Roaring Thunder A Novel of the Jet Age

Chapter One August 27, 1939, Marienehe, Germany The turgid waters of the Warnow River lapped at the stone-covered beach, the gentle gurgling muffled by the dense fog spreading its tendrils deep over the grassy flying field. A thousand yards away five men worked feverishly in the yellow light billowing from the "Special Project" hangar doors, checking the small, almost dainty aircraft they had just rolled out. Cautiously, as if they were handling a live bomb, they wrestled the plane into a 180-degree turn so that the odd circular hole at the end of the fuselage pointed out toward the river. Fritz Obermyer sat on the edge of the Fiat Toppolino's tiny running board, his 120 kilograms of muscle and fat tipping the car, suppressing its springs, and sending the glow of its headlights at a cockeyed angle. Obermyer drew deeply on the stub of a cigarette, felt its warmth flare beneath his nose, then carefully dropped it beside him, grinding it into the tarmac with his foot. He nudged his companion and pointed. "Look at him. When he came here three years ago, a little snot-nosed graduate student from Gottingen, I thought he was crazy." Gerd Muller, short, lean, and wiry, stretched and laughed. "You tried to give him a hard time, Fritz, but he drove you crazy being polite. No matter what you saidor what you wrote on the wall in the latrinehe never lost his temper." As Frontsoldaten, they were accustomed to discomfort and waiting, and the long hours spent at the field meant nothing to them. Obermyer had left the Berlin Institute of Technology to volunteer for the army in August 1914. Now he was nominally a machinist foreman in the new plant building the Heinkel He 111 bomber. A forceful personality, he had used an artful combination of his engineering training and his Nazi Party connections to become accepted as an aide to Ernst Heinkel himself. Heinkel was at first quite resistant to the idea but over time, as Obermyer's talents became obvious, welcomed his assistance. Heinkel found that he could depend upon Obermyer to know what was happening on the factory floor, in the long rows of drafting tables, and in the local Nazi Party headquarters, usually long before anyone else was aware of it. The information was often invaluable, and within a few months of his employment, Heinkel looked upon Obermyer as an indispensable political divining rod. Muller was an excellent machinist but had been attached to Obermyerat his insistenceas an assistant. The arrangement suited the plant management, who saw Obermyer and Muller as agitators. They were glad to have them off the factory floor and worried each time Obermyer came through, acting as if he were the local feudal lord, gathering information and dispensing favors. They, like Heinkel, knew better than to protest. The firm was already at odds with the government, and everyone wanted to avoid any further difficulties with the Nazi Party. When Obermyer suggested that he be attached to the Special Project organization, Heinkel acquiescedthe more sensitive a project was, the more hazardous it was to raise a political issue. Obermyer could intimidate most people with a glance; stone-cold gray eyes gleamed from his cruelly scarred face, and he walked as he had for four years in the trenches, bent over, moving with a menacing hunched step that made it seem as if he was about to leap on his prey. Yet he was also an able humorist, able to prick egos with the little two-line poems he wrote on the mirrors of the noisome latrines of the Heinkel Aircraft Works factory. He wasn't always malicious but was usually apt, and the workers waited as eagerly for his latest poem as some of them might wait forBoyne, Walter J. is the author of 'Roaring Thunder A Novel of the Jet Age', published 2006 under ISBN 9780765308436 and ISBN 0765308436.