Himmler's War-ARC (3 page)

The LST was more than three hundred feet long, and close to five hundred men were jammed in her along with tons of supplies for what was supposed to be a cruise of not more than a few hours from Dover to Normandy. Under those circumstances, the soldiers’ discomfort meant nothing to those in charge. The LST was supposed to land the men after their short journey and that was it.

The LST’s skipper was a short, plump, and very serious lieutenant commander named Stephens who was far from happy. “Captain Morgan, I’m certain you don’t understand the navy’s rules so I’ll forgive you your transgressions.”

“Thank you, sir,” Morgan said with only a hint of sarcasm. Both men were standing and Morgan, at just under five-eleven, was several inches taller and much more slender at one hundred and sixty pounds. He also had a full head of short brown hair; Stephens was balding.

“In the future, when you come to the bridge you will ask permission before entering.”

“I was under the impression you called for me, sir.”

The naval officer was one rank higher than Morgan, which did not impress him. However, Jack did understand enough about the navy to know that the pompous little prick was considered God on his ship. He also decided that he would likely never again be on the damned bridge, so screw Stephens.

Stephens nodded solemnly. “I called for you because you are the senior officer among the mob the army stuffed in here. Therefore, you are the one who will maintain discipline among the passengers and get them organized and out of the way of the more than a hundred men who will be running this ship. I will not tolerate fights, drunkenness, or gambling. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Jack said.

“Then get it done,” Stephens said. Jack saluted and

departed.

He had an hour before the LST was scheduled to depart. The first thing he did was to find any other officers and senior enlisted men. These he had organize the rest of the men into groups of a dozen or so. Some of the officers and NCO’s were reluctant, even wondering why the hell the boys couldn’t have a good time their last few hours before landing in hostile France, and Jack really didn’t have a good answer. Rank, however, ultimately prevailed, and they did what Stephens ordered.

By the time he accomplished this and was satisfied that the mass of men in the hold of the LST were under at least a semblance of control, darkness had fallen and they were actually pulling away from Dover.

Stephens approached him on the upper deck by the railing. He had descended from Olympus to deal with mere mortals, Morgan thought.

“Good job organizing the men, Captain. I know I was short with you, but we were running out of time and I needed things under control. The English Channel is not one hundred percent safe from the krauts. I’ve made a number of trips like this and I haven’t lost a man yet and I don’t want to start now.”

“Understood, sir.” Perhaps the little man wasn’t such a jerk after all.

“You know what LST stands for, Captain?”

“No sir.”

“Large Slow Target,” Stephens said with a hint of a smile. “It actually stood for Landing Ship Tank, its original purpose, and it’s evolved into a very useful all purpose vessel, but it does make a hell of an inviting target.”

He explained that the thirty-eight-hundred-ton LST had a top speed of a mere twelve knots, and Morgan doubted she was doing anywhere near that. Other ships, including more LST’s were making the trip and were visible as shadows in the night.

“Usually we carry supplies to the beaches. This is my third trip with unorganized replacement troops, Captain, and the first two were miserable experiences. The soldiers are going into war and they bitterly resent the fact that my sailors will head back to England and safety, hot meals, and maybe even girlfriends once they’ve dropped them off. This resulted in fights and vandalism. Two of my sailors were stabbed during the last trip and I am now trying to head that off by having you enforce discipline. A number of soldiers got into fights when they decided they’d been cheated at cards, and a larger number got drunk on booze they managed to smuggle in, and a lot of them got sick all over the place. Are you getting the picture?”

“I guess this isn’t the
Queen Mary
,” Morgan said with a smile of his own.

“Not even close. I have to put up with a normal degree of mess and the fact that half of the soldiers will be puking over the rail in a little while is considered normal, but the other stuff will cease.”

To emphasize his point, a young soldier ran past them to the railing and heaved his guts over the side. Stephens actually laughed. “Another satisfied customer.”

Morgan made his rounds and saw that all was reasonably well, or at least under a semblance of control. The drunks were quiet and the card players were working seriously at losing their money, but so far without fighting. He walked to the railing and looked over at the Channel and the other ships, which were little more than silhouettes in the night. He saw something in the water. What the hell? A line of white was racing through the water and towards the ship.

“Torpedo!” he screamed and threw himself onto the deck in an attempt to protect against the explosion. The torpedo struck and the LST shook violently from the impact. Jack was drenched with water and debris. Men screamed and were thrown about. Already prone, Morgan was spared much of it. Still, his head smashed against something and his shoulder was painfully wrenched.

He managed to get to his feet. Soldiers and sailors were already pulling wounded from below. Morgan grabbed a sailor who was about to protest until he saw Jack’s captain’s bars.

“What’s going on down there?”

“Lotsa men trapped, sir, and water’s coming in like a bandit. You could drive a truck through the hole.”

Morgan fought his way down against a tide of men coming up. Water was filling the hold. Several bodies floated face down, mangled and clearly dead, but the dead weren’t his concern. The trapped and wounded were. He grabbed some men and had them start passing wounded up top. Most of the men complied, although a few were too scared to do anything but scream. These were useless so he let them scramble up the ladder and out of the way.

Morgan found a pair of men trapped under debris. They were unconscious and hadn’t been noticed in the darkness and confusion. Their heads were almost under water.

“Give me a hand,” he yelled. A couple of men started pulling while Morgan held the unconscious men’s heads above the rapidly rising water. One man was quickly freed and carried away. Smoke was coming from somewhere. He wondered if there was ammunition on board and whether it would explode.

The answer came seconds later and just when the second man had been freed. Small arms ammo began to pop off and fires began around him. Morgan suddenly realized he was alone. Everyone else had fled the fire and the rising water.

“Damn it to hell,” he said to the unconscious man. He draped the soldier over his good shoulder and began to climb slowly and painfully up to the deck while bullets whizzed and clanged around him. Several struck him, but with not enough force to do much damage. Finally, hands grabbed him and relieved him of his burden. He fell to his knees on the deck. He recognized a very young sailor as of the men who’d run away. “Sorry, I panicked, sir,” the young man said sheepishly.

Jack nodded and patted the kid on the shoulder. Being scared is one thing. Getting control and coming back forgave a lot. He knew a helluva lot about that.

Captain Stephens helped him to a chair. “You’re wounded.”

“I am?”

Morgan checked himself over and found a gash on his forehead that was bleeding all over his face, and a number of burns and bruises on his arms. His shoulder hurt. It might have been dislocated but it had popped back in.

“Hell, I never even noticed it.”

“I’d say you were too busy to think much,” said Stephens, who handed him a cup. “Medicinal brandy. I think you need it.”

Morgan took a swallow and felt its warmth spread through his stomach. Stephens was definitely not a prick. “We going to sink, sir?”

“Nah. My men are plugging the hole and the pumps are working. We’ll be low in the water, but we’ll make it. Fire’s being put out, too. That was never a major threat. Bad news is that we’ve got more than a dozen dead and three times that many wounded. So much for my perfect record. Most of my crew were scared shitless for a bit, and that includes yours truly, but we’ll make it to shore.”

A medic slapped a bandage on Jack’s forehead and wiped the caking blood from his face. “That’s good to hear,” Jack said.

Stephens grunted. “Oh yeah, welcome to France.”

CHAPTER 2

BEFORE HE COULD LEAVE the damaged vessel, Jack was questioned by an American rear admiral about the mine the LST had hit. When Jack insisted that he’d seen torpedo tracks, the admiral had sternly rebuked him. “It was a mine, Morgan. The krauts do not have subs in the English Channel. Do you understand that, Captain?”

When Jack persisted, Commander Stephens had grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. “Captain, do you recall the story of the emperor’s new clothes, the invisible ones?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you are under navy jurisdiction now and the official line is that there are no U-boats in the Channel. If you persist, the navy will send you to someplace north of Iceland for the duration of the war plus eternity while they pretend to sort this out.”

Jack had a sudden epiphany. He informed the navy brass that, darn, maybe he wasn’t certain it was a torpedo. After all, what did a bomber pilot know about torpedoes and mines?

The investigation quickly ended and Jack was free to go. Stephens again collared him. “If you’re feeling bad about that little lie, don’t. It’s not like it’s going to change anything and it might just help protect our guys if the Nazis don’t know that their U-boat attack was successful. Regardless, the dead are still dead, and the wounded still hurting. Oh yeah, thanks for helping out.”

Jack agreed. Except for the navy’s ego, who the hell cared what the truth was?

The Americans had taken Cherbourg, but the Nazis had blown up everything and destroyed its usefulness as a port. Repairs would take months, which was why the LST had to land on the beach in the first place. Nor had the LST been able to get terribly close as it had taken on a lot of water and everyone who was able to had to wade. The wounded and the dead were taken off by small boats or by medics who waded out with stretchers, but the majority of the soldiers, Jack included, had to walk through cold water that sometimes came over their waists.

The residue of war littered the beaches of Normandy. Burned out tanks and trucks and crushed German emplacements were everywhere as mute testimony to the battle that raged only a few days prior.

As a soggy Morgan walked across the sandy beaches, he had the unpleasant thought that he was treading on dead soldiers who were lying just underneath his water-soaked boots. This, he decided, was hallowed ground, like Gettysburg. He felt inadequate walking there.

A little farther on, the sight of temporary graves did nothing to dispel this feeling and a growing sense of inadequacy. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He should be flying bombers, not walking in sandy muck.

He knew the answer, of course. He’d frozen at the controls of his plane and the copilot, a mere trainee, was forced to land it for him. This happened after seeing one of his friends blown to little pieces when his bomber had crashed and exploded on landing. Jack first thought he could handle it, but he’d been wrong. Thus, he no longer flew bombers and was sent from Kansas to England and now to France. Who needed a pilot who wouldn’t fly? Who would ever trust a pilot who froze up? Funny, but he thought he was over his collapse and could take the controls again, but it didn’t look like he’d get the opportunity anytime soon.

Man-made thunder rumbled in the background as a constant reminder that the Germans were still very close to the beaches at Normandy. Even though the perimeter had expanded eastward, German artillery could still hit many targets inside the perimeter.

He trudged on. His clothing and boots were soggy and he was shivering from the cold, even though it was summer. Soon, he found the tent city that was the replacement depot. It was a confused sea of humanity, all dressed in olive drab. Literally thousands of men were arriving and departing to new units. Morgan was first sent to a clinic where he received some stitches in his forehead along with a fresh bandage. The medic assured him it made him look heroic. Jack told the medic to go screw himself, which the medic thought was hilarious. His bruises and scratches were treated and he was assured that his shoulder was fine but would pain him for a while, which was something he’d already figured out.

He’d recovered his duffle bag, but much of the contents had been ruined by salt water. This meant standing in long lines to get replacement uniforms and equipment. Fortunately, all his personal and official papers, along with his orders, had been in a waterproof envelope. A GI in England had made that suggestion and it turned out to be a damned good one.

The replacement depot was outside the ruined town of Trevieres, a place that would have been unlovely even if it hadn’t been shelled to pieces during the invasion. Jack found a cot in a tent assigned to officers and settled in to wait. He was told not to unpack. He would be out and on his way the next morning. He lay down and wondered if he’d be able to sleep. It proved to be no problem.

Early the next day and after a shower and a bland breakfast, he found himself waiting with a bunch of other officers, most of whom were young and fresh-faced second lieutenants. They looked at him with a degree of wonder.

“Morgan, John C., Captain,” came the call.

Jack walked over to the table where a staff sergeant named Sweeney awaited. “Here are your orders, Captain. You will report ASAP to the 74th Armored Regiment. Grab your gear and a Jeep will take you to them.”

“Armor? You sure, Sergeant? I’m a pilot, not a tanker.”

The sergeant shrugged. “This came directly from the major running this place. He said the 74th requested a captain and you’re the only captain here right now. Congratulations.”