Armageddon - Leon Uris

A bottleneck had developed at the two-hundred-hour interim overhaul at the new base at Obie. This two-hundred-hour inspection meant the training of hundreds of Germans and the loss of thousands of flying hours. Stonebraker wanted to eliminate the Obie Base and the two-hundred-hour overhaul, but both USAFE and MATS were against him. He returned to his office to receive a call from Clint Loveless, who had just gotten in from his latest trip, this one to British Headquarters on the possibility of setting up a jointly run operation at their fields at Celle and Fassberg. The British had more fields than planes to fill them, was closer to Berlin, and more Skymasters were coming into the American Zone than their two fields could handle.

Clint went to the general’s office and was startled at first sight. The general seemed to be chalky-colored. He showed Clint the message on the navy engines. Clint blew a sigh of relief.

The general called in his aide, told him to phone M.J. and say he would not be there for dinner, and told his aide to get something to eat for Colonel Loveless and himself.

“Clint. This hundred navy engines won’t be enough. I’m meeting with USAFE tomorrow to try to cut out the two-hundred-hour inspections. I want you to support my position.”

Clint pondered. The Skymasters were being asked to do a job for which they were never designed. All the manuals no longer applied.

The chief pilots had worked out methods to get the greatest efficiency with the least wear through absolute power settings and by cutting down ground-idling time.

Yet, the repeated stress of take-offs with heavy loads and high manifold pressure had resulted in piston erosion. The high usage of craft simply played hell on combustion chambers and there was excessive wear on seals, gaskets, ignition wiring.

Hydraulic systems, particularly the gear-retracting mechanism, were overworked and the coal and flour cargoes eroded cables, wires, contacts, plugs, instruments, radios.

There were breakdowns on the long, delicate nose wheel, never designed for the unusual poundings they were receiving in the many take-offs and landings; fuel leaks were a constant source of headache.

The two-hundred-hour overhaul meant they needed greater logistical support, would have to find and build up 30 per cent more spare parts, find facilities and train aircraft and engine mechanics far beyond the capacity of the base at Obie.

Clinton Loveless and Hiram Stonebraker knew that in the unromantic, poorly lit, drafty hangars, mechanics torn from families and living in muddy tin-hut camps were going to make or break the Airlift.

It was the one problem that could never be solved, only appeased, for the Lift demanded the greatest maintenance and logistics operation in aviation’s history.

“What about it, Clint?”

“I’m sorry, General. I can’t support your view. We have to continue the two-hundred-hour overhaul.”

Stonebraker knew he was whipped. His own staff would not back him on this issue. The Obie Base could only work during summer and autumn and there was no base in Germany that had the facilities to do a two-hundred-hour overhaul in winter. It meant that a wartime British base would have to be reactivated and the C-54’s would have to fly out of Germany.

The dinner came. General Stonebraker ate at his desk, Clint on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“You’ll have to go to England, Clint. Some MATS people will be looking over bases. I have the old Burtonwood Base in mind. Let me know if we’ll be able to get it into shape quick enough.”

“When do I go, sir?”

“Well ... you might as well take a day off tomorrow.” He nibbled at his food and asked Clint how the cooperation with the British was shaping up. Clint said, no strain. The general knew the British would come through from the old CBI days. With joint American/British bases operating soon in Fassberg and Celle and running nothing but coal perhaps they could build up the precariously low reserves in Berlin.

Lieutenant Beaver knocked, entered. Stonebraker ran through his papers, studied the cartoon for the next day’s Task Force Times. It depicted Airman Kimacyoyo (Kiss My Ass, Colonel, You’re on Your Own) at a desk marked, DEPENDENTS HOUSING PROCUREMENT. An exploded cigar had blackened his face and the caption read: “I Told You it was a Thankless Job.” Hiram snickered as he initialed an okay. The cartoon would burn up Buff Morgan.

He studied the incoming VIP list. Beaver persisted that one of the journalists was a “must see.” There was a British Cabinet Minister to be escorted on an inspection of Y 80 and also a French general.

“Frigg the French. They’re not doing a goddamned thing for the Airlift.”

“They fly the flag in Berlin, sir, and we’re intending to lay down an airport in their sector.”

“Any more of your goddamned friends coming in here to interfere with this operation, Beaver?”

The next week Vice President Alben Barkley was due and Garry Moore was scheduled to put on a show at the requisitioned Opera House.

“Where the hell are the Howgozit figures?”

Beaver produced a slip of paper taken from the Control Center with figures listing by squadron the number of flights and total tonnage. It was a terrible day. They had only set down six hundred tons when the weather put the Lift out of business.

His face grew long. How do you whip the weather? He thanked Beaver quietly and dismissed him.

A phone call came on the red line from Chip Hansen in Berlin. Buff Morgan had taken the air-space beef to him. Stonebraker refused to back down; Hansen said he would try to smooth USAFE’s ruffled feathers.

“Crusty, I just got the figures on the new airfield.”

“How many barrels of asphalt?” Stonebraker asked quickly.

“Ten thousand.”

Stonebraker grunted.

“And Crusty ... the Magistrat appealed to Neal Hazzard today. The hospital inventories are dangerously low. We are going to have to get several thousand tons of emergency drugs and supplies in immediately.” At last, Chip Hansen sent his regards to M.J.

Stonebraker set the phone down slowly. “We have to fly in ten thousand barrels of asphalt,” he said to Clint.

Clint wanted to cry.

“What the hell, Clint. No matter how rough we have it, it’s ten times rougher on those people in Berlin.”

Stonebraker pulled himself out of his chair. He reeled back suddenly, falling against the wall, groaned from a terrible pain in his chest, sunk to his knees, then began to crawl back to his desk.

“General!”

“Clint ... top ... drawer ...”

Clint found a box of nitroglycerin tablets. Take One in Case of Attack. He administered the pill, laid a cushion beneath his head, loosened his collar, and went back to the phone as the general writhed and gasped for breath.

“No ... no ... phone ... lock ... door ...”

Clint wavered. The general’s life hung in the balance, yet with pain-wracked effort it had the sound of an order. Clint set the receiver down, and locked both entrances.

The general groaned and broke into a cold sweat, and then it subsided. Clint wiped his face with a damp rag.

The general clutched his wrists. “You keep your mouth shut about this.”

“It’s not worth your life, General. We’re not going to make it, anyhow.”

“Goddamn you, Clint! Goddamn you! Don’t let me ever hear you say that again.”

Chapter Seventeen

A FLIGHT SURGEON, SWORN to secrecy, left the general’s suite after assuring M.J. and Clint that he was resting well.

Clint remained shaken and M.J. tried to comfort him. “His seizures come and go. It is something we have to live with and I made up my mind a long time ago we weren’t going to live in fear.”