east and hope that the German advance hadn’t blocked that particular route out. A faint hope and one that exposed his guns to risk of capture, the one thing he was under strict orders not to allow. It was a situation that deserved something better than a single damn.
The ASTAC Major entered the command car and Perdue explained the situation briefly. “So, Tovarish Major, is there any chance of repairing that bridge? If not, can we get out by retracing our steps and heading out east then North? Failing those two options, what can we do?”
“The bridge? It is destroyed. We cannot repair it. According to the partisans, the central pillars and the far side piers have gone. We would need to build an entirely new bridge; it will take weeks. As for going back, that also is impossible. There is nowhere to turn the trains around and to go backwards so far, with such a load as we have, we cannot do this.” Boldin stared at the map. “But there is one alternative, very risky, very dangerous; but open to us.”
“Better than giving up and blowing up our guns here.”
“Indeed so, Tovarish Commander. But when I said very dangerous, I am not joking. You see this ridge that runs along here, parallel to us, you can see it to our right. That ridge has deposits of low-grade coal in it. Not good coal, but useful. So, before the War it was decided to dig new mines in that ridge to recover the coal. Two such mines were dug here and here. “ Boldin’s finger tapped the map at two points a few miles in front of the trains. Points on almost opposite sides of the ridge.
“And to get the coal out, they needed a railway siding. One for each mine. Don’t tell me there’s a tunnel through the ridge at that point. Where the mines join?”
“Sidings yes, both sides of the ridge. There is no tunnel through the ridge. If there are points where the two mines join, there almost certainly are, a simple safety precaution, they would be man-sized only. Not big enough for great trains like these. But, the two sidings are joined by a line that goes over the ridge. We can take the trains along one set of sidings, over the connector and out by way of the other set. That will take us out onto this line here. We can head east along it, then north along here to rejoin our original route at this point here.” Boldin’s finger tapped out the route.
“That seems to be ideal.” Perdue paused. “There’s a problem isn’t there? We can’t be this lucky.”
“There is indeed a problem. The mines never produced good quality coal and when the war started, all the available equipment was concentrated on the mines that could. These particular mines were closed, their equipment taken away for use elsewhere. We would have taken up the railway lines as well but there was not time. The Hitlerites advanced so fast we never got the chance. So the lines are still there, but they have not been maintained since 1941. Four years of winters and summers, of snow and ice forming then melting. They will not be in good condition, those tracks.
“There is another problem. The tracks were built in the years of the great purges. The engineer was told to get the cross-ridge line completed by a specific date. A party congress perhaps or somebody’s birthday, who knows? Now the original design was to run the rails up the side of the ridge, keeping the slope to a minimum, about three percent, then turn the tracks through 180 degrees on the level ground at the top of the ridge them bring it down the other side. Only there was not enough time and not enough track. So rather than complete the job late and run risk of liquidation, he took some short cuts. The slopes up and down are much steeper than they should be. So much so that the coal trains had difficulty managing them and there were some accidents. To take these great guns along those tracks…” Boldin shrugged. “It may be possible. It is our only way out.”
Perdue thought the problem over. “There are sidings both sides of the ridge?”
“Yes Tovarish Commander.”
“So we can try this. We will take the guns to the foot of the ridge and the mines there. We will park the guns in the siding and use both locomotives to pull the carriages over to the other side. The diesel shunter should be able to manage without help. Then we use both locomotives to bring each gun over in turn. The problem will be coming down the other side. Will it be possible to turn the train around so that we can have the gun in front of the engines, that way they can act as a brake? Then we can assemble all the trains in the sidings the other side of the ridge, sort ourselves out and be on our way.”
Bolding thought carefully. “I think this may work yes. Your Mikados are powerful engines, this I know.” Then he smiled brightly. “Tovarish Commander, you are very determined to save your guns, yes?”
“Very much, Tovarish Major. If I lose another one, the Navy will take the cost out of my salary.”
“General LeMay to see you, Sir.” Naamah made the introduction without giggling over the ‘sir.’ In the anarchistic environment preferred by those who worked on Project Dropshot, the word was rare indeed.
“Curt, it’s good to see you. How goes SAC?”
“My B-29 bomber crews are getting shot to hell in Russia. The new groups are short of planes, pilots, equipment, everything we need. Apart from that its going well.”
“That bad? I thought the D-models were rolling off the lines now.”
“They are. And most of them go straight into modification centers to have faults fixed or be modified. I’ve got groups out there with three serviceable aircraft. The 100th has been operational since October, on paper. In reality, it’s got twelve bombers out of the 75 it’s supposed to have. We’re flying the birds around the clock; one crew brings them in, another takes them out. I have to tell you, that’s putting a lot of hours on the airframes that aren’t too strong to start with. Don’t sweat it though. We’ll get the crews ready, it’s the planes that worry me.”
“We can treat the D-models as a training cadre. The first really operational ones will be the E-ships. When they start arriving we’ll be converting the Ds to tankers.”
“Glad to hear it.” LeMay paused for a moment. “Look, Phillip, it isn’t really that bad. The B-17 program was worse and the 29 production problems were even more chaotic. You remember what happened with my first B-17 group?”
Stuyvesant shook his head. “Not from the inside, no.”
“December 1941, we were supposed to be based in Iceland. We’d packed up to go, our ground echelon, all our spares, baggage, tools, everything was on its way to Iceland. Then they start to talk about sending us to Hawaii as an emergency deployment instead. Can you imagine, 35 B-17s suddenly arriving at Hickam without any of the thing needed to keep them flying? Disaster. Only thing worse would be arriving in the middle of an air raid. What the hell caused that flap anyway?”
“Never got to the bottom of it Curt. The Japanese were up to something. For a while, it looked like they were going to hit all ways at once. Phillippines, Dutch East Indies, Malaya and Singapore, you name it. Some of the radio intercept guys even suggested the Japs might pound on Pearl. Then suddenly, it all went away. The Japs stood down and poured their military power into China instead. They’re still there, making headway, and we’re turning a blind eye because the supply line to Russia runs right under their nose.
“Well, nobody told us that; just that orders for the Pacific were coming down. I had to get the whole group out of the zee-oh-eye before the orders to they arrived. At least we haven’t had that with our big birds. If Consolidated can get the production sorted out, we’ll be ready. We’re ready now if we really have to be. We can put about a 150 birds up for a strike. Some of them are older and slower than the rest but they’ll still give the krauts hell. You give us the packages, Phillip, and Consolidated the birds, we’ll take their whole damn country off the map.” LeMay shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other. “So, how’s your side of the planning going?”
“Pretty good; we’re refining the target list now. Looks like around 200 targets for optimum. Fewer than that, we leave bits of the war machine working. More and we just start rearranging the rubble. I want to hit some targets, Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg, with more than one device. They’re political targets. We wipe them off the map to make a point. Other targets are going to need at least two devices. They’re hardened targets like shipyards and certain factories. So, I’d say somewhere between 220 and 260 devices. You’re still planning three-plane sections?”
“Right. We’ve been trying all sorts but that seems to be the best for the big bird. We can position them so all the approaches are covered by gunfire from the turrets.” LeMay shifted his pipe again. “Spent a couple of trips up there myself, talking the birds into position. It works, if we need it to. Might not. You hear about Paul Tibbets’ experiment?”
Stuyvesant shook his head.
“Boeing stripped a B-29B right down; took out all the guns except the tail mounts, all the armor, everything not strictly needed for flight. Even took the arms off the seats. Tibbets took the lightweight bird up to 30,000 feet
