Phoenix Project by Robert Blanchard

Author:Robert Blanchard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World War II, Historical Fiction, Action Acventure, Luftwaffe, Science Fiction
Publisher: Robert Blanchard
Published: 2014-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

8

Southeast Austria near the Swiss boarder, Winter, 1944

The wind speed coupled with the increasing snowfall made it difficult to concentrate on avoiding the 20-meter-tall pines flashing past the glass canopy of the Fi-156 Fieseler Storch observation-and-light-transport aircraft. The rudder swung left as the rest of the control surfaces flailed around, trying to keep the plane’s wings level through the turn. At its controls, Lieutenant Ditter Von Ludger fought against the gusting winds as he banked hard once more, avoiding a majestic pine.

The SS general sitting in the back seat directed him to fly even lower, as the forward vision diminished. Ditter didn’t like to be told how to fly, but the general was right. The night was fast approaching and the visibility quickly faded with every passing minute. By flying low he could keep an eye on the countless granite boulder tops peeking out through the snow-covered stream that followed the valley below. According to the general, this stream would eventually lead them to a runway.

“Wir sind aus zehn kilometer,” said his passenger.

“Schließlich, 10 kilometers left,” Ditter whispered under his breath as he banked the Storch. It was dangerous for him to fly so low in an unknown area, but it was exhilarating at the same time.

He shivered as he adjusted his body on the seat. “Verdamnt, it is cold!” Ditter’s body had yet to acclimate itself to the frigid Bavarian winters from his time serving in Africa and the Mediterranean. He had served with the Wüstennotstaffel rescue squadrons in the North African Theater and flown more than 100 wounded men, two at a time, throughout an intensive battle, before his injuries sustained in that encounter earned him the Knight’s Cross. That accomplishment alone gave one of those wounded men, who was now his commander, the idea to reinstate him to another, and much safer, post.

Ditter had been sitting with a few Messerschmitt pilots earlier in the week when he saw the plane carrying his present passenger do a ground loop after its main gear had collapsed on landing. The SS passenger was physically shaken, but like most SS soldiers, he took it with a grunt and continued with his High Command orders.

He was at the wrong place at the wrong time when his commander volunteered him to fly the general the rest of the way. The flight itself wasn’t the worry; it was the military non-disclosure papers he’d had to sign that concerned him most. The papers stated that he was to remain silent as to his destinations. He was not to solicit information to or from other officers, and he was to remain as the general’s pilot until final release papers were signed from the High Command.

At worst, Ditter thought, he would have to put up with the Nazi general for a while; at best, he was not in the line of fire anymore. Either way, he was flying.

Ditter picked out the runway before the general called it out, but the increasing wind and low visibility would make landing a challenge.

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