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American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0705 29 October 1945
When he’d gone to bed, Cronley had had a very difficult time falling asleep. His mind insisted on replaying—over and over—everything that had happened in the past ten days. But eventually, at about one in the morning, fatigue had finally taken over.
When the telephone rang, he was in a deep sleep, and he took a long time to awaken and reach for it.
“Twenty-third CIC, Lieutenant Cronley speaking, sir.”
“That’s Captain Cronley, actually,” the voice of Colonel Robert Mattingly informed him. “You might wish to write that down.”
“Sorry, sir. I was really out.”
“Well, rise and shine, Captain Cronley. A new day has dawned. Duty calls.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get dressed, have a shower
, a shave, and a cup of coffee. Then go out to the road. Order the jeeps sitting there blocking it to move off the road. Whereupon, the road will now resume its covert role as a landing strip. With me so far, Captain? Or do you wish to find a pencil and paper and write this all down?”
“I’m with you, sir.”
What the hell is going on?
“Within the hour, an aircraft will land on the road. You will get in said aircraft and do whatever Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, who will be piloting the aircraft, tells you to do. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. What—”
“It would behoove you to treat Colonel Wilson with impeccable military courtesy, Captain Cronley. He has the reputation for being a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch. Speak only when spoken to. Do not ask questions. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went dead.
—
Forty minutes later, Captain Cronley—having showered, shaved, and donned a fresh uniform—stood at the end of the road that, in a pinch, could be used as a landing strip for light aircraft. The two jeeps, both with pedestal-mounted .50 caliber Browning machine guns, which had had the dual mission of protecting the compound perimeter and blocking the use of the road as a landing strip, were now half in the ditch beside the road.
Cronley heard the sound of an aircraft engine, and just had time to identify it as the Argus 240-hp air-cooled inverted V8 engine of a Fieseler Storch, when a Storch appeared. Not from above, but from below. It had to pull up before the pilot could lower the nose and put his gear down on the road.
Kloster Grünau sat atop a hill in what Cronley had decided were probably the foothills of the Alps.
Jesus, this guy must have been chasing cows around the fields!
The Storch, which had U.S. ARMY painted on the fuselage and the Constabulary insignia on the vertical stabilizer, slowed quickly and stopped just past where Cronley was standing. It turned and taxied back down the “runway” to the end—where the road curved—where it stopped again, turned again, and stood there with the engine idling.
Conley realized that the pilot, the lieutenant colonel whom Colonel Mattingly had described as “a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch,” was waiting for him, and probably impatiently.
He trotted down the road, rehearsing in his mind what he was going to do now: come to attention, salute (holding the salute until it was returned), and bark, “Sir, Captain Cronley, James D., reporting to the colonel as ordered, sir!”
He got as far as coming to attention and raising his hand in salute when he saw the pilot’s face. Cronley instantly concluded that the crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch lieutenant colonel wasn’t flying the Storch.
The guy in the front seat had the bright unlined face of a newly commissioned second lieutenant.
He looks younger than me. He has to be a second lieutenant.
Cronley dropped the salute, walked up to the aircraft, put his foot on the step on the main gear, hoisted himself up into the cockpit, and said with a smile, “Hi, where’d you get the Storch?”
