Both men recognized the irony that, with the Soviet Union's expulsion from the League in 1939, it meant that none of the world's major powers were members of the organization that was supposed to prevent wars by the time World War II broke out.
Hull smiled coldly. "Good. Now let's set some things straight. There will be no more incidents. You will keep the few E-boats you have, but there will be no additions. Nor will any other Nazi warships enter either the St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes. I hear rumors that a squadron of submarines is going to traverse to Erie and beyond. That, sir, will not be permitted to happen."
"I am not aware of any such plans,” Thomsen said truthfully. Berlin had kept him in the dark about many things, the German thought ruefully. Of course, what he didn't know he couldn't give away.
"Then send word back to Doenitz and Raeder and, hell, von Ribbentrop and Hitler themselves, that any such efforts will result in our sinking those ships the moment they enter the St. Lawrence."
"Sir, that would be an act of war," Thomsen gasped.
Hull smiled a wicked smile. "That, sir, would be for Germany to decide."
Chapter Six
Downing looked through his magnifying glass at the photo on his desk. Making the picture larger didn't change what he saw.
"Son of a bitch," he growled.
Tom Grant looked over Downing's shoulder. The photos had come courtesy of the OSS. One of their agents had taken them. Tom hoped the man was still safe. He then wondered if it might have been a woman.
The 8x11 black and white photos in question were of a German Type IX U-boat. It was sitting in a cove that the caption said was on Prince Edward Island. A freighter was alongside and men were swarming over the sub. Where there's one, there's likely others, Tom thought.
Lieutenant Commander Sid Wolverton, USN and their naval liaison, agreed. "The Type IX is their long range U-boat," Wolverton said. "Its range is in excess of twenty thousand miles, which means it can stay off our coast for a very long time, especially if it can be re-fueled and the crew can get food."
"What are they doing to the sub?" Downing asked.
"It looks like their trying to camouflage it, colonel," Wolverton answered. "If they disguise it well enough, they could slip it up the St. Lawrence."
Tom remembered his trek through Canada. "I'll just bet it can go through the Welland and on to Lake Erie and points north."
Wolverton grinned. He was about Tom's age and a graduate of Annapolis. "That's right. Depending on which variant of the Type IX it is, they go about two hundred and fifty feet in length and have a beam of about twenty-one feet. Beam is width to you landlubbers."
"Screw you," said Tom with a smile.
Unperturbed, Wolverton continued. "She draws less than sixteen feet, so that's not a problem although with a conning tower she's over thirty feet tall. She can do almost twenty knots on the surface and seven submerged. She has six torpedo tubes, four in the bow and two in the stern. That's the rear for you, Tom."
"Up your stern, Sid. Any more good news?"
"Yeah, they carry a four inch deck gun and any number and caliber of anti-aircraft guns. They have a crew of at least fifty. We think the krauts have a couple hundred of them and most of them are now off our coast."
Downing answered. "What do you think they will do with her when they’re done working on her?"
Wolverton rubbed his chin. "Colonel, my guess is that they are prepping her for going up the river and through the lakes. I think there are probably others being disguised as well. They might go up under their own power, or they might be made to look like a barge and towed. Either way, it looks like the Nazis intend to have U-boats in the Great Lakes."
"When?" asked Downing.
Wolverton smiled. "They may have to wait a while. The lakes and rivers are still pretty well frozen and something like a sub cannot work as an icebreaker. They may have strong hulls in order to stand underwater pressure, but they are not built to bull their way through thick ice. Hell, if they're not careful, they could easily get jammed in for the winter."
"That would be an utter shame," Grant said. “But couldn’t they go submerged once the river begins to clear?”
Wolverton conceded the point. "Yes, but I'd say they couldn’t make their dash until mid-March at the earliest. Right now, I'd also say they'd have a hell of a time getting any subs up the St. Lawrence and to Toronto, much less through the Welland and beyond. No, they are going to be there for a while. After they have been disguised, I think they'll be moved to Halifax and then up the river."
Tom shook his head. The delay was at least a bit of good news. Still, they had nothing to stop them within the Great Lakes. If they could make it through to Lake Huron, U-boats could hide in Canadian waters among the multitude of islands in Georgian Bay and attack the ore carrying freighters that brought iron ore to America's factories. If they went beyond the Straits of Mackinaw to Milwaukee, Green Bay and Chicago, they could devastate those areas as well. Even if they were stopped in Lake Erie, they could still hit ships off Cleveland and elsewhere. A handful of enemy subs could seriously hinder America's ability to build the materials of war.
Tom looked at Downing. "What are we going to do, colonel?"
"Perhaps arrange to kill them. I'm thinking you might just be going to Canada again, Tom."
General Heinz Guderian smiled affably at his host, General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim. They were at von Arnim's headquarters north of Toronto. Several inches of snow lay on the ground and both men were thankful that there had been sufficient time to build warm and comfortable quarters for the soldiers. Guderian approved that von Arnim lived in a house that, while pleasant, was not ostentatious. He was not one of those “chateau generals” who lorded over the common troops.
"I hope your trip was pleasant," von Arnim said and then laughed.
"You know damn well it wasn't. For two weeks I was stuffed in a cruiser, the Prinz Eugen, and then it took another week to get from Halifax to here. I still don't know why I couldn't take a plane from Halifax, instead of an armored train through Quebec."
Guderian laughed. "Actually, the trip on the Prinz Eugen was quite pleasant, and the captain set a marvelous table. And the train trip was equally enlightening. Even though I had a cabin, I was able to mingle a bit with the troops also making the journey. Good men. Still, I would rather have flown."
Von Arnim simply smiled. It had been explained to Guderian that, should his plane have to make an emergency landing in Quebec, it was entirely likely that he would be killed by Quebecois and his body never found. Von Arnim had considered having Guderian travel to Toronto by ship, but the river was iced up and that route was also dangerous.
“When I first arrived in the new world,” von Arnim said, “I disembarked at New York. A consular staffer drove me around the town and then I took the train to Washington. I was in civilian clothes, of course, and I had that consular guide for the simple reason that my command of English is execrable.”
“As is mine,” Guderian admitted.
“After seeing that Washington was pleasant and that New York was huge, my embassy guides chartered a plane and I flew to Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburg. I learned a lot. Their industrial might could easily overpower us.”
Guderian looked out a window, choosing not to comment. "For God's sake, where are we, the end of the world?"
Von Arnim poured cognac into ornate Waterford snifters and handed one to Guderian. It was a Remy Martin and quite old. "Quite possibly. I don't think anyone in Berlin has any idea of the vastness of North America any more than we did the enormous size of Russia. At least that bear is caged."