North Reich (55 page)

      
So if Hull goes, then who?
 
He had originally thought to replace him with Ed Stettinius, but affable Ed was too much of a back-slapping lightweight.

      
Jim Byrnes had wanted the spot, but the ambitious Byrnes had also wanted to be vice president, replacing the deceased Wallace. He’d been bitterly disappointed when Roosevelt had chosen Harry Truman instead.
 
Byrnes might just refuse outright and that would be embarrassing for his administration.
 
He’d also thought of General Marshall but that man was too important for the war effort, especially with the invasion of Ontario just on the horizon.

      
What truly galled him was the fact that the Secretary of State was almost a figurehead in his administration.
 
FDR very much liked being his own secretary and that would not be acceptable to strong men like Marshall, although a glad-hander like Stettinius might like it.

      
“Shit,” said the president.

      
“Sir?”

      
Major General Edwin, “Pa,” Watson, his senior military aide and confidante was seated across from the president.
 

      
“I’m thinking and swearing out loud.
 
I need someone to replace Hull at State until the inauguration in January when Harry Truman becomes the new vice president.
 
That assumes,” he said with a loud laugh, “that I defeat Tom Dewey in November.”

      
“Of course you will, sir.”

      
Roosevelt did not respond to the obvious flattery.
 
Watson was a war hero who’d been awarded the Silver Star in World War I, but that was a long, long time ago.
 
Now the nickname “Pa,” which he’d picked up at West Point seemed very appropriate.
 
Watson had become careless.
 
He’d been accused of leaving highly sensitive information lying about which had resulted in both him and Roosevelt being kept ignorant of important matters until the matter had been cleared up.
 
Being kept out of the intelligence loop had infuriated Roosevelt when he finally found out about it, but he recognized that Watson had become slipshod.
 
Perhaps he too should be replaced?
 
No, he decided.
 
He needed a confidante in his office.

      
Suddenly, it occurred to him.
 
“Truman!”

      
“What?”

      
FDR laughed hugely.
 
“Yes.
 
I will make Harry Truman my new Secretary of State.
 
That way he will be a viable number two until our election and inauguration at which time he can resign the post and I can appoint Stettinius without hurting anything.
 
Isn’t that marvelously devious?
 
Not only that, Truman has a reputation for being a blunt chap, so I will use him as a messenger to read the riot act to Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.
 
He will tell them in no uncertain terms that they are not to interfere in any way with the food convoys.”

      
Watson smiled appreciatively.
 
FDR loved being devious.
 
“Does this mean that Truman will be more involved in decision making and other major matters?”

      
Roosevelt looked puzzled.
 
“Why?”

The rumbling of artillery was a reminder that their days of inaction were running out.
 
Literally thousands of pieces of artillery had opened up on the German defenses running the length of the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

      
The United States was finally going to invade, even though Canfield thought it was a slapdash operation.
 
It was dogma that any attack on a hostile shore required naval support and heavy bombardment to succeed.
 
Even though the gunfire along the river was enormous, the shells were landing nowhere near where the attack would commence.
 
The shelling of Canada along the river was a diversion.
 
Canfield hoped to Jesus that the Germans would fall for it.
 
He also hoped that not too many Canadians were dying as a result of it, but were there any other options?
 
The enormity of the operation meant that it was impossible to keep a secret.
 
German spotter planes routinely flew overhead, radioing in their information and taking pictures.
 
Some were shot down but there were always enough brave souls to take up any slack.

      
Canfield rode in the cab of a truck leading a long column of vehicles, all headed towards Lake Erie.
 
There he had the first of a number of surprises.
 
Hundreds of landing craft of all types and sizes were arrayed on the beaches to the west of Buffalo and on the lake.
 
Some could carry a platoon of infantry, while others a tank.
 
Long columns of soldiers snaked towards them while other soldiers functioned as traffic cops and guided them to their proper craft.

      
Dubinski looked around in disbelief.
 
“If this works, it’ll be a first.
 
There’s just too many people for this to all go right.”
 
He looked at his watch.
 
“Hell, we’re already half a day late.”

      
Canfield totally agreed, but kept silence.
 
He would not let anyone know his doubts.
 
They were supposed to have arrived just before dawn, but now it was after noon.
 
They were supposed to have mounted up and gotten across the short portion of lake to their goal, the tiny Canadian village of Port Maitland.
 
Two divisions of infantry, all under the command of Lloyd Fredendall were to land and move inland with a third in reserve.
 
It would land in a day or two.
 
This would put more than fifty thousand men in the rear of the two German armies.
 
The Germans would either have to withdraw from their strongpoints along the Niagara River, or weaken their defensive forces and attack Fredendall’s corps.
 
Germans to the west facing Patton would also be threatened by the enemy in their rear.
 
If all went well, they could strike a decisive blow in the liberation of Canada.

      
Of course, Canfield thought, when did things go well?
 

      
Many of the landing craft did not have the range to get to the site and back.
 
They would be towed by larger ships, many of which had artillery parked on their decks, making them look a lot like old men of war from the days of fighting sail.
 
Nobody cared.
 
Just as long as they worked and kept the Germans’ heads down.

      
When the landing occurred, the artillery would be loaded onto the smaller boats and taken ashore.
 
Additional infantry were stuffed in the holds of the transports.

      
After several more hours, they got on their landing craft and the boats moved out in long lines, all pulled by a civilian transport ships.
 
Some of the troops commented that it looked like a mother duck and her ducklings, while others changed the pronunciation of duck to something more appropriate.

Fortunately, the lake was calm with waves of only a foot or so.
 
Despite that, many men jammed in Canfield’s Higgins Boat got seasick.
 
Most were able to vomit into the lake, but a few didn’t make it which sickened the rest.
 
As befitting his rank, Canfield stayed close to a good spot and managed to hurl his meal into the water and not onto his troops.

      
He was concerned that the tiny craft was practically unarmed, with only a pair of .30 caliber machine guns for protection, along with whatever weapons their leading transport carried.
 
American warplanes flew overhead, but there was always the possibility that a kraut plane could sneak through and strafe the helpless column, turning boatloads of men into bloody pulp.

      
Targets on land were in range of the converted gunboats and their artillery opened up on the dimly visible shore.
 
Flashes of light and smoke showed where the shells hit and, seconds later, the sounds washed over them.

      
“It’s gonna be dark soon,” Dubinski said with a mastery of the obvious.
 
“What the hell we gonna do then, chief?”

      
Canfield gasped and spat over the side.
 
He’d been reduced to dry heaves.
 
“When the general wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”

      
To himself he wondered which would be worse - floundering around all night in the middle of Lake Erie or trying to find their landing site in the dark and maybe winding up miles from their target.
 
Nor did he feel envy for the men in the holds of the transports.

      
The answer came soon enough.
 
There would be no nighttime landing.
 
The landing craft lashed themselves together to provide some stability while their mother ship dropped anchor.
 
The men were cursing and Canfield joined them.
 
They would spend all night bobbing up and down and puking.
 
They would be in fine shape to fight the Germans tomorrow.
 
Worse, this would provide the Germans with another twelve hours in which to react.
 
Damn it to hell.

This had been First Lieutenant Ted Landry’s second attack from the sea, which is what he facetiously called Lake Erie, and, for a paratrooper, was at least two too many.
 
He’d been taught to jump out of airplanes, not slither through sand and mud, although, as a Ranger, he was trained to do both.

      
All of his men had made it ashore, a far cry from the terrible feeling he’d felt just before the attack on the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia when he realized that one of his men was missing.
 
He could barely remember the guy’s name.
 
Oh yeah, Laughton.
 
The poor man’s body had never been found, not that there was much of an opportunity to look very hard.

      
His small company of seventy men was about ten miles inland. They’d landed stealthily and without incident, using rubber boats powered by outboard motors that had been towed by PTs.
 
He’d been able to report back that the area around Port Maitland was, as expected, largely undefended.
 
He also reported that there were no large enemy concentrations inland either.
 
Apparently the Germans were focused on the Niagara River line, which meant that a quick thrust by the invading GIs could put an entire army in their rear.
 
But it would not happen this night, he concluded sadly.
 
The bombardment had begun too late, although he wondered just what were they bombarding since there were no German defenses for several miles to either side of the target area.

      
It occurred to him that maybe the Germans thought the coming attack was a feint.
 
He hoped it wasn’t.
 
He and his men were primed and ready.
 
Landry also felt that Port Maitland, just a speck of a town, wasn’t a bad place to land as it was connected to civilization by a network of well-maintained dirt roads.
 
One led towards the Welland Canal and Buffalo, while another twisted north to Hamilton.
 
A quick and strong move towards Hamilton might just cut off the entire German army at Niagara.
 
Other roads led west towards the Nazi’s lines, but the Germans were too far away to be an immediate concern.

      
Landry’s company was arrayed in the fields on both sides of the road leading to Hamilton, which was somewhat larger than a speck at ten thousand souls.
 
He doubted that more than a couple of hundred people lived in Port Maitland.

      
As darkness fell, he felt that an opportunity to dash into the German army’s rear had been wasted.
 
He just hoped that his men’s lives weren’t going to be wasted.

      
“Company’s coming,” yelled one of his lookouts.
 
His men scrambled to their positions.
 
They were dug in and well concealed by growing crops of wheat and corn.

      
A short column of five vehicles moved down the road.
 
The first vehicle was a four passenger Kubelwagen, the German equivalent of a jeep.
 
The other vehicles were General Motors trucks that had clearly been commandeered by the Germans and painted with Wehrmacht markings.

      
Landry’s men were on either side of the road and arrayed in a shallow V.
 
He used his walky-talky to communicate his plans to his second in command on the other side of the road.