American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffeâ??s Secrets

11. The Secrets of V

[ 143 ] THE SECRETS OF VÖLKENRODE AND KOCHEL When Colonel Donald Putt reported for duty at Headquarters USSTAF in January 1945 he was appointed director of technical services. He expected to go to work for General Knerr, his mentor, but, on his arrival at St.-Germain, Putt learned the headquarters had reorganized and technical services had been moved over to intelligence under General McDonald. Putt recalled that “my outfit turned into more of a technical intelligence operation than it did technical services.” As fate would have it, he wouldn’t be there long enough to put down roots. In April,“the ground armies traveling east uncovered this secret research and development facility outside Brunswick in a place called Völkenrode. I got instructions to go there and take over the place.”1 Donald Leander Putt was born on May 14, 1905, in Sugar Creek, Ohio. In a 1974 interview General Putt reminisced, “As early as grade school I was interested in mechanical things. By the time I got to high school, I was sure I wanted to be an electrical engineer.” Donald was especially interested in what was then referred to as “wireless,” and built his own rig to intercept the Arlington time signal and other 11 radio transmissions.Putt obtained a commercial radio operator’s license by the time he was eighteen and graduated from high school.“I stayed out of school and spent the following winter in Cleveland working at the Ford assembly plant until spring came and the ice went out of the Great Lakes, when I got a job as a wireless operator on one of the lake freighters hauling iron ore, coal, wheat, and grain.” But Donald had his eyes on bigger things and took the time to take the entrance exam for the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, “and that fall enrolled there with the idea of becoming an electrical engineer.” In the spring of his senior year “one of the chaps in one of my classes brought to the class a little yellow-covered pamphlet that was entitled Flying Cadets of the Army Air Corps. He passed the pamphlet to me in class and said, ‘Gee, this sounds interesting.’ So I stuck the pamphlet in the back of my textbook. That evening at the fraternity house I read the pamphlet and it sounded intriguing.You know, go to Texas at Uncle Sam’s expense and learn to fly around like an eagle.” Putt decided to apply, to “see what happens.” He learned that there was a large percentage of washouts: first when people took the physical exam to get in, and later, when at least 50 percent washed out of flight training. He took his physical examination and was surprised to learn he passed. He received orders to report to San Antonio, Texas, July 1, 1928. Putt still thought of it as a lark and figured he wouldn’t last through flight training. So he went ahead and interviewed for a job.“I accepted a job with General Electric for their training course but asked to report on the first of October. I figured that would give me enough time to get washed out of flying school.Well, when the first of October came, I had to write G.E. and tell them I was sorry I couldn’t report because I was in the Army. I suppose because I was so relaxed about it all, I sailed right on through flying school.” Putt accepted a reserve commission and signed on for one year of active duty, thinking that “at the end of the year, why, I’ll get out and make an honest living. My regular commission came through in October 1929. I was ordered to Selfridge The Secrets of Völkenrode and Kochel [ 144 ] Field, Michigan, flying with the 36th Pursuit Squadron until February 1933 when I was reassigned to the Flight Test Branch at Wright Field.2 Donald Putt nearly lost his life at Wright Field. It was Halloween day, 1935, and he was part of a flight test crew to put the X-299 through its paces, the earliest model of what would become the B-17 bomber of World War II fame. “The first X-model had bubble windows on its sides, the principal exterior difference between the X-299 and followon production aircraft,” Putt recalled. “This was the largest airplane built to that...