Griffin W.E.B.: Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

"Be so good, Herr Brigadefuhrer, to inform me of the time of the burial service. I would like to attend."

"Herr General, there are political ramifications of this unfortunate incident."

"You mean because he was flying the airplane when he should not have been?"

"I mean because he died fighting communism."

"I don't quite follow you, Herr Brigadefuhrer."

"I think the body should not be buried here," von Neibermann said. "It should be escorted to Berlin, and turned over to the Argentinean Ambassador. I would not be at all surprised if they wished to repatriate it."

Von Paulus said nothing. He waited, his face impassive, for von Neibermann to continue.

"There is enormous propaganda potential in this incident, Herr General," von Neibermann said. "This brave officer's unfortunate death at the hands of the communists could well serve to maintain—indeed, to buttress—Argentine sympathy for our cause."

"What exactly do you think I should do, von Neibermann?"

"I believe Captain Duarte's remains should be transported to Berlin immediately, by air. I have been informed that your permission, Herr General, is required for space on a transport aircraft."

"The transport aircraft are being used to evacuate our badly wounded," von Paulus said, thinking aloud. "And officer couriers."

"I respectfully submit, Herr General, that this is an extraordinary circumstance."

"Very well," von Paulus said, and raised his voice: "Von Steamer!"

Oberstleutnant von Steamer appeared almost immediately.

"Arrange for a priority for Brigadefuhrer von Neibermann to transport a body to Berlin..."

"For the body and myself," von Neibermann added. "I think under the circumstances that is appropriate."

And it will give you a chance to go to Berlin, won't it? And regale the Austrian Corporal and his henchmen with tales of your bravery at Stalingrad? Perhaps with a little luck, you might not have to come back.

"Do it, please, Willi," von Paulus said.

"Jawohl, Herr General," von Steamer said.

[THREE]

Headquarters, Company "A"

76th Parachute Engineer Battalion

82nd Airborne Division

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

1345 5 October 1942

Captain John R. McGuire, commanding Able Company of the Seventy-sixth, had not been told why it had been deemed necessary to demolish and remove from the site the World War I power-generating station. The stocky, muscular, twenty-four-year-old graduate of West Point had been informed only mat his company was charged with the mission.

The station was situated in a remote corner of the enormous Fort Bragg reservation on what was now a 105- and 155-mm artillery impact area. It consisted of several sturdy brick buildings, now gutted, and a 150-foot brick chimney. The rusting hulks of half a dozen World War I Ford-built tanks were scattered around it, as if protecting it. Most of these were half buried in the ground, and were also now showing scars where they had been hit by artillery.

The mission could be regarded in two ways: As a dirty, unnecessary job dreamed up by some jackass at Division Headquarters. In an artillery impact area, it would be just a matter of time until the chimney and the buildings around it were reduced to rubble. Or as an opportunity to give his men some realistic, hands-on training in demolitions and using bulldozers and other heavy equipment.

Captain McGuire elected to see the mission in the latter regard. He thus received permission from Battalion to delay the prescribed company training for five days, successfully arguing that it would benefit the men of his company more not only to practice their skills, but to become familiar with how other specialists performed their duties.

In other words, the entire company would watch the second platoon rig explosive charges on the chimney and the gutted buildings (these would be designed to knock the chimney down and reduce the massive brickwork to large chunks). Then the entire company would watch the first platoon, using air-hammers, reduce the large chunks of masonry to sizes which the third pla toon would then load onto trucks and haul away. During all of these operations, everyone would lend a hand, wherever possible; they'd all get their hands dirty. Finally, everyone would get a chance to watch the company's bulldozers scrape the area and turn it back into bare ground.

Since Captain McGuire thought of himself as something of an expert in the skills required for this project, he had given it a good deal of thought. In his judgment, it would take two days to lay the initial demolition charges. Using the available engineer manuals, he had precisely calculated the explosive needed to topple the chimney and shatter the brickwork of the surrounding buildings.

It would then take another two days, using both explosives and air-hammers, to reduce the chunks to manageable sizes, and a final day to load everything up, truck it off, and bulldoze the site.

He had kept this information to himself. In his view, the best way for his platoon-leading lieutenants to learn how to do something was to do it themselves—using the available manuals as a guide, of course.

Because Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi commanded his second platoon, he was charged with toppling the tower. After Pelosi surveyed the site, he came up with an Explosives Requirement that, in Captain McGuire's judgment, was woefully insufficient for the task.

Even so, McGuire decided to let Pelosi fail. When Pelosi blew his charges and the chimney and the buildings still stood, he would learn the painful and humiliating truth that he didn't know nearly as much about demolitions as he thought he did.

Pelosi's overconfidence was perhaps understandable. Very soon after he arrived in Able Company, Pelosi informed McGuire that in Chicago, where he came from, his family operated a firm called Pelosi and Sons Salvage Company; his father was one of the sons. McGuire instantly concluded that the firm was connected with used auto parts or something of that nature; but that did not turn out to be the case. Rather, the business involved the salvage of bridges, water tanks, and other steel-framed structures. The first step in the salvage process, Lieutenant Pelosi went on to explain, was knocking the structure down. This was normally accomplished by explosives.

While he was not arrogant about it—Pelosi was really a nice kid, who had the makings of a good officer—he was nonetheless unable to conceal his conviction that he knew more about explosives and demolition than anyone he'd met in the Army.

After Pelosi gave him his Explosives Requirement list, his more than a little annoying aura of self-confidence inspired McGuire to go back and recalculate the explosives necessary for the job. Recalculation confirmed McGuire's belief that all Pelosi's charges were going to do was make a lot of noise.

Captain McGuire's major problem with Pelosi, however, was not his misplaced self-confidence, but his application for transfer. McGuire was trying to be philosophical about it.

For one thing, he told himself, no officer is indispensable. Losses of officers, either through routine transfers or eventually in combat, were inevitable; and as commanding officer, he should be prepared to deal with them. For another, when a young, full-of-piss-and-vinegar second lieutenant, fresh from both Officer Candidate School and the Parachute School at Fort Benning (in other words, he had volunteered for both OCS and Airborne), saw a notice on the Bulletin Board soliciting volunteers for an unspecified military intelligence assignment—volunteers who were parachute-qualified officers fluent in one or more of a dozen listed foreign languages—it was to be expected that he would volunteer.

Lieutenant Pelosi was not quite old enough to vote; and, Captain McGuire was quite sure, he had not yet lost either his boyish enthusiasm or his boyish taste for adventure. He almost certainly saw himself parachuting behind enemy lines, Thompson submachine gun in hand, a la Alan Ladd or Tyrone Power in the movies. On the ground, when he was not blowing up Mussolini's headquarters, he'd spend his time in the arms of some large-breasted Italian beauty. (He was fluent in Italian; where else could they send him?)