John Katzenbach: Hart’s War

The few times that Trader Vic wasn't making some trade, Bedford would launch into grandiose and idyllic descriptions of the little town he hailed from, always delivered in the soft drawl of the Deep South, slowly, lovingly. More often than not, the other airmen would tell him they were all moving to Greenville after the war, simply to get him to shut up, because talk of home, no matter how elegiac, prompted a homesickness that was dangerous. All the men in the camp lived on the edge of one despair or another, and thinking of the States did no one any good, though it was almost the only thing they did think about.

Bedford watched the ferret move away, then turned and whispered something to the next airman in formation. It only took a few seconds for the news to pass through the group, and on to the next formation.

The trapped men were named Wilson and O'Hara. They were both prominent tunnel rats. Tommy Hart knew O'Hara slightly; the dead man had occupied a bunk in their hut, but in another room, so he was merely one of the two hundred faces crammed into the barracks. According to the information being whispered down the rows of kriegies, the two men had descended into the tunnel late that past night, and were busily trying to shore up the support beams when the soft ground had given way around them. They'd been buried alive.

And, according to the information Bedford had acquired, the Germans had decided to leave the bodies of the two men where the ground had collapsed in on them.

The whispered talk quickly gave way to voices starting to be raised in anger. The formations of men seemed to take on a sinuous sort of life, as lines straightened, shoulders were thrust back. Without command, men snapped to attention.

Tommy Hart did the same, but not without a last glance down the lines of men to where Trader Vic was standing. He was struck by what he'd seen, and unsettled slightly, by something elusive, that he could not put a word to.

Then, before he had time to assess what it was that had disturbed him, the captain from New York shouted out: "Killers!

Goddamn murderers! Savages!" Other voices from other formations picked up the same message, and the air of the compound filled rapidly with bellows of outrage.

The SAO stepped to the front of the formations, and turned and stared at the men with a glare that seemed to demand discipline, although his own anger was evident in the cold gray look in his eyes and the rigid jut to his jaw. Lewis MacNamara was old-time army, a full bird colonel with over twenty years in uniform, who rarely needed to raise his voice and was accustomed to being obeyed. A stiff man, who seemingly saw his imprisonment as just another in a long line of military assignments. As MacNamara assumed a parade rest facing the kriegies, his legs slightly apart, his arms held tightly behind his waist, a pair of goons snapped back the bolts on their weapons, an act of mostly menace, but with just enough determination that the men in formation hesitated, and slowly quieted.

No one truly thought the goons would open fire on the massed airmen.

But no one was ever completely certain of this.

The camp commandant, trailed by a pair of aides who walked gingerly through the mud in their polished riding boots, have into view, which prompted some whistles and catcalls, studiously ignored by Von Reiter.

Without a word to the SAO, the commandant addressed the formations loudly.

"We will count now. Then you are dismissed."

He paused, then added.

"The count, it will be two men short! Idiocy!"

The airmen remained silent, standing at attention.

"This is the third tunnel in the past year!" Von Reiter continued.

"But it is the first tunnel to cost men their lives!" The commandant was shouting, his voice infected with frustration.

"Further escape attempts will not be tolerated!"

He paused, then stared across at the men. He lifted a bony finger and pointed like a wizened schoolteacher at an unruly class.

"There has never been a successful escape from my camp!

Never! And there will be none!"

He paused, his eyes sweeping over the assembled kriegies.

"You have been warned," he concluded.

In the momentary silence that swept across the formations of men,

Colonel MacNamara stepped forward. His own voice carried the same weight of command as Von Reiter's. His spine was rigid, his posture a portrait of military perfection.

That his uniform was frayed and ragged seemed oddly to underscore his taut bearing.

"I would like to take this opportunity to remind the Oberst that it is the sworn duty of every officer to attempt to escape from the enemy."

Von Reiter held up his hand, cutting off the colonel.

"Do not speak to me of duty," he said.

"Escape is verboten "This duty, this requirement, is no different for the Luftwaffe airmen being held by our side," MacNamara loudly added.

"And if a Luftwaffe flier died in his attempt, he would be buried by his own comrades, with full military honors!"

Von Reiter frowned, started to reply, then stopped. He nodded his head, just slightly. The two men stared hard at each other, as if struggling over something between them. A tug-of-war of wills.

Then the commandant gestured for the SAO to accompany him, and he turned his back on the gathered men. The two senior officers disappeared from the kriegies' sight, marching stride for stride in the direction of the main gate, which led to the camp offices. Instantly, ferrets appeared at the head of each block formation, and the airmen began the familiar and laborious process of being counted. Midway through the roll call the kriegies heard the first deep, thudding explosion, as German sappers placed charges along the length of the collapsed tunnel, filling it with more of the sandy yellow dirt that had choked the life from the two tunnel men. Tommy Hart thought there was something wrong, or perhaps unfair, in enlisting to fly in the clean, clear air, no matter how deadly it could be, only to die alone and suffocating, trapped eight feet beneath the earth. He did not say this out loud.

The tunnel coming out from 109 had been concealed underneath a washroom sink, and after going straight down, had taken a sharp right turn, heading for the wire. Of the forty huts in the compound, 109 was second closest to the perimeter. To reach the safety of the dark line of tall fir trees that signaled the edge of a deep Bavarian forest, the tunnel diggers were required to burrow more than a hundred yards through the dirt.

The tunnel had made it less than a third of the way. Of the three tunnels dug during the past year, it had traveled the farthest, and had the highest of hopes attached to it.

Like virtually every other kriegie in the camp, by midday Tommy Hart had walked over to the deadline and stared out at the remains of the tunnel, trying to imagine what it must have been like for the two men trapped beneath the surface. The sapper's charges had left the earth churned up, grass streaked with muddy brown dirt, cratered with depressions where the explosions had caused the tunnel ceiling to collapse. A guard crew had poured wet concrete into the tunnel's entranceway in Hut 109.

He sighed loudly. There were two other pilots, B-17 men wearing heavy sheepskin coats despite the mild temperatures, standing nearby, taking in the same elusive vista.

"It doesn't seem all that far," one man said, with a sigh.

"Close," his companion agreed, muttering.

"Real close," the first pilot said.

"Into the forest, through the trees, find the road to town and you're in business. Just gotta make it to the station and a rail line heading south. Jump some old freight train destination Switzerland and you're on your way. Damn. Real close."

"Not close at all," Tommy Hart disagreed.

"And too damn obvious from the North tower."