V2

 

Race of Death to the Stars

 

The cold winds from the arctic cut across the Baltic sea and freeze the arse of peasants working in the forests of northern Poland. Not a place for ninnies or Germans!

 

Andre Kocalezki was working in the forest when out of the blue a huge hole opened up before him. As is the nature with blasts the air exploded outwards and then imploded under its own vacuum, and Andre found himself sitting in the hole, strangely covered with sand particles.

 

He was shocked and at first did not take into account that he had witnessed an impossibility - holes appearing out of nowhere! There was no explanation. He dragged himself out and stood on the rim scratching his head. The hole before him was immense, very wide and almost deeper than two men. He looked around and saw that trees had been torn apart as if by shrapnel. He knew all about shrapnel.

 

He had fought the Germans in their blitzgrieg attack on Poland and had seen the devastating affect of their barrage on human beings. In the shock of the moment he concluded that he had seen some weapon explode before him, but without explosion! In a dazed state he made his way back to his cabin. There were metal parts strewn all through the forest. He was lucky to be alive!

 

*

 

The so called Oslo Report, only seven pages, sat on the desk of Dr Jones of the Air Intelligence Branch. He was a young man chosen for his high intellect, and was charged with investigating ‘secret weapons‘.

 

The report mentioned a German research establishment at Peenemunde and the development of a rocket projectile. He presumed it genuine because it was clearly written by someone with a scientific background but others thought it a ‘plant’ and in any case inconsequential. Lack of perception nearly sealed England’s fate in the coming years - on such simple omissions are wars won or lost.

 

*

 

The Treaty of Versailles limited the calibre of weapons that a future German army could have. As resourceful as always the German High Command charged the Army Weapons Department to search for new types of weapons. An amazing chance of personnel selection set the Germans on course to rocket superiority.

 

The Ballistics Council of the Army Weapons Department selected Walter Dornberger to head the research, who in turn selected Werner von Braun as his technical assistant.

 

Both were enthusiasts for rockets and by some leap of genius proposed the propulsion of any worthwhile rocket should be liquid rather than the solid propellants that had been used in all rockets before.

 

Already von Braun was dreaming of rockets that would reach into outer space, and he realised this could be achieved tied to the development of a weapon for war.

 

*

 

1932 It was bitterly cold at the research station just outside Berlin. The Nazis had won control of the government and already Brownshirts were beating up their political rivals. The scientists, oblivious to this, were preparing the first combustion test of alcohol and oxygen.

 

Von Braun was twenty years old, and with uxorious confidence of youth held a can of burning petrol on the end of a 12 foot pole to the mixture. It immediately exploded, blowing the whole test bench to pieces! He was lucky to be alive.

 

A year later Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and set course for an aggressive war. And hence for the development of the first intercontinental ballistic missile. 

 

*

 

Wars are generally engendered, won or lost, by strong personalities. Leaders who can invoke a cause to which the people will rally, whether by veracity or guile. The chessboard for war in Europe was set out and two leaders came to clash across its bloody expanse not knowing what the next move would be but convinced of its outcome.

 

A classic contest developed, a strong and powerful attack and a dogged defence, to be fought to the last man! As in chess though, there are many pieces, and each one has its value, and who knows which one will resolve the issue. Force versus guile, and it rests on Intelligence.

 

*

 

Britain was an exhausted nation after the first world war and took a long time to effect any recovery and hence had no appetite for another war. There were warnings enough but like a tired old man it could not bring itself to face them and so always looked for peace at any price. And so there was no response to deadly opening gambits, but in the end were induced to act by honouring a treaty - to the Poles no less!

 

In a way this was a saving grace because it allowed war to be declared without actually doing anything - well if you consider not helping the Poles as doing nothing! But it gave time to prepare, and as always, there was the channel.

 

The Warmacht could not blitzkrieg its way across that! But the British Government had no inkling that a long range rocket was being developed that could do just that with devastating effect. But on that mighty chessboard one little pawn did have his suspicions.

 

*

 

Rocket development was proceeding on a classic hit and miss basis, each problem was overcome without a thought to what the next one might be, but one thing was clear - they needed a bigger, and more secure, testing and development site. Von Braun chose Peenemunde, or more exactly the remote island of Usedon nearby. With Von Braun as the brains and Dornberger as the manipulator things moved ahead apace.

 

With some clever marketing of the idea, and test demonstrations, money was forthcoming, and in 1936, a decisive date, the Army and the Luftwaffe agreed to cooperate in the project and the construction and operations at Peenemunde. As that was proceeding a reassessment was made of the rocket design and they realised to get everything in it would have to be big.

 

This was supported by the requirement of military chiefs of throwing big loads over large distances - Germany to England for instance - so big it was! Dornberger accepted this but was canny enough to know that it would have to be transported by road and hence limited the size of the rocket accordingly.

 

And so finally the A4, as it was designated, was produced and fired successfully in October 1942, reaching supersonic speed of over 3000 mph, reached a height of 60 miles and travelled 120 miles. A complete triumph, and in other circumstances a moment for world appropriation. Where was British intelligence - still arguing the case.

 

*

 

1942 Britain had other things on its mind, France had fallen, Russia had been invaded, the armies in the Western Desert advanced and retreated, the Battle of the Atlantic was joined, the Blitz on London had been beaten off and now British bombers flew over Germany in increasing strength - a ballistic rocket, thought by some to be impossible to make, was a miner concern. Not to some, thankfully.

 

The intelligence services are made up of different groups with different interests and to link one event through to another group is ponderous, and to finally distil a concise appreciation and recommended action to the chiefs of staff is nigh impossible. But there was no lack of information coming out of Germany, indeed there was too much.

 

Into Branch A1 information poured - some fact, some rumour, and some half truths. From Bletchley code breakers, from prisoner interrogations, from deserters, and even Germans who were becoming disenchanted with the Nazis there were hints and whispers of some new super weapon, but how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Dr Jones and his little department were severely over worked, and afraid that he might miss something vital, he appealed for and was granted more staff who were of a more technical nature.

 

This was vital in understanding and appreciating the strands of information that might point to a new super weapon. Real suspicion was aroused with information of a factory being built at Peenemunde, and an overheard conversation between the head of the Berlin Technical School and an engineer about a rocket with a range of 200 km with a five ton war head. A second message in 1943 from the first source reaffirmed the building work at Peenemunde and more rocket details.

 

Once again there was too much speculation in the report which made its worth dubious. Jones was finally convinced after hearing the taped conversation between two captured German Generals from the Western Desert that mentioned a new super rocket.

 

He reported this positively but just wanted a watch kept on it, but, as is the way with departments, it got out on general circulation, scared a lot of top men that naturally resulted in someone else being put in charge of the investigation. Thankfully a report was sent to Churchill recommending that the threat should be taken seriously. And yet there were still doubts.

 

The British rocket experts were still thinking solid propulsion which would mean a huge rocket just to get a small payload into space. Also there was the cost. A rocket of this size would cost an inordinate sum which would not be viable when set off against conventional weaponry. And so the arguments continued, whilst in Germany they were planning on

 

*

 

Poland. Contrary to what might be thought when the Poles finally mobilised they presented a formidable resistant to the advancing Germans. But with the Russians on one side and the Germans on the other the end was inevitable. However with their usual tenacity they formed an underground army, known as the Home Army. With the support of the civilian population, it was able to develop increased activities.

 

The development of secret factories of weapons, ammunition and other materials proceeded fast. Radio methods were improved and provided for daily communications between the Home Army Commander and the Chief Delegate and their counterparts in England.

 

The Intelligence Service of AK (Polish for Home Army) was able to monitor the German army and air force on the Eastern Front, and extended its activities to industry and ports in the Reich. An important success was providing information about the German rocket research in Peenemunde which led to the successful air-raid of 17-18 August 1943. The Home Army had indeed been helpful.

 

Parts of the first rocket that had nearly decapitated Andre were smuggled out through Sweden, but in truth British engineers could make very little of them. Then there was an enormous stroke of luck, a complete rocket was recovered from a crash site.

 

*

 

Getting it Right and Wrong On the chess board of life the wrong moves are often made for the right reasons, and so it was with the rocket scare. With the possibility confirmed someone had to be put in charge - senior staff never seemed to be able to trust the lower staff actually working on the problem. They chose Duncan Sandys - a young energetic man but with no experience in the ways of intelligence, but he had an open mind.

 

The British rocket research experts advised that its fuel must be solid and this would necessitate a huge rocket that would need a huge launch site. Therefore this made such a rocket unlikely! But a search was started. They were looking for the equivalent of a huge firework stuck in a milk bottle, and since they couldn’t find one, ipso facto, there wasn’t one.

 

In the process Peenemunde was photographed, and indeed there was something strange going on there. Duncan Sandys then came up trumps with a frank and sensible report that suggested the likelihood of a rocket that could deliver a 10 ton warhead.

 

Then in June 1943 a report arrived from a scientist conscripted by the Germans to work at Peenemund of a rocket 10 m long - the first accurate piece of intelligence, although no one knew it at the time. Then the famous photograph turned up in which WAAF Officer Babington Smith supposedly recognised rockets on site at Peenemunde.

 

This set the ball rolling but still certain sources insisted that such a rocked had to be a huge one, and Dr Jones, who had correctly assessed its size, was persuaded to change his assessment from 40 ton to upwards of 80 tons.

 

The cat got out of the bag and everybody, quite rightly, started running scared - the casualties from rockets of this size raining down on London could cause enormous casualties.

 

The Civil Defence would be overwhelmed and could the civil population withstand it? Massive evacuation plans were considered, should more shelters be built - this was Armageddon on a big scale.

 

At a high level cabinet meeting where every aspect was considered Dr Jones finally had his say - a rocket almost certainly did exist and tests were being carried out at Peenemunde. The only counter action available was to attempt to destroy Peenemunde.

 

This was now a straightforward military problem Bomber Command in Action To reach Peenemunde and back in darkness required longer nights and preferably with moonlight to assist the accuracy of bombing.

 

It required more accurate bombing than was normal for Bomber Command so crews were trained intensely to get better accuracy. The bombers went in the middle of August and at around midnight mounted a ferocious attack involving over 500 aircraft. To divert the Germans a small force flew to Berlin by way of Peenemunde dropping anti radar reflector strips to suggest an attack on the capital.

 

As always things did not go according to plan. Pathfinder aircraft, confused by low cloud dropped their marker flares two miles from the correct spot, others were more accurate and the flares were correctly spaced. The attack was over in ten minutes.

 

As always unintended things were bombed but an enormous amount of damage was done. Arial photography pictures showed it was completely obliterated. 1600 tons of bombs and 250 tons of incendiary bombs had been dropped, but this was not without loss.

 

German fighters alerted by the number of flares over the Baltic coast set off in their direction and attacked aircraft over the target and on the their return flights. ‘41 aircraft were missing,’ as reported in a communicate; a 7% loss rate, although high, was acceptable for this uniquely important target!

 

As always the damage seemed worse than it really was in terms of disrupting rocket development. Bombing to strike and destroy a particular target is always inept. One is the accuracy of the bombing, always pretty poor, even from low altitude, and two, the resorcefulness of those bombed.

 

And so it was at Peenemunde. Certain technical installations had been missed, and once the administration building had been made usable again burnt timbers were placed across the top to deceive the enemy.

 

Craters which were not in the way were not filled in to make it look that the place had been destroyed. They successfully maintained the effect of complete destruction and avoided further raids for nine months.

 

So how did the raid stack up? 40 heavy bombers missing and the Germans lost at least 39 fighters! The German losses was mainly due to the chaos over Berlin. Firing on one another, hit by their own anti-aircraft fire and collisions on the ground. Its true affect was probably to put the German program back by no more than two months. Valuable time as it turned out but oddly a significant blow was delivered by mistake.

 

60 Lancasters bombed what they thought was a radar production factory, but in fact was being converted to make 300 rockets a month! A number that would frighten the defence planners in England to death had they known. Race to the Death.

 

On June 6, 1944, a date known ever since as D-Day, a mighty armada crossed a narrow strip of sea from England to Normandy, France, and cracked the Nazi grip on western Europe. In February 1944 Hitler predicted that bombardment of England with a secret weapon would begin and force the tide of war to turn against England.

 

Unbeknown to the general public, and indeed to the high command, a deadly race was now on: could sufficient rockets be made and launched as a devastating attack on England before the allies reached the launch sites; could the Allies reach the launch sites in time to prevent it?

 

*

 

The whole of the rocket development was moved to Blizna a small village in Poland north of Warsaw. Blizna was the site of a huge SS training camp, and it was expanded further to take on the rocket development. This did not go unnoticed by the Poles of the Forestry Commission, who reported it to the Home Army.

 

The pressure was now on to actually start the manufacture of rockets on a production basis and for this an existing tunnel system in the Hartz mountains was extended to contain an enormous underground plant. Machinery was installed and preparation for manufacture was made.

 

To do this some 10,000 prisoners were used as slave labour. The target was to manufacture 900 per month at an initial cost of £8800 each! This somewhat impossible target was reduced to 20 a day, still an astonishing number!

 

The launching of the rockets caused considerable debate. Hitler, with preference for huge concrete construction wanted bunkers built at suitable sites. Others recommended mobile launch vehicles which could easily be moved. Already detachments were being trained, one mobile and one permanent, which between them could fire eighty missiles a day. This would surely bring the English to heel.

 

The first huge bunker was constructed near Calais but it was already being photographed by aircraft. No one was sure what it could possibly be, but it most certainly ought to be destroyed. This task was undertaken by the 8th US air force with 185 Flying Fortresses. Unfortunately planners always reckon without the ingenuity of the enemy, in particular the Germans.

 

They converted it to a factory producing liquid oxygen, the main rocket fuel, by simply concreting over the smashed bunker, leaving a vast bunker with 23ft of concrete on top! Impregnable! Other sites were built and all was getting ready for the bombardment of England. But there were delays, some due to continuing design change and others due to other priorities, namely the Flying Bomb.

 

*

 

The Doodle bug, as it became known, was really a flying bomb, launched and propelled by a simple jet engine; cheap and simple to make! They were missiles that had enough power to fly over the Channel and were capable of destroying 2 to 3 houses. They made a droning noise and as soon as the droning noise stopped people had 15 seconds to escape from the powerful blast that followed.

 

They were fired from France and were launched during 1944. About 8,000 were launched at Britain, and over 2,000 of them hit London. Over 6,000 Londoners were killed and about 500,000 homes were destroyed. 2,500 anti-aircraft guns were moved to the south coast to shoot down the deadly V-1s before they reached London. As the anti-aircraft gunners became more experienced many Doodlebugs were shot down into the sea.

 

Fighter planes downed hundreds with cannon fire and some very brave pilots flew alongside the bugs and with the planes’ wings tipped them off-balance to upset their gyroscope, which sent them diving to the earth. If they thought this was bad enough; worse was threatened with V2s!

 

More information was coming into British intelligence confirming the existence of such a rocket. One went astray and exploded over Sweden, a neutral country. This caused lots of concern on both sides; the Germans embarrassed by such an incident, the Swedes initially puzzled by it, but, concluding it was a weapon of war, sent parts to England. Even so having scattered parts still needed interpreting and because there were radio parts it was concluded that it was a radio controlled rocket.

 

From this, and from information coming in from the Polish Home army it was at last established the rocket was 40 ft long and 6 ft in diameter. But how it was propelled, and how it would be launched was still a mystery.

 

British intelligence was bedevilled by the scientific establishment insisting it had to be a solid propellant which in turn meant it had to be huge rocket. But at long last the penny dropped and Churchill was convinced and ordered attacks to be carried out on hydrogen peroxide plants in Germany, thought to be the fuel.

 

The date for firing the V2, or A4, as the Germans knew it, was set for September 1944. But the elaborate plans for the launch sites now had to be scrapped as the Allies advanced north from Cherbourg overrunning every one. Oddly enough this made the strategic use of the weapon more effective since, for, as Dornberger had always wanted, they had to go for mobile launch sites.

 

Even so this was a huge operation involving 6000 men and 1600 vehicles just to service and operate twelve launching units. The first launches were against Paris.

 

Ignition. External fuel to the engine was ignited. The main pumps then fed liquid oxygen and alcohol into the combustion chamber. The rocket lifted off its launch pad travelling at 2000 mph, reaching a height of 60 miles at its maximum velocity of 3600 mph. Then it plunged down into the suburbs of Paris.

 

Two were fired, but somehow went unnoticed and was not reported too London! Whilst a missile of some 60 ft long was now accepted by the Chiefs of Staff as likely, how it was to be launched remained a mystery.

 

The newspapers had now got the story of a V2, but making the assumption that such a huge weapon could not be launched then probably there was no such a beast! The information was there in photographic form but no one could make head nor tail of it.

 

There were thousands of photographs to study, making it virtually impossible to detect a mobile gantry capable of launching the supposed rocket. With the allies advancing the mobile launch site was moved to Holland.

 

On Thursday the 7th of September a street in the Hague was chosen, all the residents moved out, and the next day the launch platform with its rocket was erected. At 6.38 pm, English time, the first two rockets were launched. The bombardment of England had begun.

 

On the Thursday the 7th of September the press carried a story that the ‘battle of London was over’! Staveley rd. is in the London Borough of Chiswick. At precisely 6.35, without warning, a hole appeared in road.

 

Houses on both sides were demolished, and for hundreds of yards around buildings were cracked and windows blown out. It was reported by those who remembered the swiftness of events that there were two explosions, one after the other. 3 people were killed. Von Braun had claimed his first victims.

 

The noise of the explosion left most people puzzled, some thought that a bomber had crashed, but it was guessed by some to be a gas mains explosion, but as time went on and there were more ‘gas explosions’ one wag remarked; ‘If that was the case he didn’t see why Hitler was wasting his bombs!‘. The immediate response of the British Government was to keep quiet about it.

 

The news paper reporters deduced what it was immediately but were not allowed to publish their thoughts. It was a time of great uncertainty, there was no warning that could given.

 

The rockets could not be detected by radar, and even if they could there was no weapon that could bring them down. With the rockets continuing to fall it was decided to suppress reporting on them, as much to keep Hitler in the dark as to prevent panic amongst the population, particularly in London.

 

There was no shortage of information as to where the launch site was, information poured in from the Hague. The trouble was that when the bombers arrived the bird had flown.

 

Fighters were dispatched to try and hunt the sites down, but they were difficult to identify from the air. It was now down to the army. A lot of hope had been placed on the attack on Arnhem but since that failed there was not the hope of occupying Holland quick enough to prevent further attacks,.

 

Anyway it was now concluded that the rockets range could be as much as 250 miles. From what was for the moment a safe haven for the German launch sites they could bombard England, and more importantly the docks at Antwerp.

 

So it became a battle of attrition, could the civil defence cope with the bombardment (and the population bear it), could the Germans beat the English into submission and prevent the allies encroaching on German soil. The die was cast. Churchill proclaimed, ’What can‘t cured, must be endured.’

 

Rockets rained down on London. They were not accurate and fell willy nilly anywhere. One famously on a golf course that upset the members, they did not relish their new hazard! However it was becoming increasingly serious, in the latter part 1944 there were 217 rockets, and in the early part 1945 660! It was close to a disaster!

 

In all this it must be wondered how Germany, now nearing defeat, with Russians advancing from the east, and the Allies from the west, and their country under constant bomber attack, could continue to manufacture such a complex weapon in such numbers?

 

The German promise that the V2 would bring ‘sudden and horrible death’ to the people of England was certainly true; 2745 civilians were killed, and another 6523 seriously injured with the total of lesser injured making up around 24,000 across the whole country! These stark statistics do not reveal the misery and upset that was caused.

 

Troops returning home from the battlefields were astonished at the destruction, which did not do much for their moral when they went back, leaving their families to face uncertain death and destruction. However the end was nigh. In April it ended, quite suddenly there were no more rockets.

 

There was unusual quiet over London, people went to bed and slept peacefully for the first time in months. The siege of the capital had been lifted by the advance of the Allied armies. The advancing Russians meant that Peenemund had to be evacuated.

 

Astonishingly rockets were still produced to the bitter end, but with Germany being overrun the units were disbanded and turned into an infantry battalion to continue the fight to the last man. And what of von Braun. Opportunist to the last, he was already planning to surrender to the Americans, hoping to buy privileged treatment by giving his countries secrets to them. Which he did.

 

All the masses of films, drawings and documents were hidden in the caves in the Hartz mountains, the entrance sealed so that if the Germans luck changed they could start work again on a new improved rocket that von Braun was already designing!

 

It seemed that he and his little band of scientists gave little thought to the misery they had caused as they waited to give themselves up.! Ah, the Americans, how lucky can you get! They advanced on the caves and tunnels in the Hartz mountains got the lot.

 

They freed all the slave labour, yes, but they got their hands on all the remaining rockets, and all the drawings, and parts, enough to fill 300 railway wagons. They had to get it all away before the Russians got there! And what of von Braun.

 

As clever as ever, he and his group surrendered to the Americans and were promptly housed, as befitted their station, in rooms with mountain views at Garmisch-Paetenkirchen. For them the war and the horrors of its aftermath, were over.

 

Von Braun’s instinct for survival had triumphed! Indeed by September 1945 von Braun, his scientists and their families, were in Boston, von Braun under contract to the American government to continue were he had left off! The British senior advisers were still at odds about the future of such a rocket; too big, nobody could afford to build it even though the evidence was before their eyes.

 

As might be expected Jones had more insight and wrote that ’a long range rocket can be developed further, maybe fitted with homing devices, and carry an atomic warhead!’. How right he was!

 

The value of rockets as strategic weapons, at the time, was understandably floored for future use. As was pointed out an aircraft could drop an enormous tonnage of bombs with greater accuracy over longer distances produced at about the same price as a one rocket.

 

Allied bombers were dropping an average of 3000 tons of bombs every day over Germany, the hoped for rocket response would be 24 tons a day; no contest.

 

And yet the rocket was destined to reach for the stars as well as being capable of delivering untold destruction to the human race. With Germany already researching atomic bombs, it was, in truth, a close run thing.

 

Taken from the book ‘Hitler’s Rockets by Norman Longmate. 

Permission from the Publishers to publish ths story has been obtained.