Aces Read online

  They spanned the heavens above—

  and dominated the earth below…

  THE FATHER

  Herman Gold. He wasn’t meant to till the earth. He was meant to soar like an eagle. He built an empire of the air. And it shone with the name Gold Aviation.

  THE SON

  Steven Gold. A fighting flyer ace who amassed kill after kill against the Japanese as one of the legendary Flying Tigers. He was his father’s true heir—and bitterest rival.

  THE DAUGHTER

  Susan Gold. Passionate, rebellious, she felt the bloodline of a dynasty in her veins. She defiantly fell in love with a flying man—and, in the fires of war, made the ultimate sacrifice.

  THE PARTNER

  Tim Campbell. As a young banker, his early faith in Herman Gold led to a pact that made his fortune. Then came the decisive showdown with Gold that only cunning could win.

  THE PILOT

  Blaize Green. The dashing aristocrat feared only one thing—the intimate touch of the woman he loved. When a new war came, he racked up an ace’s score —until his luck gave out.

  Copyright

  POPULAR LIBRARY EDTION

  Copyright © 1988 by Warner Books, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Popular Library® and the fanciful P design are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.

  Popular Library books are published by

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: September 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56706-0

  Contents

  They spanned the heavens aboveand dominated the earth below…

  Copyright

  BOOK I: 1918–1920

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  BOOK II: 1921

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  BOOK III: 1922–1927

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  BOOK IV: 1927–1933

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  BOOK V: 1933–1943

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Emperors of the Air

  BOOK I:

  1918–1920

  * * *

  GRAND GERMAN LIGHTNING OFFENSIVE

  PROPHECIES VICTORY FOR THE FATHERLAND

  31 March 1918—

  Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Courageous German soldiers, your comrades have driven deep into Allied territory!

  The Imperial Second, Seventh, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Armies, led by the Kaiser’s Hammer General Ludendorff, have made spectacular gains against the British between Arras and the Oise River, along the Somme.

  Operation Michael began on 21 March, when over six thousand artillery cannons devastated the British trenches with gas and explosives. The heroic Prussian Fist of our advancing infantry met little resistance as it confronted and crushed the paralyzed British Third and Fifth Armies, thanks, in part, to lightning advance strafing and bombing runs executed by the Infantreiflieger Schlastas.

  Top cover for the operation was supplied by Jagdgeschwader 1, led by the national hero, Der röte Kampfflieger, Rettmeister Manfred von Richthofen. High above the noise and smoke-filled valley of the Somme the majestic, scarlet-tinged Jastas of J.G. 1 cleared the skies of Allied fighters in grand, cartwheeling dogfights.

  Germans rejoice! Victory is within sight!

  Der Soldaten Freund

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  (One)

  Jagdgeschwader 1, Imperial Air Service

  Cappy, France

  12 April 1918

  Sergeant Hermann Goldstein scanned the lead article of the tattered issue of The Soldier’s Friend as he waited in the ready room for an orderly to bring him his flight gear. When his gear arrived, Goldstein set the newspaper aside and pulled his tan, fur-lined flight coverall over his field uniform. The other pilots had strapped on sidearms, but Goldstein didn’t wear one. He was a terrible pistol shot. His airplane was his weapon.

  He put on his fur-lined flying boots, gloves, and his well-worn, cordovan leather helmet. He shrugged into his leather safety harness and grabbed his flight goggles. At the moment he was sweating, but at 6,000 meters the frigid wind would cut like a wire whip through the layers of protective clothing. He tore the front page off the Ministry of Propaganda rag he’d been reading, crumpled it, and used the “Grand Prophecies of Victories” to polish the lenses of his goggles as he left the ready room. At least he was putting the scrap to a far more honorable end than its mates would find in the latrine.

  Outside, the sky was blue, broken by banks of puffy gray cumulus clouds. It was cool enough to dry the sweat on Goldstein’s face. He let the balled newspaper scrap flutter away in the brisk April wind that buffeted the fourteen-color-splashed Fokker Dr. I triplanes on the muddy ready line.

  Each pilot had his airplane painted according to his own taste. The Herr Rittmeister Richthofen’s solid red triplane was glorious, but Goldstein thought his own gaudy Fokker “tripe” was the prettiest of all the scouts in Herr Cavalry Captain Richthofen’s Hunting Echelon. Like all the fighters that belonged to Richthofen’s J.G. 1, Goldstein’s machine bore Herr Rittmeister’s trademark scarlet hue everywhere but on the sides of its fuselage and its wings, where it was painted sky blue. On both rear side quarters were large, bright yellow ovals, each showing a centaur—a mythological creature, half man and half horse—rearing up to do battle. Just forward of the centaurs, and on her wings and tail, she wore black Iron Crosses, edged in white.

  Goldstein swung himself up and into his Fokker’s worn bucket seat, buckled himself in, and then signaled to his ground crew that he was ready to start his engine. All around Goldstein was the sputter and roar of the other Fokkers as their engines caught.

  Goldstein checked that his machine’s gas and air valves were full open and that its ignition switch was off; then he watched as his chief mechanic, Corporal Heiner Froehlig, began to swing his machine’s propeller. Normally it took two men to turn the prop. But Froehlig, a stout, balding, middle-aged man with a walrus moustache, prided himself on having the strength to do it by himself.

  As the mechanic cranked the prop, Goldstein gradually cut off his Fokker’s air valve until the engine had sucked in enough gas.

  “Contact!” the mechanic shouted, peering at Goldstein from around the side of the Fokker’s nose.

  “Contact!” Goldstein yelled back, and flicked on the ignition with his gloved finger.

  The mechanic gave one final heave on the prop and quickly retreated. The engine coughed to life in a smelly blue cloud of burnt castor oil. The Fokker’s mahogany prop picked up speed and whirled itself into a blur.

  Goldstein scanned his four instruments: gas and oil gauges; a tachometer and a compass. He settled his left hand on the throttle and his right on the control stick, and waited. It would be a few minutes before it was his turn to taxi off the ready line.

  He killed time by wiggling the stick and kicking the rudder bar to make sure his ailerons and rudder were working. He knew they were. Every morning he performed a maintenance check on his machine. Goldstein knew that it irked the mechanics to have him double-checking their work, but he liked to spend time tinkering with his machine. Sometimes when he was done working, he would just sit in the plane for the sheer enjoyment of it.

  The Fokker was so graceful and powerful. It was everything that he was not.r />
  Goldstein was nineteen and a half years old. He had freckles, light blue eyes, not much of a beard (he had to shave only twice a week), and close-cropped rust-colored hair that had already begun to recede from his high forehead. He was tall to be a flier, almost too tall to fold himself into the cramped cockpit of his fighter scout, but he was also very thin, and that was good. The lighter the sum total of man and flying machine, the higher the ceiling the partnership could achieve. Greater altitude translated into tactical advantage in battle flying.

  To stay skin and bones, Goldstein dieted and abstained from alcohol. The Fokker Dr. I had a fast rate of climb and excellent maneuverability, but a mediocre top speed and service ceiling. By keeping his own weight down, and making a few modifications to his machine’s 110-horsepower, Oberursel nine-cylinder rotary engine, Goldstein was able to both increase his speed and coax extra altitude out of his Fokker.

  He was elated to be among those chosen for today’s patrol. For the past week fog and wind-driven rain had grounded all flights, making everyone restless and edgy. “Pilot’s Sunshine” they liked to call the bad weather at other aerodromes, because when flying conditions were impossible a pilot could drink too much and then sleep late the next morning. That was not the way it was at J.G. 1, where the pilots were always eager for a scrape to increase their scores. If a pilot wasn’t that way, the Herr Rittmeister shipped him right out.

  This afternoon at lunch it was announced that the Weather Service had forecast clearing skies by late afternoon. “If there is enough blue to make a shirt, we fly,” Herr Rittmeister had proclaimed from his place at the head of the main table, and had gone on to say that he would lead the hunt.

  Goldstein and the other fliers had cheered. It was good to see their leader smiling. The Herr Rittmeister had recently been depressed. The Herr Cavalry captain was being forced to fly less due to his administrative duties and the demands of his extensive propaganda tours back home. In addition, Operation Michael—and its follow-up, assault Operation Georgette, begun on April 7—had not been as successful as the Ministry of Propaganda’s newsrags wanted the rank and file to believe. Despite the facts that the Russians had disposed of their Czar and there was no longer an eastern front, there was still the inclement weather to contend with and the fact that the Allies were putting up a stiff land and air resistance. The German advance, meanwhile, had bogged down as it outran its own artillery and supply support, and as the Fatherland’s soldiers, pushed too far and stretched too thin, were defeated by their own exhaustion.

  When Michael began, J.G. 1 had been stationed at Léchelle, a comfortable, permanent aerodrome the British had only recently vacated. That first week J.G. 1’s four Jastas flew constantly. It had been the most intense period of fighting in Goldstein’s ten months at the front, and the hunting had been good. Herr Rittmeister Richthofen’s circus was then ordered farther west to keep pace with Herr General Ludendorff’s advancing infantry. J.G. 1 had packed itself up onto its horse-drawn lorries and hurried to this muddy, barren field a few miles north of Cappy, a small, bombed-out village on the Somme. The weather had immediately turned bad, preventing flying and making daily life a muddy, cold misery that sapped the men’s strength.

  But today, true to predictions, by sixteen hundred hours the rain had stopped. The ground crews in their greasy overalls had fueled the planes and rolled them out to the ready line. The pilots had clustered around Richthofen as he went over the map. The Air Warning Service’s observers had telephoned from the front that ten British Sopwith Camels and five Bristol F.2b two-seaters were headed toward J.G. 1’s patrol sector. With around three hours of daylight left the Herr Rittmeister and his cubs could have themselves a good hunt and be home by dark.

  At last it was Goldstein’s turn to take off. He signaled to his ground crew to pull the chocks from the Fokker’s hard rubber wheels. At once the plane lurched forward, and Goldstein turned it into the wind as he opened his throttle. As his Fokker gathered speed Goldstein adjusted his goggles against the roaring wind that blew his engine’s putrid exhaust fumes into his face. He pulled back on the stick and felt his usual thrill as the ground dropped away.

  He maneuvered to take his place in the stacked Vee formation of Fokkers circling the field. Herr Rittmeister Richthofen in his scarlet machine was in the lead—the point of the Vee—with the least experienced pilots just behind and above him. The most experienced fliers formed the two widened legs of the Vee, highest up in the formation. Goldstein’s place was high up in the widest part. He was proud that the Rittmeister had assigned him this place of honor. It meant that Richthofen considered him to be good enough to take care of himself, if need be.

  The formation of fourteen airplanes gradually gained altitude. Goldstein could see the drab, smoke-filled valley of the Somme below. He had sharp eyesight or else he wouldn’t be where he was, so he could make out figures wandering in that desolate, chocolate-hued mudscape broken by straw-colored patches of dead grass. He could see the twisted trunks of leafless blackened trees, and, scattered everywhere, the glinting wreckage of killed tanks and who knew what other kinds of ruined machinery—

  Goldstein glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror attached to the wing. The wind was tugging back his cheeks to form a grimace, but his eyes behind the lenses of his goggles were sparkling with anticipation. Today could be very special. His score stood at fourteen enemy planes. At the ten mark he became an ace, and that had been an important milestone, but now he was within range of the magic number: sixteen kills were needed to join the elite group of fliers who wore the Pour le Mérite, the Blue Max.

  It was regulation in the German Air Service for an N.C.O. to get his commission upon becoming an ace, but the Adjutant Herr Oberleutnant Bodenschatz had cautioned Goldstein that there was a paperwork backlog in Berlin and that it might take a long time for his promotion to come through. The thought that he was eventually to be a lieutenant was exciting, but not half as exciting as the thought of having the Blue Max around his throat!

  The formation had reached patrol altitude and was flying toward where Richthofen had guessed they could most likely intercept the British patrol behind German lines. The Allied fighters always came to them, which meant the German pilots used less fuel getting to the dogfight, and that allowed for more combat time in the air. If they were shot down and managed to reach the ground uninjured, German fliers could be back at their units and flying again within hours. For the Allied pilots, fighting over German territory meant they had to think about saving fuel for the ride home, and if they went down, and lived, it meant ending up a prisoner for the war’s duration.

  For that reason there were far more experienced pilots flying for the Germans than for the Allies. That gave further advantage to the Germans, because experience counted for a lot in battle flying. If a man could survive his first few weeks in order to learn the important tricks and techniques, the odds increased that he might survive indefinitely.

  Nobody dared to guess if a battle flier, Richthofen excepted, of course, might possibly be able to survive the entire war.

  Goldstein never thought about that. Lots of pilots did and got nightmares and nervous conditions for their trouble. Others flew with lucky charms, or else conducted elaborate pre-patrol rituals like shaving on only one side of their face in order to ward off misfortune.

  Not Goldstein. His only ritual was to sensibly spend his time maintaining his own plane, although for that he was considered an eccentric. The other pilots, all of whom were commissioned officers from aristocratic families, felt it was beneath them to get their hands dirty. The others seemed to take an inordinate pride in their ignorance of how their machines functioned.

  The formation flew on, a wedge of rainbow-colored machines high up in the sky. Herr Rittmeister’s scarlet machine was still flying point, flying at the lowest altitude, weaving from side to side like a fretful sheepdog in order to keep all of the planes tightly grouped.

  They were passing through fleec
y clouds as gray as gun-smoke. Goldstein liked clouds. Flying though them gave a thrilling sensation of speed, and banks of cloud could be useful when staging an ambush, or escaping from one. Now and then the clouds would thin, and Goldstein could view the world below. At this altitude, the savage details had vanished. The wartorn landscape was a seemingly serene patchwork quilt of gold and brown.

  Goldstein was happy. He was in his environment. There was the engine’s vibration and its comforting drone to keep him company, the gleam of sunlight on the varnished wood of his cockpit, and the instant response of his machine to his slightest touch. There was, of course, the bitter windchill to contend with, and the ear pops and inevitable altitude headache, but those minor plagues aside, he was not the least bit uncomfortable being in the air.

  Goldstein had never been afraid of flying. Not even during his very first training flight. He had not been a natural. Far from it. He’d cracked up several trainers, and had almost washed out, but he’d managed to pass the initial examinations, and then, one day, it all seemed to click into place for him. The rest of flight school was easy.

  Learning to fly had changed his life. On the ground he was still the same gangling, carrot-topped introvert, but in the air he became something exceptional: a battle flier. He didn’t think he was as good as his idol Herr Cavalrycaptain Richthofen, who had close to eighty confirmed kills in his two and a half years as a flier in the war, but Goldstein considered himself to be the equal of any mortal…

  The formation climbed to 16,000 feet and leveled off as it entered the sector where the British planes were supposed to be. At this altitude the clouds had thinned out to wispy cirrus layers, making visibility reasonably good. Like all the others, Goldstein was trying to be the first to spot the enemy. Seeing them before they saw you was crucial for a successful attack.