Republic of China: Ace Pilot

Chapter 583 V-2 Rocket Technology Intelligence, MI6 and the Anti-Nazi Committee

On June 7, 1939, the morning mist enveloped the Southampton harbor like a gray veil.

The smokestacks of the "St. Louis" cruise ship were still slowly emitting white smoke, and the decks were crowded with refugees longing for land.

Port management personnel and police officers cordoned off the berthing area, where officials verified identities.

Refugees who were granted permission to disembark were queuing for inspection, while among those who had already disembarked, two men in suits were quietly leaving the port area under the cover of fog.

"Quick, this way, I've been here when I was young." The older man, clutching a leather suitcase, strode forward. The watch peeking out from his cuff was an A. Lange & Shne—a very famous German watch brand, worn by the wealthy and powerful.

But now, it is the only valuable thing this person has.

The older man, Erich Korn, was a former engineer of special fuels who was expelled from the laboratory three months ago for concealing his Jewish heritage; the young man beside him was his nephew, Max Stein.

The two men, along with their families, were on the ship. They had thought they could go to the United States, but customs there refused them entry, so they had to return to Europe after many twists and turns.

Now, the two disembarked under the pretext of "applying for refugee status," and left the port area by a side path, following the shadows of the dock warehouses, heading towards the city.

The mist dampened their collars, but it didn't extinguish the light in their eyes—they carried vital military intelligence that could secure the future safety of their families.

After walking through two alleys, Cohen led Stein to a building with a sign that read "Import & Export Trading Company".

This is the company run by Erich Cohen's uncle.

He had been warmly received when he came before, but this time he was met with indifference.

“Erich, you shouldn’t have come here. I don’t want any trouble. That damned bloodline is all a lie. If I could, I would give it up.”

"Uncle, I have no intention of disturbing your life. I have only one request: send me to London."

"Okay, wait for me here."

Erich Cohen's uncle went out, and after a while, he returned to the company and told the two of them to come downstairs immediately and get into a car he had hired to go to London.

The two arrived in London and headed to the Office of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at Broadway House, next to St. James's Park Underground Station.

The "Office of the Permanent Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs" is just the official name. In reality, its real name is the "Secret Intelligence Service," and MI6, which often appears in later movies, is one of its departments.

A man dressed in a suit with a silver badge on his left breast led the two into a small room for questioning.

His name was Hugh Davis, and he was a mid-level officer in MI6 responsible for technological intelligence.

"You say you have important military intelligence?"

“We have Peenemünde’s rocket data,” Cohen said in a very low voice, “the fuel pump design drawings for the A-4 rocket, as well as information on the preparation of special fuels. We don’t ask for much, just that Britain give us asylum and some money for our living expenses, and all of that is yours.”

“How can I trust you?” Hugh Davis put down his pen and stared at Cohen.

“I brought some documents.” Cohen opened his suitcase, took out a stack of documents, and handed them to Hugh Davis.

Looking at the documents, Hugh Davis frowned slightly—the documents marked "classified" did indeed match the information that the intelligence department had previously intercepted sporadically.

But he was not pleased by this; he hesitated and then handed the documents back to Cohen.

"Wait here, I need to report to my superiors."

After saying that, he left the room.

After he left, Cohen talked with his nephew.

"Uncle, I feel like he's not interested in what you brought."

"I feel the same way. Don't the British want this technology?"

"Uncle, do you think he might tell the Germans about us?"

During their conversation, the two men sensed tension; their fear of the Nazis was something that couldn't be dispelled even in London.

Although only a few minutes had passed, the two felt it was an eternity. Feeling restless, they got up to open the door and go out to check.

The door wasn't locked; it was opened directly. The two walked down the empty corridor and saw an open door, as well as sounds coming from behind it.

"As far as I know, the SS executed several Jews in Peenemünde, which now appears to be due to leaked classified information."

"Do we need these documents?"

"The relationship between Britain and Germany right now... is very delicate. At last week's cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Chamberlain was still emphasizing 'avoiding escalation of tensions with Germany,' even rejecting a proposal to 'contact German anti-Nazi figures.' Only nine months have passed since the Munich Agreement, our military production capacity isn't even fully mobilized, and the Treasury is even cutting the intelligence budget. Do you understand what I mean? We are completely unprepared for war with Germany, and the cabinet is unwilling to get involved in it."

"Furthermore, we have our own technical approach, and this information is only a reference for our rocket research. But if the Germans find out about this information, they will suspect that we sent people to steal secrets, which is unacceptable."

"Understood, Director. The Germans are focusing their attention on the east, and any attempt to divert their attention would be inappropriate."

Upon hearing this, Cohen quickly pulled his nephew back to the room and sat down.

After a short while, Hugh Davis returned, his face cold.

"Sorry, we have no interest in this kind of information. Please leave."

Cohen's nephew wanted to say something, but Cohen stopped him, and the two immediately left MI6 and went downstairs.

Leaving the revolving doors of the Broadway Building, Cohen and Stein stood on the sidewalk like two abandoned puppies.

They walked into nearby St. James's Park and watched several ducks glide across the lake.

"Uncle, what do we do now? Go back to Southampton? But the 'St. Louis' might be heading to Antwerp tomorrow!"

Stein's voice trembled as he thought of his mother and sister on the ship, and the piece of black bread his mother had given him the night before. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Cohen raised his hand and glanced at the Lange watch on his wrist. The hands pointed to 10 a.m., and the sapphire crystal on the dial was still fogged up. This watch had once been his "Outstanding Engineer" award at Peenemünde, but now it had become his only bargaining chip for survival.

“We can’t go back to the ship.” Cohen took a deep breath and stuffed the document bag into his suit pocket. “My uncle has a friend in London who works in newspaper printing. Maybe he can help us contact anti-Nazi members of parliament.”

He remembered his uncle saying before seeing them off to the car yesterday, "There's a group of people in London who have long disapproved of Chamberlain's appeasement policy; they are his opponents in Parliament." The two walked along Piccadilly toward the East End, occasionally passing pedestrians wearing top hats hurrying by in the fog, but no one noticed the two Jewish refugees in their wrinkled clothes.

As they passed a coffee shop, Stein suddenly grabbed Cohen's arm: "Uncle, look!" The newspaper headline in the window read "British-German trade negotiations are still progressing," accompanied by a photo of Chamberlain shaking hands with a German diplomat.

Cohen's heart sank – the British had no intention of dealing with the Nazis at all, and were still thinking about business.

After much difficulty, I finally found the printing shop that my uncle had mentioned. The storefront was small, and there was a sign on the door that read "We accept flyer and poster printing."

Cohen pushed open the door, and the smell of ink hit him. A middle-aged man wearing glasses was hunched over a desk, typesetting. He was his uncle's friend, Arthur White.

“I am Erich Cohen, Heinrich’s nephew,” Cohen said, introducing his uncle.

Arthur put down the typewriter in his hand and said angrily, "Damn Jewish moneylenders, it's not time to pay back the money yet."

It turns out that Cohen's so-called friend was just a client who owed him money.

For a moment, the two were at a loss as to how to continue the negotiation.

Just as Arthur was about to kick the two out, Cohen pulled out a blueprint from his file bag and spread it on the printing table: "This is a structural diagram of the fuel pump for the A-4 rocket. The Germans plan to use it to attack London. We need to find people who value these things in exchange for the safety and livelihood of my family."

Arthur stared at the markings on the blueprints, his expression gradually becoming serious—he had been a Royal Air Force mechanic during World War I and could immediately recognize the value of the blueprints.

“Come with me.” Arthur locked the shop door, led the two through the alley in the backyard, and got into a dilapidated Austin sedan.

The car drove through the fog and finally stopped in front of a red brick building with a sign that read "British Anti-Nazi Committee" hanging at the entrance.

"The person in charge here is Ms. Claire. Her father is an anti-appeasement MP in the House of Commons. Perhaps she can help you."

Claire Howard was a young woman in her early twenties with short, neat hair. A thick stack of refugee appeals for help lay on her desk. She took the documents Cohen handed her, her brow furrowing more and more as she read, until she flipped to the photograph of the Peenemünde test site and suddenly looked up: "Is all of this real?"

“I swear on my life and my family’s.” Cohen’s voice was a little hoarse. “The SS has at least fifty experimental missiles in their warehouse in Peenemünde. If they are successfully developed, they can fly across the English Channel and hit London directly.”

Claire immediately picked up the phone and dialed a number: "Father, I have two engineers here who escaped from Germany. They brought with them data on the V-2 rocket... Yes, it's very likely true... Could you arrange a meeting? Even just with someone from the Royal Aeronautical Institute."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then a steady voice came through: "Have them come to the side entrance of the House of Commons at three o'clock this afternoon. I will bring Professor Dess from the Aviation Research Institute with me."

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Cohen and Stein stood in front of the side door of the House of Commons, and the fog finally lifted a little.

Claire's father, Congressman Thomas Howard, led over an elderly man wearing gold-rimmed glasses; the man was Professor Dess, a rocket expert from the Royal Aeronautical Institute.

“Mr. Cohen, Mr. Stein, please come with me.” Professor Dess’s tone was urgent as he led the two directly into a small conference room, where a huge map of Britain was spread out on the table.

Cohen opened the file folder and laid out the fuel pump design drawings one by one. Professor Davis's fingers moved quickly across the drawings, muttering repeatedly, "So they used a turbopump, not a piston pump..."

Congressman Thomas watched this scene with a serious expression: "Professor Davis, can this data prove the threat from Germany?"

Professor Des adjusted his glasses and shook his head, saying, "It doesn't prove that the German rockets had a very high deviation rate after long-distance flight, making it impossible for them to accurately hit the target."

"How big is the deviation?" Congressman Thomas pressed.

"The deviation is within a few kilometers."

"Several kilometers? Hahaha, that's ridiculous."

Congressman Thomas left the room immediately, showing no interest in continuing his conversation with Cohen and the other man.

Professor Davis looked at the two of them with regret: "I'm sorry, I'm just stating the facts. Although your rocket data has some value, it is indeed far from practical application."

He also left.

Only Ms. Claire and Arthur, who had brought the two of them, remained.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it. I suggest you apply for refugee status to remain in the country. I’ll help with that. If you’d like, come to my office tomorrow.” Ms. Claire then left.

"Uncle, what should we do?" Cohen's nephew asked.

Cohen was bewildered and could no longer control his emotions: "I don't know either. The information I managed to steal was useless, and it will expose my identity. I will definitely be hunted down by the Gestapo overseas. I shouldn't have done it, and I even caused the deaths of those neighbors."

Seeing their bewildered expressions, Arthur comforted them, "Staying in England won't be safe either, and you won't even have a place to stay in Europe. Why not go to Asia? At least the Germans can't touch you there. You can take a flight from Paris with Taishan Airlines. They've released a new type of passenger plane that used to take two days, but now it only takes one and a half days to complete."

Going to Asia?

Cohen felt hope, but hesitated.

After all, Asia was a very unfamiliar place for him.

Arthur wasn't finished: "There's something else. Taishan Aviation is also involved in military industry. A friend of mine in the intelligence agency told me that they've also developed and manufactured a rocket-propelled artillery system, and it's been very effective in actual combat. Maybe your rocket data can fetch a good price over there."

These words rekindled Cohen's hope. If he could sell the data he had, he would have money to live in a foreign land, which would be much better than his current situation.

If you're going to do it, do it as quickly as possible.

He and his nephew then drove back to Southampton, sold his watch to his uncle to get money for the journey, and then, through his uncle's connections, smuggled the two families to France by fishing boat.

After arriving at the French coastline, the two families took a car driven by the stowaways to Paris and went to a public ticket office outside the Paris airport to buy tickets for Taishan Airlines.

"Hello, I need four tickets to Yangon today, Taishan Airlines Eurasia flight." Cohen walked to the ticket window, trying to make his accent sound less harsh.

The ticket seller was a curly-haired woman with a pencil between her fingers. She looked down at the flight schedule and frowned slightly: "Taishan Airlines' 'Skylark' is departing at four o'clock this afternoon, but there are only four VIP tickets left."

The VIP cabin is a special design of the Huashan No. 1 passenger plane. It is a six-person cabin behind the cockpit with a bed, which is more comfortable and twice as expensive.

This price is not something ordinary people can afford.

Cohen, who had spent all his savings to come to France, couldn't afford this money.

But in order to leave Europe as soon as possible, he remembered what Arthur had said and went to the Paris branch of Taishan Airlines near the airport.

(End of this chapter)