Where Eagles Dare

The secret Confederate weapon proved to be not so much of a secret. The clamor that Manget had caused in collecting his alcohol had been more than enough to alert US intelligence to the danger. It did not take them long to figure out why the Confederacy wanted so much alcohol and this news was presented to the President not long after word had been received about the victory in South Africa. Roosevelt was livid about what he exclaimed to be a conspiracy by his own military to hide relevant information but, it does not appear that any such conspiracy existed. The President had to be updated on so much, every day, it was virtually impossible for many of the intelligence analysts to know what was important and what was not. It was only after a retaliation, for the fire bombings, seemed likely that some mid level officer at Fort Lincoln decided the information was important enough to forward.

Very few at Fort Lincoln were aware that their own military was working on a counter to the Zeppelin raids. This would go a long way towards explaining why some at Fort Lincoln were almost ignoring the warning signs they were getting. They had no idea that the US was not only going to attempt to use a ground breaking new weapon but, had already done so. This was ironic in that, most of the counterparts of the US intelligence officers, down in Richmond, already knew all about the US airplane. They had received multiple reports from the air flotilla, about this new weapon. The CS officers were not impressed.

The Langley project, in Wichita, had found that building a working model was only the first of many steps required. Despite their success, they soon discovered that getting one of their planes off the ground was only the start of the process. Turning that vehicle into a workable weapons system was an entirely different matter and, it was also, one that they had given almost no thought to at all.

The first true combat aircraft, in world history, primarily the Wright Flyers models six and seven, suffered from any number of deficiencies. When compared to the capabilities of the Sky Trains, they were decidedly inferior. Zeppelins had now reached the point of almost inter continental flight. Their ceilings were growing with every new model that came out of the factories, as was their bomb load capabilities. Many of them were also being equipped with machine guns in order to defend themselves against the chance encounter with an enemy Zeppelin, although, none had been needed as of that time.

In comparison, the very first combat airplanes had almost no real range. They also had problems just getting off the ground. Most of the six and sevens were launched from catapults that had to be transported and built on sight. In a moving war this is very much a disadvantage that will sink your attempts before you even get started. The airplanes, also, could never hope to match the altitudes of the Zeppelins. The dual engines were not powerful enough, the frames were too delicate, and the pilots were limited to altitudes where there was enough oxygen to breath. At the time this was seen as irrelevant because they all knew that the six and seven’s would never get that high anyway. Even if they could, it would take too long and the Zeppelin would be gone long before the plane reached it’s target altitude.

While the CSA had yet to build a zeppelin that could reach the altitudes where a breathing apparatus was required for the crew, the Germans already had and it was only a matter of time before the CSA would follow suit. Even so, in November of 1901 the primary concern was with speed. The Germans had also built Zeppelins that were fast enough to outrun the top speeds of the WF-07. Fortunately the US planes were not going up against the Germans but, even so, some of the newer Confederate Zeppelins were fast enough to narrow the window required for a successful interception. This was a serious factor but, so was the fact that once you reached the enemy airship, you had to be able to damage it enough to bring it down. There did not seem to be a way to do this.

Oddly enough, the solution would come from the most unexpected of sources and this was, once again, Woodbury Cane. He had no knowledge of the airplane project but, he was in constant communications with Theodore Roosevelt who did. Cane wrote extensively of John Browning and his revolutionary rifle. Roosevelt was impressed that Cane was impressed and, so, the President actually ordered some of his Secret Service men to track Browning down. As it turned out, the man had set up a shop in Connecticut and had already hand produced nearly thirty weapons. That was roughly the number of planes that had been built and Roosevelt saw this as almost divine providence. Then he ran into his usual problems.

As it turned out, there were many inside the US War Department that knew all about Browning. This included Roosevelt’s new Secretary of War, William McKinley, who had more than a few suspicions about Browning because the man was a Mormon. This little faction had friends in congress and every time Roosevelt tried to appropriate the funding to employ Browning and build these new rifles, he was met with one road block after another. Roosevelt finally gave up and employed the tactic he was coming to like, he ignored these men. Roosevelt was not trying to equip a division with these rifles and, as he realized, he only needed the ones that already existed, so, he paid for them out of his own pocket.

The weapons were delivered to Wichita and Browning came with them. He trained the men who would use them and every weapon was field tested. Since they were all hand made prototypes, they all worked beautifully and seemed to be exactly what was needed. They were relatively light weight, put out a lot of firepower, and were easily re-loaded. It did not take long for Langley’s people to figure out how to mount them on the frames of their vehicles. It was also one of the easier problems they had to deal with. Marksmen were a dime a dozen and easy to find. The WF-06 and 07 were two man vehicles and the guy who would shoot was only half the crew. It was the other half of the team that was the true problem.

To say that Langely had a shortage of pilots was an understatement. The airplane was brand new and there simply were no pilots at all. To make matters worse, there was almost no one who would volunteer to be one either. Still, in a nation with a population of the size of the US, he was able to scrape together enough people who would give it a go. I say people here, and not men, because nearly half of those who volunteered were women. Five of them would eventually fly combat missions. Four of them would die in the process while the last one would go on to become famous.

After Langley had his pilots he had the problem of training them, although, strangely enough, this would be much less of a problem than in later years of air warfare. The fact was that if you do not have any pilots to begin with you are also lacking for people to teach them as well. The entire pilot training program, personally overseen by the Wright Brothers, barely deserved the name. They made it up as they went and a lot of what the pilots eventually wound up doing were techniques they developed on the job, while being shot at.

Luckily for the US, about the only real skill these first pilots required was being brave enough, or foolish as some have claimed, to go up in these machines in the first place. Despite the popular images conjured up in movies, that were filmed decades after the event, these early attempts in air to air combat were more akin to a slow speed police chase as compared to some daring war of fancy acrobatics. Most of the pilots only needed to do one maneuver and that was climb as fast as they could. The first attempt at an interception was in late August.

Given the lack of interception and the disposition of anti-aircraft artillery, Confederate zeppelins followed very predictable flight paths and usually at the same altitudes. The raids on Chicago were picked for a test and for no other reason than it’s proximity to Wichita. It was known that the Confederates were using the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers as a navigational point and were usually quite low when then they did. The ramps for ten of the WF-06’s were built in the area and then, they waited for the next raid to materialize. The results would be almost comical if it were not for the loss of life.

As it turned out, the single most dangerous element to the attempted interception was after the combat part was over. Half of the deployed aircraft were destroyed trying to land. Two of the aircrews were killed and almost all of them were injured, including several who landed their planes successfully. For the bill, they accomplished very little. The Confederate Zeppelins did the US Air Force one favor in that they were loitering in the area, waiting for other airships, when the attack occurred. The airplanes did nothing to encourage them to leave and, according to at least one log, the Confederate air crews found the entire thing amusing.

Most of the aircraft never reached their targets. We now know that the one plane that did manage to get in range of an airship, did hit it’s target. At the time it was thought otherwise but, Confederate records clearly indicate that they found multiple bullet holes in the airframe. Had anyone in the US known this at the time it is possible they would have abandoned the entire project. They scored a direct hit and nothing happened as a result. Still, Langley had obviously considered this possibility because, even before the first attempt, he was inquiring about special munitions, of the type used by anti-aircraft. These were the new, hi tech, tracer rounds. Due to Roosevelt’s efforts, Langley did eventually get a few cases and this would prove to be fortunate.

The fledgling US Air Force would also get several more opportunities to prove it’s worth. The pilots were gaining some experience and subsequent interception attempts would produce fewer casualties of both aircraft and crew. They would also fail completely in stopping Confederate bombers. The Confederate aircrews took to calling the US planes, ‘gnats,’ which was a completely annoying but otherwise harmless insect that was common in the deep south. That was pretty much their attitude about this airplane. They seemed to be completely harmless and, most of the time, the Confederates did not even bother shooting at them. The best defense the Zeppelins had was simply to fly higher and this seemed to eliminated any potential threat.

The new fire raids, aimed at New York, proved to be an unexpected blessing in disguise. Roosevelt was already feeling the heat over the airplane. The multiple attempts at stopping the zeppelins had been a very expensive disaster and many were using this to counter the influence that Roosevelt had enjoyed ever since he moved into the White House. These were closed door discussions, however. The public had yet to really hear about this but, all of that would change when the first Confederate fire raid dropped it’s load on downtown Manhattan.