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  Copyright & Information

  V4 Vengeance

  First published in 2014

  © Nigel Seed; House of Stratus 2014-2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Nigel Seed to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2016 by Astor and Blue LLC

  Suite 23A, 1330 Avenue Of The Americas,

  New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.

  Typeset by Astor and Blue LLC

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN EAN Edition

  1681200570 9781681200576 Print

  1681200600 9781681200606 Kindle

  1681200597 9781681200590 Epub

  1681200589 9781681200583 Pdf

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's express prior consent in any form of binding, or cover, other than the original as herein published and without a similar condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser, or bona fide possessor.

  This is a fictional work drawn from the author's imagination and all characters (alive or dead), places, incidents, quotations, and events portrayed herein are either fictitious, or are used fictitiously at the Author's discretion and responsibility, including historical facts and intimate aspects of the lives of those mentioned, along with descriptions of the tragedies and mysteries surrounding some deaths.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Morecambe, England, into a military family, Nigel Seed grew up hearing his father's tales of adventure during the Second World War which kindled his interest in military history and storytelling. He received a patchy education, as he and his family followed service postings from one base to another. Perhaps this and the need to constantly change schools contributed to his odd ability to link unconnected facts and events to weave his stories.

  Nigel later joined the Army, serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in many parts of the world. Upon leaving he joined the Ministry of Defense during which time he formed strong links with overseas armed forces, including the USAF, and cooperated with them, particularly in support of the AWACS aircraft.

  He is married and lives in Spain; half way up a mountain with views across orange groves to the Mediterranean. The warmer weather helps him to cope with frostbite injuries he sustained in Canada, when taking part in the rescue effort for a downed helicopter on a frozen lake.

  His books are inspired by places he has been to and true events he has either experienced or heard about on his travels. He makes a point of including family jokes and stories in his books to raise a secret smile or two. Family dogs make appearances in his other stories.

  Nigel's hobbies include sailing and when sailing in Baltic he first heard the legend of the hidden U-Boat base that formed the basis of his first book some thirty eight years later.

  Photograph Courtesy of Grupo Bernabé of Pontevedra.

  Acknowledgments

  "We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend."

  —Robert Louis Stevenson

  I have been blessed with a number of honest friends who have helped me by reading my book at the embryonic stages and giving me useful criticism. You know who you are and thank you all. I have also been privileged to have my book critically examined by the exceptional author, John Gordon Davis. I owe him a great debt for his advice and encouragement. Equally, I am indebted to David Lane, Robert Astle, Jillian Ports, Kate Murphy, and Brooke Kressel-Magin at Astor+Blue Editions for their support and considerable advice in editorial, layout and design.

  The biggest debt though is to my wife who has lived this project with me and been supportive throughout, especially when I was struggling.

  V4 Vengeance– Factual Context

  This story revolves around the re-use of technology found in a secret base buried beneath a hill. Is this a fantasy too far? I don't think so. Let me give you a few facts and opinions and then you can make up your own mind.

  First the V1 Flying Bomb. This did exist and it was successful. Taking off from short ramps located mainly in Occupied France, these early cruise missiles were mainly targeted on London and they worked. The fastest fighter aircraft of the time were only just able to catch them and some were shot down by aircraft and by anti-aircraft guns on the ground although they were a very small target and difficult to hit. Braver pilots actually flew alongside them and put their own wing below that of the V1, then lifted their wing and flipped the missile over so that it then plunged to the ground. Despite this bravery, many of these missiles got through to London and killed appreciable numbers of people. To give an idea of the scale of the problem, 9521 flying bombs were fired at South East England, including London. 2448 were fired at Antwerp and other targets when the launch sites within range of England were overrun by the advancing allied armies. In all they are thought to have caused some 22,892 casualties and done appreciable amounts of damage, as well as diverting scarce resources to the defense against them.

  Less well known is that the V1, or more correctly the Fi 103, as it was designated by the Luftwaffe, had a number of variants. The E-1 model was designed with longer range to be launched from Holland after the launch sites in France were destroyed or overrun. The F-1 had even longer range. The B-2 had a more powerful explosive warhead and the C-1 carried a fragmentation bomb. The Fi 103 D-1 was designed to carry a chemical warhead, but it had not gone into series production by the time the war ended. The missiles could also be air launched from modified Heinkel HE111 bombers, although carrying the weapon degraded the already limited performance of these aircraft and made them extremely vulnerable to attack by allied fighters. A small book, "Meteor 1 vs V1 Flying Bomb" by Donald Nijboer gives more details of this weapon.

  The V2 was a far more sophisticated missile that took off vertically and went high in the air before plunging down on its target. The target was often London and there was no defense against it and no warning. The damage done was quite extensive. The government of the time lied to the public about the cause of some of the explosions, blaming ruptured gas mains, etc. that had been supposedly damaged by previous bombing, in order to avoid panic.

  The V3 was a large smooth bore cannon that was intended to bombard cities in southern England. It would have worked, but the advance of the allied armies after D-Day was too swift and the gun sites were overrun before they could be used as intended. One was used for a very short time, but to no great effect. This technology really was revived for Saddam Hussein of Iraq who was in the process of building such a cannon to bombard Israel. This scheme failed when some of the essential parts were intercepted by Customs Officers on the docks in the UK, before they could be shipped out.

  Serious consideration was given to attacking New York during the Second World War as a reprisal against the Americans. The main method considered was to use the four engine Condor aircraft as a bomber, but these were in short supply and there were technical difficulties due to the range required. By that point of the war aircraft production had been concentrated on small defensive fighters to guard the homeland against the massive attacks of the RAF by night and the US 8th Air Force by day. Some startling designs were in use. In particular the ME262 twin jet engine fighter, which was arguably th
e most advanced fighter of the war, but was brought into production too late to have a major effect.

  A large four engine bomber, known as the Amerika Bomber, was in early development and was intended to bomb New York and other cities with a useful bomb load. Fortunately the technology of the time was not quite up to the job. However a two stage version of the V2 rocket, known as the A10, was also in development and was intended to reach the eastern cities of the US but, luckily for New York, the Germans ran out of time and surrendered before it was ready.

  German scientists were working on Nerve Gas and had developed at least three types, Sarin, Tabun and Soman. Although effective, there were difficulties with these agents, particularly in the storage and handling of such dangerous and corrosive fluids. Binary warheads, where the chemicals are combined at the last second to create the nerve agent, had been developed and manufactured. They were never used in Europe because it was believed in Germany that the Allies had an even greater capability for chemical warfare and the retributions would have been horrendous for the German people. It is also possible that Hitler was influenced by the horrors of Gas Warfare that he had seen during his service in the trenches of the First World War. In fact the Allies were taken by surprise at the large quantities of viable nerve agent munitions they found as they advanced into Germany. They did not develop nerve agents themselves until after the war and it seems likely that, had the Germans used these weapons, the war could have taken a different path with many more allied casualties.

  Would chemicals from the Second World War still be viable and deadly after all this time? If stored properly, why not? Unexploded gas shells from the First World War and buried in the wet soil of Picardy are turned up by farmer's plows every year in France and there have been cases where the gas has leaked and killed or severely affected people nearby.

  Germany produced a range of highly effective submarines during the war. These U-Boats came very close to forcing the surrender of Britain, before the USA entered the war, by strangling the supply of food and munitions being shipped by the Merchant Navy. Near the end of the war they produced submarines capable of traveling from Germany to Japan without refueling and were able to ship advanced German technology, by this method, to their Japanese allies. Luckily it arrived too late to have an impact on the Pacific War. Size was not a problem since Germany also produced the 'Milch Cow' U-Boats that took fuel and food out to the wolf packs in mid Atlantic to increase their time on station. Submarine bases built on the Atlantic coast of France still stand, despite massive bombs being dropped on them by the US and British air forces.

  I have made my U-Boats Type XXII. As far as I can discover no Type XXII were built although XXI and XXIII did exist and were quite advanced boats for their time. I have borrowed features from the Type XXI for my fictitious boats. A number of the Type XXI were built by Blohm and Voss. Equally the numbers U-3998, 3999 and 4000 were not used although numbers above and below these were. Nine different U-Boats actually used Dragons as their emblem although, as far as I know, these were not drawn in the way I have described.

  "T-Force" did exist and took possession of a considerable amount of advanced technology and equipment that was shipped back to the UK as a part of war reparations. The USA and Russia did much the same in their occupation areas.

  After the war the Allied powers experimented with captured German technology. The story of the V2 being the basis of the US Space Program is well known, with captured German scientists being used to give the US and Russia a major step forward in weapon design. What is less well-known is that the US Navy experimented with launching the V1 from ships. A ramp was mounted on the deck of an LST and successful launches were carried out. They also experimented with launching from the deck of a submarine with missiles that had been stored in waterproof containers on the deck. For more information on the technology that was found in Germany at the end of the war and removed, you may wish to read "T Force – The Forgotten Heroes of 1945" by Sean Longden.

  The British Kiel Yacht Club still exists at the time of writing and for many years since the war soldiers stationed in Germany, as part of the British Army of the Rhine, have been able to use the sailing boats to cruise around the Baltic and the very pleasant Danish islands. The story of the hidden U-Boat base was told to me when I sailed from there and was widely believed. The reference to legends of hidden bases and secret rooms is also a fact. Almost every Army base I went to during my service had their own version. I can vouch for the mention of the secret room in Detmold, West Germany, as it was found in Hobart Barracks when I was stationed there. It is also true that large factories, munitions dumps and bases were constructed deep underground to avoid allied bombing.

  It is sadly true that Russian prisoners of war, Jews and political prisoners were used as slave labor and were treated extremely harshly. The SS had no compunction in slaughtering these slave laborers and by the end of the war were equally cavalier in shooting their own people if they were in the way.

  Could a submarine come within range of New York without detection? I believe the answer is yes. There is a huge amount of traffic up and down the Hudson River and even if SOSUS operators heard the submarine amongst that jumble of noise it would be seventy years out of date and would not sound like the modern boats they are trained to detect.

  Would New York be able to handle a chemical attack delivered in the way I have described? Probably not. Despite the remarkable courage of the New York Fire and Police Departments, demonstrated during the attack on the World Trade Center, they are civilian organizations and not equipped to deal with the weapons of mass destruction from a war long since over. The people of New York are understandably nervous of further terrorist attacks and the confusion would only need to last for a few hours in this crowded city for this story to work.

  The vengeance of the US Armed Forces would be swift and deadly, I have no doubt, but they too can be misled and their awesome power misdirected. I have huge respect for US Forces and having worked with them I find their senior officers to be thoughtful and intelligent, far from the "Gung Ho" reactionaries of popular stories and movies. I am certain that, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, procedures will have been carefully examined and quietly changed. This happens in all Armed Forces after wars and damaging events.

  Organized crime in Russia after the collapse of communism is a very real problem for the Russian government and these so called Mafia, or Mafya, gangs are ruthless and violent. Would they have the nerve to attack the USA? If they thought they could get the US to believe someone else did it, then I think they might. Would they use a luxury yacht? Why not? The extremely rich Russian oligarchs who have emerged as Russia embraced capitalism seem to have a fascination with building bigger and better ones than their rivals and they do give a flexibility of movement that is no longer available in air travel.

  The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow did exist and was demolished by the communists to make way for the "Palace of the Soviets." This was never completed after the invasion by German forces put a stop to the construction. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cathedral has been rebuilt as an almost exact copy of the original. Considerable quantities of Russian art treasures were stolen by the Germans during the war and not all of it has been recovered.

  I have mentioned that a cave would amplify the sound of helicopter rotors and would provide warning to those inside. This was a technique used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam conflict to warn of the approach of US helicopters. A wide hole was dug and a person would sit in it listening for the echoing thump of rotor blades that they would otherwise not hear until the aircraft were much nearer. A crude but effective version of the 'Sound Mirrors' that were built on the south coast of England in the 1930's for long distance aircraft detection.

  Does HALO parachuting exist? It certainly does and it is dangerous. It was developed originally by Colonel John Stapp of the USAF. Only experienced parachutists, mainly those in the Speci
al Forces, are trained in its use as a stealthy insertion technique. Should there be any kind of failure there is little or no time for a reserve chute to deploy.

  Bringing all these facts and legends together is the basis for my fiction.

  Now if we could only find the hill with those U-Boats beneath it.

  Introduction

  1944 Western Germany

  Oberleutnant Hans Gehrlich watched through the thick armored glass window of the control bunker as Feldwebel Weine supervised the final refueling out on the ramp. As he watched, the men stopped the pump and secured the filler cap on the rocket. Weine checked their work and took a last careful look around the launch area for anything that might impede the weapon launch. Satisfied, he turned to the bunker and saluted, the usual signal that everything was ready.

  Inside the bunker, Gehrlich scratched the stump of his left arm through the cloth of his uniform jacket, as he watched Weine move out of the danger area and into the crew bunker. He watched the fireproof steel door close and turned to the operators sitting at the control desk before him.

  He gave the order, “Prepare to fire,” and then turned to the drab, bespectacled man in civilian clothes standing just behind him. “Herr Professor, since you were part of the team that designed and built the weapon, would you care to give the order?”

  The civilian smiled and said, “Thank you Herr Oberleutnant, to strike a blow for the Fatherland would give me great pleasure.”

  He took the half step forward to the command position as the Oberleutnant stepped back. They both stared through the small slit windows for a second or two at the stubby winged missile sitting on the launching ramp. The fir trees around the clearing, that hid the launch site from allied aircraft, swayed gently in the breeze and the two operators waited patiently.