Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [288]
“Yes, sir.”
“Beaver!”
“Sir?”
“What did you do for Fassberg today?”
“I sent them a Shmoo this morning.”
When Beaver was out of sound-wave blast, a WAF secretary brought in a little plastic Shmoo and set it on the general’s desk. The note tied around its neck read: “My name is Buff (Morgan) Shmoo and I have been presented to the boss by his devoted staff. I am guaranteed to triple housing procurement, break the bottleneck at Burtonwood, prevent fog at Tempelhof, predict the weather with unerring accuracy. I am a nice Shmoo and I desire only to serve humanity.”
“Where in the hell has the Navy been?”
“Taking care of the Air Force wives!”
Two Navy squadrons of Skymasters arrived, flush with spare parts, wealthy with mechanics, and stuffy with a pride that told them they could put more tons down in Berlin than any squadrons in the Air Force. Now a fleet of two hundred Skymasters forged the Air Bridge with a hundred more of the British.
A huge new transport, the C-74, arrived in Germany with twenty tons of spare engines! An engine Lift began directly from the States.
Globemasters and other new transports came to be used in flying special loads of heavy and bulky machinery. They brought in a dozen new generators for the Western Sector power plant.
Multimillion candlepower, high-intensity lights were installed extending from the center line of the Tempelhof runway through the St. Thomas Cemetery. EVEN THE DEAD CANNOT SLEEP IN PEACE FROM THE AMERICAN AGGRESSION, cried People’s Radio.
Superb new beacons and ranges lined the corridors; radar control became absolute; ground-controlled approaches in Berlin gave a promise that this was the miracle to beat ... General winter.
An army of transportation on the ground kept the rhythm of movement from mines and ports and depots and railheads and marshaling yards to the ready lines at the air bases in uninterrupted tempo.
New tie-down straps, new weight charts, new communication systems ... loading crews could empty a ten-ton trailer into a Skymaster in twenty minutes. In Berlin, unloading crews could unload ten tons in fourteen minutes.
A direct coal line ran from the Ruhr mines to the sacking plants at Hanau to the air bases at Celle and Fassberg. Mobile weather and operations trucks now briefed the pilots at planeside to cut down turn-around time.
Mobile canteens fed them at planeside; mobile maintenance trucks cured minor ills; turn-around time in Berlin was whittled to a mere thirty-two minutes from touch down through unloading to takeoff.
The immense weather-gathering data centers funneled in data and weather forecasts were changed every half hour. At Gatow in Berlin a method of using the canals to carry the coal by barge to the power plant cut out trucks and saved thousands of gallons of gasoline.
At Great Falls in Montana, MATS laid out an exact duplicate of the Berlin corridors where new crews were trained. Skymasters were loaded exactly as they would be at Fassberg, Rhein/Main, Y 80, Celle. They flew the Montana countryside along beacons and ranges duplicating those in Germany. They landed by GCA around beacons and at glide angles that matched Tempelhof, Gatow, and Tegel in every detail.
On Air Force Day in 1948 the Combined Airlift Task Force set down 6800 tons of coal in Berlin. The next day a special Lift of shoes, blankets, and warm clothing was flown in. Fifteen thousand children were flown out by the British to foster homes in the zones.
There were tears and smiles at Tempelhof. The people of Berlin showered the flyers with gifts that ranged from family heirlooms to trinkets made by school children.
As the first tests of winter were upon them, the American President announced that sixty more Skymasters were coming to Germany! The might of the American nation and the audacious British fortitude had been molded into the most magnificent use of the military in a time of peace.
It rolled now with unstoppable momentum from the engine build-up plants in Texas and California;
from the Materiel Centers around America;
by the Sealift, Marine X;
by the engine