduce the number of conferences during wartime, they continued to proliferate, and this one, a review board for jet engines and aircraft, was probably more legitimate than most. It had been called by his old
Friekorps
commander, Erhard Milch, who never wasted anyone’s time. He had made
Deutsche Luft Hansa
a financial success and then became one of the top leaders of the Luftwaffe. An organizational genius, he was succeeding exactly where Udet had failed, rationalizing the industry, concentrating on fewer types, and insisting that production be increased. Göring was jealous of how well Milch performed and would gladly have gotten rid of him if he had dared. But Milch had Hitler’s confidence, and that meant Göring could not do as he usually did, hammer down anyone who he felt threatened his position. Milch was cordially disliked by many of the top Luftwaffe generals, men who spent long years in the lower ranks after the Versailles Treaty had destroyed the German armed forces. They regarded him as a civilian and resented his meteoric progress. He had been a captain in 1918, entered the Luftwaffe with the rank of major general in 1934, and by July 1940 had been promoted to field marshal.

Yet as rapid as his advance had been, Milch was terribly vulnerable in the poisonous Nazi climate where every leader but one—Hitler—was fair game for any other. Milch’s father, whom he scarcely knew, was a Jew, so he was half-Jewish and therefore automatically precluded from furthering his career. Yet it developed that his mother, whom he adored, had been forced into marriage by her parents with Anton Milch. She resisted the arrangement, saying yes only when her prospective husband agreed not to have conjugal relations with her and to let her bear children by another man. That man was an Aryan. Göring had once grandly declared that he decided who was a Jew and who was not but had insisted on
carrying out an elaborate procedure in which Milch’s mother signed a sworn affidavit that he was not the son of her husband but rather of her Aryan lover. Milch was relieved by the agreement, which meant he kept his power and his perks. But he could never consider the issue at rest. Göring could make Milch a Jew tomorrow, and he would disappear the same day, to the applause of many.

Obermyer maintained a small apartment in Berlin, less than a mile from the grandiose Air Ministry building. It was one of his perks as an old Nazi. The apartment had formerly belonged to a Jewish doctor and his wife. When they were sent to Theresienstadt, the “model” concentration camp maintained for propaganda purposes, an old comrade in party headquarters alerted Obermyer, and he promptly purchased it. Half of the absurdly small amount went into party coffers and half into his friend’s pocket. Obermyer knew that owning it was risky. People were already suspicious of his standard of living, and he was forced to pretend that he had family business interests and also made large sums gambling. It was ironic, because he tried never to gamble. Sure things were his forte.

One sure thing was Müller’s loyalty. Obermyer watched tolerantly as his old comrade snored in the big leather chair in the living room, his head down on his chest and his legs sprawled out on the floor, a half-eaten sandwich and an empty stein of beer on the table beside him. No intellectual, Müller was a good man to have at one’s back in a bar fight. Even better, he had good common sense and an uncanny ability to size people up and know how to handle them. But best of all, he was loyal—to Obermyer. No foolish nonsense about loyalty to the Führer or to the party or to anyone else. Müller was Obermyer’s man, and that was it. In return he received his salary from Heinkel and a considerable stipend from Obermyer. If Müller had a fault, it was his tendency to complain about everything; periodically Obermyer spoke to him sharply about this, but for the most part he accepted his
querulous nature as part of the overhead of having a loyal servant.

Reaching down, Obermyer shook Müller’s shoulder. “Wake up, Gerd; it’s time we went to the conference.”

Müller was instantly wide awake, checking his pocket watch and saying, “I’ll get the car.”

Obermyer shook his head. “No, it’s too conspicuous. We’ll take the underground.”

Müller, who loved the sleek BMW that Obermyer had obtained with the apartment, complained about not driving all the way to the Leipziegerstrasse, where Göring’s grandiose four-hundred-thousand-square-foot Air Ministry building dominated the scene. The massive block-square twenty-eight-hundred-room structure was Göring’s attempt to outdo Albert Speer, the architect who had created the magnificent Chancellery for Adolf Hitler in a single year. But while Speer’s building had been applauded—it was for the Führer, after all—Göring’s building evoked a negative reaction. The public thought it too elegant for a nation brought up on short rations—and for a Luftwaffe that apparently could not stop the bombing raids.

Göring was above such criticism. He wanted the best for the Luftwaffe, and the building was simply a demonstration of that desire. Besides, the building soon possessed his prize tool, the greatest power lever that any German leader possessed, surpassing that of even Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Within high-security areas in the building was the “Research Office,” where faceless civil servants worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, managing a vast system of telephone and cable taps, recording conversations and messages. Hollerith punch-card computers were used to consolidate the information, and information considered worthy of passing up was provided to Göring daily on what were called the Brown Sheets. No one was immune, from Catholic priests suspected of a dalliance to the highest-ranking officers. It
was the single most effective espionage system in the Third Reich, and it was controlled by Göring alone.

Air Ministry employees were generally aware that Erhard Milch was gradually taking control of the Luftwaffe. Göring had begun to distance himself from day-to-day matters, concentrating more on building up his art collection than on building up “his” air force. To Milch, work was life, for he knew his position depended upon his performance, and he approached the Luftwaffe as he had
Deutsche Luft Hansa,
as an instrument to perfect.

The difficulty was that the Luftwaffe, unlike the airline, was not a for-profit industry, and the cost-conscious Milch reacted adversely to many pleas for research and development. Further, Milch saw conspiracies everywhere, and just as he had done at
Deutsche Luft Hansa,
he sought to quell these by personnel transfers. In looking over the turmoil of the jet industry, he had concluded that there was not enough cooperation between the Air Ministry and the manufacturers and far too little among the competing companies. To remedy this he had made a series of reassignments that had plunged the jet industry into chaos.