As he lay bleeding, fading slowly, he saw standing over him the new FBI Special Agent in Charge, Eliot Ness. Ness had been brought out of retirement in Cleveland and recruited into the FBI, to command the Chicago office’s Special Intelligence Section. His mission was hunting down the communist cells in his hometown. “This is for my men you murdered last night, you bastard!” And the Colt .45 jumped in Ness’ hand…
The missile was in pristine shape. It was found in a field in France near Toulouse. It apparently fell to earth after expending its fuel chasing after an encounter between Soviet fighters and some RAF bombers over the Pyrenees. It had taken nearly a month to make the 100 km or so through the fighting in the Pyrenees and finally onto the BB-64 USS Wisconsin on station off Perpignan covering and anchoring the East end of the Pyrenees Line. Deep in the bowels of the great ship a laboratory had been set up and Jeff Montgomery had been flown in from the states. Jeff was the premier expert in the US stable of weapons specialists and was particularly knowledgeable in regards to the German version of the X4 air to air missile. And now he had his hands on an actual Soviet version.
His hands trembled at the thought of actually dissecting the object of his dreams that had eluded him for the past 3 months. He was about to discover what the worlds experts could not. Inside this metal streamlined bullet shaped object held the secret of how the Reds had done what the experts said could not be done. What was the guidance system that had baffled the British experts? Every jamming scheme had been tried and nothing had worked. They had even sent up a raid just to test out various inventions and nothing had worked. They had lost 6 bombers in that one.
So far the Soviet missile look very similar to its German cousin. It was larger and had a rounded nose with what looked like a large tinted dome. It seemed to be made out of the same material that aircraft canopies were made of but tinted so he could not see inside. So they are using optics was his initial thought. Some kind of television camera system or something similar he wildly guessed. If it was anything like the German version he had to work from the middle of the rocket in disassembling the unit and eventually getting at the guidance system.
He noted that the Soviets has switched to a solid propellant rather than the caustic liquids used by the Nazis. He had heard that they were moving in that direction as well. Luckily the war had ended. Come to think of it maybe it wasn’t luckily. The Reds or the God Damn murdering Krauts. Nice choice of who should be using these guided bullets. Concentrate you idiot.
“Sam bring me the long tweezers and a wire cutter and hold the flashlight for me!”
What the hell is this?! That isn’t usual on these…
“A little to the left Sam. Thanks.. that’s better. While I’ll be a son of a bitch they have booby trapped this thing! Well I supposed that makes sense. I guess I would too.”
“Stop messing with it then Jeff. You’re not a bomb expert! Close it up and we’ll get an expert in here to disarm the thing.”
“I didn’t travel half way around the world to stop now.”
“Commander get in here this idiot is going to try and DISARM THIS THING!”
“SHUT THE HELL UP SAM!”
“STAND DOWN NOW!”
“Aw shit… I mean yes sir.”
“Now step away and explain the situation.”
It took another two days for the bomb expert to arrive. It took him another 3 hours to disarm the small bomb contained within the missile. It was designed to explode when the panel was opened and it had failed to arm itself. Luck was with Jeff Montgomery and Sam that day. Despite getting dressed down Jeff was still the guidance expert.
Finally after cooling his jets in confinement aboard the battlewagon for a few days he was allowed to get back to work. The disassembly went fairly quickly and then disappointment. He had removed the unit that contained the guidance system and there it was. The same old Kehl-Straßburg FuG 203/230 that had guided the Fritz X bomb![33] How in the hell could this old system be ignoring the jamming put up by the best electronic experts in the US and Britain! How can this piece of shit ignore physics!? He sat there staring at what he considered an antique for what seemed like hours trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He was totally confused and without any kind of explanation or answers. What was he going to tell… well anyone? He had hit the lowest point in his life after anticipating the highest. He just didn’t get it. How were they doing it? His mind went blank and he again sat there in silence until he was physically shaken by Sam.
In a small bunker near the Soviet Army area HQ
Two men sat by lantern light drinking vodka, not their first of the night.
“Well Dmitri how goes the disinformation campaign?”
“The stupid Frogs and Amerikosi have only discovered and smuggled out one of the missiles so far. They are amazingly incompetent. We almost caught them with that one as well. A last minute call was required to allow the fool NATO spy to get through the checkpoint. Yuri was keeping track of their progress when they bumbled straight into a checkpoint in Limoux. He had to quickly find a phone and distract the guards so the fools could continue on. I just don’t see how they were able to catch every German spy sent to England with such fools as agents.”
“Maybe we are just so much better or they are so bad. It certainly makes one wonder.”
“Anyway we have planted fully a dozen of the decoy missiles and that was the only one they have found and tried to smuggle out. I had heard that the vaunted British experts that figured out some of the wars greatest works of espionage actually got most of their information from a group called MI 19. All they did was to record captured German conversations, overhearing many of the secrets that they claimed to have figured out. An example would be the electronic beams the Germans were using to guide the bombers to their targets. The so called Battle of the Beams was actually just based on an overheard conversation caught on tape at some prison full of German Generals housed in a mansion. Luck if you ask me is more like it. But then again what is most of this business but luck.”
“So what is the end game in this project of yours?”
“The decoy missiles contain various antiquated German systems for guided bombs. It should drive the NATO pigs crazy trying to figure out why their jamming efforts have no effect. It defies physics as they know it. Maybe it is a bit of subterfuge to confuse the issue and it could help to cause them to reject the real system if they ever get their hands on a working model.”
“Maskirovka at its best…”
“Maskirovka at its best indeed, Dmitri.”
The wheel bearing on the right rear inside tire of the tank transport trailer started to heat up within 15 minutes of the day’s first hour. A crack had allowed the lubricant to leak out as the bearing got hotter and after another 30 minutes it had seized. The co-driver saw the smoke coming from the trailer and warned the driver. The driver cursed a blue streak as he maneuvered the heavy tractor trailer and its cargo to a wider spot in the road. He knew if he stopped the convoy for anything but death he would indeed end up dead. The other trucks and their cargos of Stalin’s Fire Wasserfall Ground to Air missiles pulled far over to the left to squeeze past the stalled M-19 and its cargo of missile launchers and their missiles. Each of the trucks and trailers along with others supported the dozen Wasserfal missiles in the battery.
33
Dawn of the Electronic Age: Electrical Technologies in the Shaping of the Modern World 1914-1945 By Frederik Nebeker