Himmler's War (2011) by Robert Conroy

Author:Robert Conroy [Conroy, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Alternative History, General, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9781451637618
Google: IB_xtgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1451637616
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2011-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The trouble with landing a plane in a grassy field was that you were never quite sure what you were landing on. Morgan had dropped his plane quite gently into tall grass and been taxiing comfortably when the left wheel hit a rock, dipping the nose of the Piper Cub into the ground and breaking the blades of the propeller. Save for mortal wounds to their pride, he and Snyder were unhurt. The plane, however, would be hors de combat until someone scrounged up a new propeller and the mechanics determined whether or not the structure had been damaged.

As a result, Morgan was now an unofficial aide to Whiteside. Now piloting a Jeep, he kept his ears on radio traffic while his eyes took in the countryside. The American army was moving even more slowly than before as the Germans grudgingly gave up the remnants of French territory that remained in their possession. If they were fighting like devils for occupied France, he wondered how they would fight when the army crossed the border into the Rhineland, that large portion of Germany that lay to the west of the Rhine. It had been occupied by Allied armies in 1918, when Germany had been forced to give up the Rhineland as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis had taken it back in 1936.

Worse, the closer they got to Germany, the more armor and artillery the Germans seemed to possess. It made a kind of sense since German supply lines were shortening, but there were rumors of German troop pullbacks from the Russian fronts and that made no sense to Morgan or anyone else in the 74th. Of course, what the hell did they know about grand strategy in the first place?

With the presidential election only days away, there was a lot of talk about whether Roosevelt would be reelected for the fourth time. He’d been President for twelve years and many younger soldiers really couldn’t recall anybody else in the White House, while older ones recalled Hoover and the other idiots who preceded him and, in their opinion, caused not only the Great Depression but this fucking war.

For his part, Jack recalled the anxiety his parents felt during the Depression and remembered the sight of people waiting in long lines for free bread. At first people they knew seemed embarrassed to be seen getting handouts, but they soon got over it. Handouts beat the hell out of starving.

Jack’s family had come through the Depression poorer and possibly wiser, but not economically destroyed like so many others had. Some meals had been sparse and he’d gone a long time wearing worn out and patched clothes, but they’d never been bankrupt and never had to stand in lines for handouts.

Another halt and they piled out of their vehicles. Levin walked up. “You voted, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Helluva strange question to ask while standing alongside a column of military vehicles, Jack thought.

“Didn’t it feel funny, filling out a ballot in

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.