Approaching Storm: From Award Winning Best Selling Author Kurt Philip Behm

By Kurt Philip Behm

Once again, the Simpson family is put to the test. An enemy, long thought defeated, has resurfaced with new and deadly tactics to extract their revenge.

The final battle returns to European soil where William Broderick Simpson III had trained to become the consummate and legendary warrior of his generation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823013697

Kurt Philip Behm

Best selling author and renowned poet, Kurt Philip Behm, has been writing both poetry and prose since 1971. In this sixth installment of his historical fiction series, The Sword Of Ichiban, William Broderick Simpson III (Cutty) takes a radically new and dangerous approach to turning the tide of World War 1.

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© 2023 Kurt Philip Behm. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/28/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1370-3 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1371-0 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1369-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023916297

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: To Find A War

Chapter 2: Sweet Revenge

Chapter 3: A Full Bird

Chapter 4: Why William, Why

Chapter 5: Saint Joan

Chapter 6: Bigger Fish To Fry

Chapter 7: Who’s Next

Chapter 8: Two Old War Horses

Chapter 9: The Dodge

Chapter 10: At Sea Again

Chapter 11: Dot Dot—Dash Dash

Chapter 12: More Than Just The Uniform Was Uncomfortable

Chapter 13: Smoke On The Horizon

Chapter 14: Ships In The Night

Chapter 15: Vanishing In The Mist

Chapter 16: A Jaguar Readying To Bare His Teeth

Chapter 17: The ⁸th Squadron

Chapter 18: Treachery Along The Thames

Chapter 19: The Quiet Beach

Chapter 20: The Fox Is In The Hen House

Chapter 21: Adjusting Course

Chapter 22: Gone But Not Forgotten

Chapter 23: Fish In A Barrel

Chapter 24: Warpaint

Chapter 25: Plans Take Shape

Chapter 26: Alarm Sirens

Chapter 27: Instinct Overrides All

Chapter 28: Conspicuous Absence

Chapter 29: Within Range

Chapter 30: Silently Watching

Chapter 31: Wild Bill

Chapter 32: Confirmation

Chapter 33: One Last Look

Chapter 34: Dance Of Death

Chapter 35: Packaging Fear

Chapter 36: Gary Owen

Chapter 37: Lights Out

Chapter 38: The Blue Hour Of Dawn

Chapter 39: Wonder Turns To Fear

Chapter 40: So, Captain…

Chapter 41: The Clock Ticks

Chapter 42: Last Words

Chapter 43: Loose Lips…

Chapter 44: Setting The Trap

Chapter 45: Closing The Hatch

Chapter 46: Portside

Chapter 47: 0930 Hours

Chapter 48: To Cross The Channel

Chapter 49: The Silver Spoon

Chapter 50: Changing Plans

Chapter 51: Ahead Of The Train

Chapter 52: Calm Before The Storm

Chapter 53: Each Man For Himself

Chapter 54: Flashes Of Saint Mihiel

Chapter 55: The Southern Tank

Chapter 56: Springing The Trap

Chapter 57: Closing The Back Door

Chapter 58: Death At The Water Hole

Epilogue: Twenty-Nine Hours Later …

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‘Waiting For The Bugle’s Cry And The Sound Of The Canon’

INTRODUCTION

Cutty was back at West Point immersed in a funk and depression that he had never felt before. The Great War had been over for eleven years, and he was still being heralded the world over as the final bullet in General Pershing’s gun that had struck the Germans that fatal blow resulting in their defeat and total surrender.

To most men, especially fighting men, this would have been more than enough. Most men would have returned from the conflict and, once back with their families, reclaimed the life they had enjoyed before the war …

But Not This Man

William Broderick Simpson III was fifty-three years of age and had lived a life beyond the reach of almost all other men. He had traveled and fought all over the globe and was legendary among the world’s armies and navies as the preeminent warrior alive. His last combat mission was a high-risk successful air campaign where he had led the AEF’s 10th Air Squadron in a raid behind German lines during one of the final battles of the Great War.

The Germans had been intractably embedded in trench warfare in Western France for over two years, and the Allies had had no success in penetrating their lines. The morale of the French, British, and American soldiers in their trenches had reached the lowest point in the war.

More men were dying from the unsanitary conditions of the trenches and disease than from the actual fighting. The mustard gas that the Germans were using only served to make a bad situation worse. General John Joseph Black Jack Pershing knew something had to be done to turn the Germans back. He was afraid that if they broke through the Allied lines (trenches), the war could go on for another two years and possibly be lost.

General William Broderick Simpson III, Cutty to his friends, was stationed in Dover, England, and served as a morale booster and inspiration to the men who were actually fighting. Being a national treasure, he was given a non-combatant field command over all air squadrons of the United States Army.

He was the one who had successfully transported several hundred Curtiss JN-4 aircraft from New York Harbor to Dingle, Ireland. He had done this by converting a U.S. Navy battleship, the USS Montana. Its deck had been modified and the big guns had been moved back so they could park over a hundred JN-4’s in tight formation on the ship’s deck.

He also had the extreme right or starboard side of the ship’s deck kept clear to use as a possible runway when the big battleship got close enough to Ireland that a JN-4 could take off and make it to land. The pilots had been practicing short takeoffs from the Academy landing strip back along the Hudson, and they felt confident that they could gain enough lift to get up into the air from a moving ship.

The thing they had never done—what only one pilot had done—was land a plane on a shortened makeshift runway on a ship at sea. There was one pilot, Colonel Tom Reynolds, who became the 10th Squadron’s commander, who felt confident that he could do it. He got the chance to demonstrate this when the Montana was under submarine—German U-boat—attack while transporting the JN-4’s to Ireland.

Colonel Reynolds also became Cutty’s son-in-law, having married Cutty’s beloved daughter, Wilhelmina, just before leaving on the air campaign to roust the Germans. Willy, known as Boomer to the pilots, was a young, twenty-three-year-old, first lieutenant, appointed personally to that rank by the recently deceased General Willard Bull Murdock.

Willy had earned her wings by stowing away in the back of a JN-4. She then successfully hand-dropped several aerial bombs on the U-boat of the most famous admiral in the German Navy, Admiral Wolfgang von Brunner known as the Wolf. Von Brunner had been the architect and supreme commander of the German U-boat fleet. His loss had been devastating to the German war effort.

Willy had learned this skill by flying with Tom Reynolds back at West Point. It was against orders, both her fathers and the commandants, but Tom, risking court-martial, took her up anyway. To say Willy had been persistent in her asking would be the most extreme understatement, but it was her incredible vision and hand-eye coordination, inherited from her famous father, that had won the day.

Willy had been able to accurately drop a dummy bomb, from over three hundred feet and come within six feet of a targeted X on the Academy field. As impressive as this was, she had been pressured to curtail any flying ambitions till after the war. In addition to her skill in dropping bombs, Tom had also taught her how to successfully pilot a JN-4.

The JN-4 was a dual-control, bi-wing aircraft and was able to be piloted from either the front or rear seat. Willy had become so proficient during their secret afternoon flights back at West Point that Tom privately wondered if she had become even more skilled than he was—and he was the number-one pilot in the United States Army.

Based on her successful destruction of von Brunner’s U-boat, Willy volunteered to participate in the upcoming air campaign behind the German lines. Her father protested, but General Pershing made the decision to let her fly. He felt that through her bravery and skill, she had more than earned it. Willy was part of the air squadron that dropped almost five hundred men by parachute into the darkness of the French countryside. Her father had been in the first wave of three to jump into the darkness.

This air campaign had caught the Germans totally by surprise. With the help of the French Resistance, they were able to drive the retreating German 5th Army northward toward Verdun, blocking any attempted escape toward Metz and easy access back to Germany.

But then it was over!

Cutty was back at the Academy and had reassumed his senior teaching position as Professor of Military Strategy and Tactics. Even though it was the most popular and in-demand course on campus, with many famous commanders such as Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton having been former students—teaching was no longer enough. Cutty was even having thoughts of leaving the military, rather than being pigeon-holed forever in a routine and monotonous peacetime role.

His wife Adrian sensed the urgency of this, and she feared that only one thing would fix the way he was feeling. He needed to get out from behind the desk that was now facing a room full of freshly washed cadets.

British Colonel Lance Bristol, his mentor and best friend, had always told him: William, a soldier needs to be at war or preparing for war. Without that, he walks into a trap he may never escape from.

Cutty had been restless even before the advent of the Great War, and he did not want to continue to live like this. But where do you find a war once your war has ended?

The graves have been dug

all bugles away

The medals awarded

for valor displayed

The soldiers in transit

to homes once so dear

But where is the silence

—when gunfire you hear

CHAPTER 1: TO FIND A WAR

The Front Page Of New York’s Largest Newspaper Reports:

"Early this morning, March 3rd, an explosion was heard aboard the Naval Barge HMS Duffield. The Duffield was docked alongside the transient facility of the Thames, less than two miles from downtown London. No suspects have been apprehended, but it is believed to have been caused by a splinter group of the German Stormtroopers—Sube Rache or the Italian terrorist organization—the Arditi. Both groups have been actively involved in the destruction of British and French transportation vessels in and around London and Paris. Three highly decorated British Army officers were killed in the attack.

Last month, three trucks were bombed on a major road outside of Versailles. Two French Army officers were killed in that incident. So far, there has been no response to these attacks by either the British or French authorities.

Cutty unlocked the door and walked into his three-room office suite. Inside the door, on the floor as usual, was a copy of The New York Times and his mail from yesterday. He always got in before his secretary, Lieutenant Brendan Ferth, or both the mail and the paper would have been sitting on his desk.

As he hung up his wool trench coat, he glanced down at the now-open newspaper in his left hand. He fixated and stared hard at the printing on the first page. I can’t believe those cowards attacked again and got away scot-free. If they’re not caught, it’s only a matter of time until they start attacking targets here in the United States. We were sure we eradicated both the Stormtroopers and the Arditi before the war ended. Maybe we wiped out everything except the ideology, and that has come back to bite us.

Cutty sat down at the big oak desk, finished