A true story about a very close and dear friend, Heinz Gross, who managed to escape death at the close of the Second World War and later came to Santa Cruz, california, where he became known and loved for his ‘Heinz’s Biergarten Delicatessen and Cafe’ on the then-Pacific Garden mall (now Pacific Avenue). Zum Voll, Heinz! Prosit!

A SPARROW IN THE STORM

It was really a very small hill. Green and grass covered, a modest mass that barely qualified it as more than an up-thrust hump. A geological odd fellow of no consequence at all against the grand severity of the surrounding peaks of the Oberbayern countryside.

Perched precariously atop the hill was a small figure. Despite his leather helmet, goggles and jacket, it was apparent that this was not a full-grown man but a mere boy. The boy hunched, tensely, in the seat of a flimsy, fabric-covered contraption with wings. A closer study of the object revealed its purpose. It was a glider. A rude, almost home-made one to be sure, but definitely designed to fly without a motor…if it got off the ground!

In the cool Bavarian air of the morning, all was calm. The trees stood quietly, uncritical and neutral witnesses to the scene that was unfolding. Small birds… sparrows…flitted about, chirping as they pur¬sued their insect prey among the pine boughs. In the distance, the rising sun glimmered upon the snow fields of the craggy ridges which rose behind the Kreuzeckhaus. A distant tinkle of cowbells punctuated the pastoral peace which prevailed.

All nature seemed at peace…except on the grassy mound. The 14-year-old lad sitting at the controls of the glider was quietly sweating liters. He was grateful for the fact that his face was largely hidden by the awkward and poorly fitting padded leather helmet, the intensity of his gaze unviewable to the other boys standing near the wing-tips holding the rickety craft steady. His hands grasped the control stick grimly. It was important, he reminded himself, that he keep both hands on the stick, for to rest one of them in his lap would surely reveal the small tremor that his acute anxiety was producing in them. It would not do to reveal the fear that consumed his fluttering heart.

The small group of figures clustered around the craft were exchanging comments in a serious manner. Their somber, determined airs belied their youthful appearance, that seemed strangely out of context in this tranquil and beautiful alpine setting. Standing some distance away from the group was an adult, khaki-clad, holding a clipboard and staring intently upwind. His insignia revealed him to be a member of the NSFK, or National Socialist Flieger Korps.

Attached to the under part of the glider was a rope cable. It joined the skid rail attachment which served as an undercarriage on this machine, just forward of the single bench seat which the boy fidgeted nervously upon. The rope ran from the metal connector on the skid in a line, straight and true, aimed along a tangent that led it some 25 yards, where it joined a heavier, woven cable of thick rubber cords. At a distance of several hundred feet directly ahead of the glider, the cable assembly fed into an awkward, metal pulley-device. Squatting below the large wheel-like mechanism was a naked petrol engine. The engine was smeared with grime but was otherwise very well maintained, from appearances.

And it had to be. For upon command from the boys’’ leader, the engine, which was running quietly in neutral gear, would be run up to maximum RPM and the clutch lock on the pulley wheel slipped. With massive force, the rope and rubber cable would quickly retract around the wheel and the soaring machine connected to it would be snapped forward with a strong jerk, gathering momentum as it hurtled down the hill. There would be little time for second-thoughts or anxious apprehensions once the craft was in motion, for within a matter of seconds it would be at that critical point whereupon, at the threshold of true aerodynamic flight, the small figure in the pilot’’s seat must perform quickly, precisely and without hesitation to both release the ‘’slingshot’’ cable and manipulate the control surfaces to steady the machine in its awkward leap from earth-bound thrall to air-borne release.

The leader was making a notation on his clipboard. In a minute or so the moment of truth would occur. In the glider’’s seat, the boy wrested his mind away from the disastrous possibilities which he knew all too well existed; he had studied aerodynamic theory quite exhaustively, along with all the other members of his troop of Hitler Jugend. He had flown model gliders countless times in the course of his study and had witnessed more than a few spectacular crashes and mishaps. The results had been sobering, even to a boy of 14 who thought — with all the characteristic indestructibility of youthful optimism — that he would live forever.

But it was now time to plant these fleeting seeds of black pessimism back in the ground; in split seconds, he would be in another element altogether: in a floating, wheeling and utterly free world which would allow him to race the birds over the tree-tops and scorn worries of the terrible war that was mercilessly destroying his native homeland.

The boy looked briefly away from the wing, where his friends were checking the wires and stays and glanced up at the sky far over the massive crest of the Zugspitze. It was a train! So real was the appearance, that smoke seemed to be coming from an outsized cropping of rock near the Münchnerhaus on the summit! He stared, briefly fascinated by another sight much higher up, of the lines of billowing white condensation that streamed high over the Zugspitze by the hundreds, toward the north. He knew this sight as well as any of the other members of his troop, for at this late date in the war, such spectacles of vast armadas of allied bombers streaking through the stratosphere were common.

Of course, he had no idea of the sheer magnitude of death and destruction which this remote sight symbolized, for the careful indoctrination of the troop’’s instructors spared them the awful reality of all that. At this moment, he felt instead of anguish, a detached, almost kindred affinity with those awesome machines which thundered so high and so serenely above the green earth below. He wished it were he up there, far above the clouds and free to soar beyond the horizon. All of these thoughts crowded into a single second of time as his attention snapped back to the imminent task at hand.

The leader’’s hand went up. It was a signal that the moment of release was very near. The boy shifted his weight in the insubstantial seat, placed his hands firmly on the control stick. Near the right wingtip a blonde, tow-headed friend of his was shouting something to him. He heard the words and moved the control stick forward and back, side to side. The surfaces of the rudder, wings and tail planes all worked as he knew they would.

It was only a few seconds now before the command to release the cable wind-up would be given. In the distance, he saw the puff of white smoke that indicated the engine was being run up to maximum RPM. He searched his mind quickly… had he forgotten anything? No. It was all a routine he had practiced countless times using a grounded training glider made of crates and boards. Alles ist ordnung. He was ready.

“Loss!” came the shouted signal as the leader’s hand snapped down in an arc. The mass of fabric and wood that would now leap into the air jolted violently with the force which the cable transmitted to the glider. The boy gulped involuntarily. The sweat streamed down his neck, catching the bracing rush of alpine air through the openings in his jacket. The shock of the catapult left too little time to think about what was happening. Within seconds he was teetering unsurely, still linked to the ground but hovering on the bumpy, uncertain verge of aerodynamic flight. Not yet neither bird nor flying machine, the glider shot forward, gathering speed. Far behind him, his troop had long since released the wingtips, running at top speed alongside as the taut cable pulled the accelerating machine off the hill.

Instinctively, the student pilot sensed that the craft was under the positive influence of lifting forces, felt the rough turbulence that marked off the edge of flight from laminar ground effect. He smoothed out the machine with sensitive motions of his hands on the stick. A few more seconds, now…

His right hand gripping the stick, he placed his left upon the metal cable release by his leg and waited, sensing the motions of the now fully flying machine through the contact of his body with the seat, eyes fixed upon the trees at the end of the run-out below the hill. ‘Proprioceptic’ was the term his leader had used to describe this inherent seat-of-the-pants sensing of what the machine was doing.

All fear, all tension, even the greasy feeling he had had in the pit of his stomach just moments ago were gone…left behind as the release snapped firmly to the limit of its travel. Adrenalin was running the show now, controlled the moment and dictated completely the sequence of events that ticked off his mental check-list. The cable parted perfectly with a small thump. As it fell away, the small glider rocked gently like a dove flexing its pinions in mid-swoop and strained for the thermals of the ridge ahead.

The troop gathered below could see the spare outline of the white fuselage clearly in the slanted rays of the morning sun. It was a fair launch. The leader noted something on his clipboard and momentarily grimaced in the strong glare of the sun as the craft banked in front of it. The student’’s friends were enthusiastically caught up in the simple perfection of the moment, raptly watching the progress of the silent machine. As they studied it, they followed its slow, almost floating, motion as it swept around, pointing toward the high pasture behind the Kreuzeckhaus. On the deck of the Alpenvereins structure, several people also followed the leisurely flight of the machine as it played hide-and-seek with the thermal currents of air sweeping up around the Zugspitze’s massive bulk.

Of the six or seven figures at the umbrella-shaded tables, a small, spare and dark-haired Asian man sat apart, studying the spectacle. His features contrasted strongly with the fair-haired, sturdy Caucasian appearance of those not far from him. It did not occur to him to think too strongly of the differences his Japanese features painted in comparison to his companions, for he was also caught up in the quiet beauty of the soaring, man-made bird as it reached for the invisible pillars of heated air which coiled high up into the empty blue sky. Masuo Yoshimura was enjoying his visit to the glider training site, despite the cold and unignorable facts concerning the raging conflict which soon threatened to overwhelm Germany. He had been invited to view the training program, of which these young student fliers were part, at the behest of the German War Ministry and with the blessing and official encouragement of the Messerschmitt factory.

As he watched the small white machine slowly wheel through the heavy low-altitude density of the crisp, cool morning, he found himself recalling what the Messerschmitt people had said about Dr. Lippisch’s advanced new design. The Me-163 Komet, they had designated the prototypes. It was, he recalled, a rather radical idea, but nevertheless, one that had a streak of brilliant if desperate genius in it.

The Komet was a glider. Of sorts. Rather, it was a fearsomely armed machine which, powered by a reaction engine that enabled it to streak through allied bomber formations at upwards of 575 miles per hour and shoot them down, before exhausting its fuel a mere 6 minutes after launch. With no propellant tank empty, it was then nothing but a very advanced and aerodynamically advanced glider.

The Komet was also a product of the hopeless pragmatism which Germany found itself compelled to resort to in the face of a growing threat of losing the war which they themselves had loosed upon the European continent. And it was designed with ruthless and daringly advanced technological skill which the German aircraft industry hoped would win the battle for the skies, thereby saving those who now desperate fought on the ground.

As an armed gun platform of blinding speed, the Komet had all the advantages going for it. All of them. Speed, surprise and power. The concept postulated that ultimately whole squadrons of these small, delta-winged and elevon equipped projectiles would be able to launch from sites directly in the path of the growing allied bomber formations, rocket up to 30,000 feet in a matter of minutes and wreak severe havoc and destruction among the boxes of slowly moving bombers almost before they knew what was upon them; six minutes from launch, fuel and oxidizer spent, the craft would drop back down to its base, hoping to land in the absence of any intruding allied fighters. During landing they would be quite literally helpless, sitting ducks in an Allied shooting gallery.

Yoshimura, as the representative of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Factory on liaison duty with the German Luftwaffe, and in the capacity today of an observer, was intrigued with the idea. So very much different from our own studies of piloted, flying bombs, designed for missions which included no provision for the safe return of the aircrew, he mused. This one actually brought the pilot back alive!

A woman at the nearby table was shielding her eyes as she looked toward the white glider. She was talking in an animated manner with the tall German officer seated next to her. He kept his eyes on the glider as the woman gestured just out of Yoshimura’’s earshot. Colonel von Strasser was the Luftwaffe’’s officer in charge of the glider training program; it was clear from the relish which he downed the delicious Bavarian beer in his stein that he did not particularly miss his old assignment in the East, nor did he particularly care to leave this beautiful haven of fragile peace in the midst of a world he had seen enough of…a world being ripped savagely apart.

Strasser suddenly glanced in Yoshimura’’s direction. Their eyes met for an instant, and Yoshimura flashed the ‘’thumbs up’’ recognition of a good flight to the Colonel, who smiled sparely before returning his gaze skyward.

In the distance, the glider waggled momentarily and dropped quickly for an instant before catching another updraft. It suddenly brought Masao’’s thoughts back to something one of the Messerschmitt flight test pilots had remarked upon a week ago, over perhaps one-too-many cognacs.

“They have an unfortunate habit, you know, of blowing up on touchdown.” The pilot had been drinking with a determination that puzzled Masao. “Something having to do with the hypergolic nature of the propellant and oxidizer slop left in the combustion tubes after the rocket engine shuts down. When the Komet hits the earth on its landing skid at the end of its flight, the residue often spontaneously ignites and blows the little bastard to tiny bits.” The pilot paused, downing a quick swallow of the expensive French cognac he now had in his hand — how did the Luftwaffe obtain these increasingly rare vintages in the midst of this horrible war? “I don’’t have to tell you how many pieces the pilot is often blown into…? Do you know that the original Komet test pilot was a woman? A woman!”

The pilot was obviously relieved that he was not assigned to the Komet program and Masao quickly wondered how much of what this slightly intoxicated officer was telling him was highly classified information. In retrospect, it seemed like something that the Messerschmitt people had neither the time nor inclination to attempt to rectify, for their primary concerns were to get the pilot up to the bombers…. and of apparently lesser significance was the matter of getting the pilot back in complete safety.

This relatively unknown aspect of the Komet development program had very limited currency, from what Masao could gather in his casual con¬versations with other officials, more highly placed in the project. It was obvious as to why.

Masao glanced once again at the white sailplane being flown by the Hitler Youth student glider pilot, as it circled around for a return to the pastoral clearing which served as a landing site. These boys, he reflected, who were really not much more than children, were being trained systemati¬cally to be glider pilots. Once modestly trained in these simple craft, they would be immediately fed directly into accelerated flight operations for the Komet.

The Komet was really more of a deadly ‘’shooting star,’’ he found himself thinking. How could these young men know what really lay in store for them?

Their whole world, so tightly structured by the propagandists, did not include the very real possibility of suffering death through the conveniently overlooked technical problem that the unresolved Komet landing explosions presented.

The thought of these young men dying in such a coldly, premeditated manner brought thoughts of his brother, Yukio, to mind. He wondered how he was faring in the United States, in the lengthening shadow of the Pacific War. It had been a long, long time since he had heard anything about the welfare of his younger brother, his wife, and the other friends and relatives who had chosen to remain in the US prior to the outbreak of the war. Anything was possible these days, he realised soberly. What is another life in the unending flood tide of humanity?

Overhead, the fragile assembly of fabric covered spars and longerons was gliding back over the Kreuzeckhaus like a large, silent bird. The view from up over the Zugspitze had been remarkable. With perfect crystal clarity, one could see all the surrounding countryside effortlessly, despite the thick glass goggles. The student at the control stick had quickly become caught up in the lazy, un-hurried game of seeking updrafts, all anxiety and nervous¬ness entirely forgotten in the thrill of pure flight. It had all been a slow-motion, utterly noiseless journey around and over the rugged rocky spines of the Zugspitze’’s jagged back, broken only by the whistle of the wind through the wire stays and past the wing struts. How marvelous it felt, and what promise it was of better experiences to follow!

The boy shifted his weight in the simple sailplane’’s seat and returned his thoughts to the task of bringing the graceful bird down within the narrow confines of the cleared landing area. Although he had not done so before, once again the drill was burned into his memory. The instructions leaped up on mental command as he reviewed the landing procedure in his mind. Trim for landing. Maintain airspeed. Adjust angle of attack. Run base-leg to final. Bank left, recover. Maintain airspeed. Line it up. Carefully. Kiss the ground like a lover…

He felt a trifle of apprehension return as the ground loomed closer.

The sweaty feeling was returning as he clutched the stick gingerly, ready to correct at the slightest hint of a cross-gust. As the ground neared he remembered the instructor’’s admonishment to come down at a fairly steep angle so as to keep the all-important airspeed up…a stall without power could be deadly. Despite this understanding it still seemed somewhat unnatural to maintain speed toward the earth at such a sharp rate of descent. The raw edge of nervousness was fighting his rational knowledge of final approach procedure for gliders as he brought the now rapidly dropping craft over the threshold of the cleared field, every nerve taut and ready to respond. He sensed rather than felt the embrace of ground effect airflow over the wings as he dropped lower still.

Just as he was starting to flare-out, scant feet above the deck, something flashed into the corner of the narrow field of vision the bulky goggles afforded. With the speed of desperation known only by the pursued as the pursuer closes in, a small brown bird, fleeing for its life from the sharp and merciless talons of a hotly trailing falcon smashed with full force into his eyes.

Despite the protection of the goggles, the sudden surprise of the blow to his face caused an involuntary jerk of his hands on the control stick, as the falcon narrowly swerved to avoid a similar impact.

The momentary movement of the stick to the left altered the even balance of the glider as it penetrated the cushion of ground effect and within a split second the left wing-tip had tapped the ground. The force with which it hit was not really enough to upset the machine, had it not been for a stubby growth of stunted tree branch which had been overlooked by a careless member of the troop. The wingtip caught the branch with just enough force to tip the glider over towards the left at a fairly high speed. Once altered, the flight path deteriorated suddenly as the spindly glider impacted and broke apart in several large pieces.

Those watching from the Krueuzeckhaus deck leaped up, as did the troop of Hitler Youth who were watching their friend and troopmate bring his machine in for what had appeared to be a perfect first landing. All converged upon the tattered shreds of fabric and spars which lay desolately, abandoned by inertia and forsaken by the forces of lift.

Through some miracle, the boy at the controls had been wrenched out of the seat as the restraint straps broke and had been almost gently lofted into the air at the moment of impact. After two complete loops, he had been deposited, although firmly and painfully, in a sitting position on a particularly grassy portion of the clearing. He sat, dazed, speechless and not quite sure if he were still altogether or not…but conscious and fully aware.

As the leader approached at a run, followed by the other students, the boy looked down at his left leg. A reddish stain was soaking his pants, and he recognized with a sickening shock that a piece of sharply splintered bone was protruding from the encircling, bloody stain just above the knee.

Looking up into the Leader’’s blanched face, he numbly heard the former speak: “Mein Gott, Heinzie, that’’s no way to treat the Reich’’s property!” Then the pain began…

Yoshimura, who had jumped up from his seat on the deck, observed the whole incident from afar. Now there, he thought to himself, is one very, very fortunate young man…he would be sent immediately to hospital for a prolonged recovery…and very far away from the deadly fighting.

The boy, 14-year-old Heinz Gross, born in Jena and ultimately destined to become a US citizen, would have agreed completely, had he been able to foresee his future otherwise!

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[Note: Heinz Gross is a very close personal friend who led a fascinating and rich, full life until passing away a few years ago in Santa Cruz, California, among family and close friends. The story appearing above is based upon actual events he experienced in May of 1945.]