Spaatz

It was late in the day and hot in the office. General Spaatz was actually nodding off when he heard a commotion coming from down the hall. He was stunned and shocked and couldn't actually move for a full minute when he was told about Hap. He knew about the other heart attacks, but he had no idea that Hap was so close to death, so fragile. The possibility that Hap would die suddenly never seriously entered his mind. He figured that after this latest dust up that Hap would retire, and he would be the most likely candidate to take his place, but this was way too soon to comprehend. It would take him a few days to come to grips with the reality that his friend was dead. Yet he did not have a few days.

When he asked what could have upset Hap he was told about the news that Arnold was dealing with. No wonder he was under so much pressure. No wonder poor Hap's ticker had stopped. Poor Hap. These were war winning or losing choices that had to be made and made now. It was almost impossible for him to concentrate as he poured over the reports that Hap had just dropped and scattered all over the floor when he collapsed. A few of the pages had poor Hap's blood on them. Poor Hap.

He had to take command and take command now. The order to start the long planned operation would take a week to be fully implemented, and the RAF did not have much time left. The Soviets would not be distracted and might start to wonder about where the USAAF was and why they had not assisted the RAF with more planes and pilots. Why were the B29s not bombing their cities? Any day now they could shift their forces back to the targets that truly mattered. The kinds of targets who's destruction had help defeat Germany and ground the Luftwaffe. The only kind of target that the few remaining atomic bombs could have a devastating effect on and thus cripple the Red Army for a good 6 months. With Britain effectively out of the war they could shift their attention back to what undoubtedly was the prize...to what really mattered... to their oil fields at Baku and Ploesti. They could be well on their way to ringing their oil production facilities with those cursed rockets that took out our first attempt to use the Bomb in this war.

The time is now! This is for you old friend...

"Jensen get me Ike. We have a war to win and I'm sure Hap would have wanted us to carry on. Get me Ike ... NOW! We go and we go big! Operation Hap is a go! Get me Kenny after Ike. We go with all we got, and we go now!"