Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age by Walter J. Boyne Read Free Book Online Page A

stainless-steel flask of tea and opened the inlaidwalnut door to the bar. He raised his eyebrows and pointed to the whiskey in invitation, but his guests all shook their heads.
    “Bloody idiots. They have no idea of what they cost the country. If they had given Frank”—he nodded out the window to where the always dapper Squadron Leader Frank Whittle was hectoring a group of workers from Rover—“some support, we would have had squadrons of jet fighters by 1938, and there might never have been a war.”
    Hooker poured himself a splash of Scotch, waved his glass again in invitation, poured another splash, then downed it.
    The three Americans, who had been admiring the utter luxury of the Rolls, waited for him to continue. Hooker had been utterly forthright so far, and they wanted all the information they could get from him.
    Hooker waved the empty glass in the air. “We did the same thing to Frank that the French did to the Wright brothers! They ignored all the Wrights had done, called them ‘liars, not fliers’—until Wilbur came over to Le Mans in 1908 and showed them what real flying was. Then they jolly well stole their ideas! Blériot would never have flown the Channel in 1909 if he had not seen Wilbur Wright in 1908!” He reached for the whiskey bottle again, shook his head, carefully wiped his glass with an immaculate linen napkin, and closed the door to the bar. “We did the same thing to poor Frank, ignored him; then when it is bloody obvious that he was right, we take his ideas and parcel them out to other companies. It’s unforgivable!”
    Stunned by the outburst, the three Americans waited cautiously. Then, very tentatively, Colonel Ray Crawford asked, “Can you tell us about it? We’ll have our own problems, I’m sure.” The other two, William Owen, a plant manager from General Electric, and Vance Shannon, General Arnold’s special representative, instinctively leaned forward.
    Little need, for Hooker spoke loudly in a crisp but aggrieved tone, as if he felt the pain that Whittle had suffered.
    “Frank Whittle invented the turbine-jet engine in the early 1930s. Patented it in 1932, when he was twenty-five years old. Oddly enough, we are the same age.” The last sentence was said rather more softly, and Hooker paused for a moment, running his hand over his bulging brow as if astounded by their coincidence in age. Then he went on. “The government ignored him. Industry ignored him. They should not have; Frank Whittle is brilliant, a genius, even if he can be a bit abrasive. If they had the brains to give him even a little funding, we could have had a production version of his jet by 1937, and squadrons of jet fighters by 1938. Hitler would not have dared move against Czechoslovakia, and perhaps some sensible German might have shot him by now, saving us the trouble of this bloody war. And then the government robbed Frank.”
    Owen asked, “When did he finally get some backing?”
    “In dribs and drabs from 1936 on, never more than a few thousand pounds and mostly from private people who believed in him. If you know him, you cannot help believing in him—he’s a remarkable man. A trifle sharp, perhaps, doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but brilliant in theory and in practice. I thought I knew something about turbines, from my supercharger experience, until I talked to Frank. He is a master of the subject.”
    Crawford, unlike most Army Air Force colonels, was at fifty a little old for his rank, having spent years with Pratt & Whitney before getting a direct commission in 1940. “You mentioned that they robbed him. Isn’t he a serving officer? Wouldn’t his invention have belonged to the government, anyway?”
    “By no means. He developed the engine on his own time, with private money. He signed all the proper papers, telling him how many hours a week he could workon the project, and giving the government an interest in it. Then the government thanks him by forcing him to give away his ideas to