Wernher Von Braun was a bright young man when the Nazi military first got hold of him. They pumped money into his research and he was a Nazi party member; however, the Americans managed to look passed this as it could not be proven that Von Braun ever believed in the Nazi ideals.
The rocket scientist was arrested by the dreaded Gestapo when he was an SS member for his careless remarks about the war effort. This is when he decided to surrender to the US in Bavaria.
Robert Miller took Von Braun back to the US under ‘Temporary, limited military custody.’
Miller and his team found a few scattered and charred documents in the depths of the Owl mountain base. They could not get anything of interest from these documents apart from the name ‘Die Glocke’ which means ‘The Bell’ in German and that is was some kind of device made out of a metal alloy.
Robert Miller interrogated Dr von Braun on his arrival in the US. Unfortunately for Miller and his superiors von Braun genuinely knew nothing of this secret device apart from the name of the scientist that led the project. His name was Walther Gerlach and he had once sent von Braun the solution to a problem with the V2 rocket exploding in flight.
Miller and his agents looked high and low for Walther Gerlach but after an exhaustive search, they could not find a trace of him. They surmised that the good scientist was dead and closed the file.
For fifteen years after the end of World War II, Wernher von Braun worked on the US ballistic missile programs. He thought he had swapped one hell for another. In 1950 the brilliant scientist felt his most depressed as he moved to Redstone Arsenal Alabama where he designed the Redstone and Jupiter missiles. Finally, as time went by he worked on the Jupiter C and Juno II rockets.
Dr. Von Braun become a family man during this period of rough transition, he also found religion and strangely for an ex-SS member he became an Evangelical Christian. When the 1960’s came Wernher could finally smile again; he thought privately that salvation had found and accepted him as he became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He began his work on space travel in earnest and the Saturn rocket was born.
Robert Miller and his team continued to research all of the Nazi super weapon programs that they could. They managed to capture another coup during the last 1950’s when a secret operation in Chile brought them former SS Commander Hans Kammler.
Kammler had fled Germany in a U-boat and traveled to South America after the war. The crafty old war criminal had kept secret copies of top-secret weapons documents from Nazi Germany; it was his insurance policy just in case the day came where he was identified and captured. He sang like a bird to the American authorities and in return, he was granted complete anonymity and a new life in the States.
The world moved on from the threat of Nazi fascism; the two great superpowers fought over the ideals of Capitalism and Communism. Conflict never ended but it was not Europe that was the main problem it was instead Asia where the Americans chose to make a stand against Communism.
Wings of Gold
The red and white jet with the striking United States navy colors rolled aggressively left, the pilot concentrated hard as he fought the powerful g-forces acting over his body. A voice crackled over the radio as the pilot of the second T-2 Buckeye training jet told the lead pilot his position. They dived towards the deck at a fighting speed.
The T-2 Buckeye as it was known from 1962 is a two-seat trainer jet with a large cockpit, rather stubby wings, and a large underbelly; despite this it could still comfortably reach 522 mph.
The two young pilots were in the final stage of land-based training before they could go onto aircraft carrier training. The lead pilot was just twenty-three years old; he pulled hard on the controls to level the aircraft out. The two training jets flew just above the dusty desert floor. The engines blew up a whirlwind of sand and dust.
“Alright, that’s good enough for today, time to return to base lads.” The first planes trainer ordered.
The two jets banked left and raced to the base. Both planes kissed the tarmac runway in the rapidly fading orange glow of the late evening sun. The young pilots chatted excitedly as they were escorted to the debriefing room; their instructors gave nothing away but the feeling was they were ready for more advanced jets.
It was the 8th January 1965 and the United States had not yet officially entered the Vietnam War, it would be another three months until the first fighting forces waded ashore at China Beach. They would meet with a bizarre fan fair that included sightseers, South Vietnamese officers and a large group of Vietnamese girls.
The young pilot was ecstatic after his debriefing and had raced to his living quarters to ring his mum; she did not answer though. He laughed to himself as he thought ‘Probably hosting her book club again.’
He had a quick shower and a shave. He then studied himself in the mirror; his deep blue eyes studied every inch of his deeply tanned face. His jet black hair was cut really short. The young man was 6 ft tall and 11st 8 of pure muscle; he had been trained hard over the last few years.
A picture tucked into the bottom corner of the mirror frame caught his eye, the black and white image was of a man in a crisp white navy uniform and aviator sunglasses wearing a huge grin on his face, while his young son was sat smiling on his shoulders.
“I hope you would be proud of me dad? Ma has told me so much about you, how you were larger than life… I wish I could remember you.” The young man said as he brushed his fingertips over the image.
The Man in the photo was Staff Sergeant Brooklyn Johnson who had been tragically killed in his P-51 Mustang over Europe in 1944 when his son Brooklyn junior was only just three years old.
Brooklyn Junior was now twenty-three-years-old and was a proud Aviation Officer Candidate (ACO); he had just finished his bachelor’s degree and was now a commissioned Ensign. Brooklyn Jnr was proud to be following in his father’s footsteps to become a naval aviator. Johnson’s family had never understood why a decorated naval pilot was transferred into the US army air force and was completely devastated by the news of his death.
Brooklyn Jnr had been developing well since his admission to the AOCs program and had successfully passed the high standard of training in the turboprop two-seat T-28 Trojan at the Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida.
The decision was made; Brooklyn Jnr and his fellow students were going to the next stage of training where they would get to grips with the more explosive Grumman F-11 Tiger fighter and then the famous F-4 Phantom that was going to be used so extensively in the looming conflict in Vietnam.
Fireball
A large, brilliant fireball streaked across the sky on a cold winter’s day. The fireball flew rapidly over six separate states after it crossed the Canadian border. Hot metal debris dropped down over Michigan and Northern Ohio; forest and grass fires bloomed.
A large sonic boom crashed over Pittsburgh that managed to wake the sleeping Chief of Police. He lazily looked out the window as more sonic booms rang out and he caught a glimpse of the object speeding passed at an astonishing pace; calls started to come in about the object.
The local media were quick to calm people’s fears that the object was not a plane crashing or more concerning an AWOL missiles test. A locally respected scientist made a television appearance just after 17:00 hours, explaining that the object was clearly a small to mid sized meteor that was burning up in the atmosphere. He explained in a dreary monotone voice that the small bits had burnt up causing the grass fires and by the time the meteor reaches the ground it will be so small that it will cause minimal damage.