by Hitler's Revenge Weapons- The Final Blitz of London (retail) (epub)
British, American and French officers witness the live firing of a V2 from the Cuxhaven Weapons Range during the British Operation BACKFIRE, in September 1945, many German specialists on the weapon assisting on site. (Author, Courtesy HTM Peenemünde)
British weapons specialists trace the launch of a V2 during Operation BACKFIRE. (Author, Courtesy HTM Peenemünde)
Initially, there was some concern that the Germans intended to assist in the British trials might not be welcomed by those who had been on the receiving end of the V2 attacks but this proved to be ill-founded. Likewise, those Germans who were already in US custody in Bavaria, and who had been hoping for free passage to a new life in America, were very reluctant to be drafted to support BACKFIRE. However, they were somewhat consoled by the treatment they received from the British, additional pay, special rations, normal working hours in their specialisation, often with old friends, while enjoying recreational activities and plenty of freedom to roam in the local area.
From the eight V2s available, (some of these had been secreted away from Nordhausen by the British before the Americans arrived, others were found in railway wagons abandoned in Jerxheim and Lesse, North Germany) five were prepared for the trials. Long and intensive searches gradually revealed the necessary support equipment, found hidden away in the British zone of occupation around Celle, Fallingbostel and Lisse, much of it needing repair and refurbishment. Again, after much searching, a factory at Fassburg was re-opened to produce liquid oxygen, 70 tons of ethyl-alcohol was found on a train near Nordhausen and a stock of hydrogen-peroxide was found in Kiel. By mid-August the British had assembled and organised all the elements required for the two phases of BACKFIRE. Phase One dealt with the assembly of the rockets and all the ancillary equipment, Phase Two the final preparations, launches and behaviour of the rockets in flight. The German support was divided into two groups; the AVKO in Camp A, while a separate entity comprising twenty of von Braun’s senior civilian staff made responsible for recording every aspect of the trials were lodged in Camp C. In addition to the Canadian contingent, some 150 scientists, 100 rocket troops and a working party of 600 PoWs were involved, and all was set for the trials to begin by the middle of September 1945.
The first launch, scheduled for 27 September 1945, was postponed because of bad weather and on 1 October two more attempts failed, due to ignition faults. However, at 14.41 on a bright and clear 2 October, everything worked perfectly, bringing plaudits all round; the rocket reached a height of 23, 000 feet and a distance of 154 miles. Just after the second launch, on 4 October, the engine failed but, on 15 October, a third launch at 15.06, before a large number of British, American, Russian and French spectators, was successful, climbing to 21,000 feet and landing, as planned, 144 miles down the range.
Despite the small number of launches, Operation BACKFIRE was considered to have been a great success – and very well worthwhile in the context of future research into stratospheric, supersonic rocketry. The evaluation had proved more difficult to stage than had been anticipated, inter alia heaping great credit upon the Wehrmacht’s rocket troops who had once contributed their best under threat from the air at all times in the field, during the confusion and turbulence of war, and had now done so again in the relatively benign environment of peace.
Following the operation those of von Braun’s team of specialists who had been detached from Bavaria were returned there, to be accommodated at a disused Wehrmacht barracks at Landshut, known as Camp Overcast, the British having failed to persuade the Americans to let them keep some of the rocketeers for their own purposes. At Camp Overcast, 150 of the scientists and technicians were offered five-year contracts to work for the US Army in the USA, their families looked after at Camp Overcast until arrangements could be made for them to be accommodated in America. This was the beginning of Operation OVERCAST, later Operation PAPERCLIP, in which a chosen few were moved to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, via New York, in September 1945, while others from Peenemünde were given employment, initially at Fort Bliss, Texas, pending a more permanent home for all the Germans at White Sands, New Mexico, where, in April 1946, the first of some sixty V2s taken from Mittelwald, re-christened ‘Bumper’ was launched. Many rockets based on V2 technology followed, in many different configurations. The Americans had rich pickings and they did not delay putting their new acquisitions to work.
Although the British had failed to recruit some of German rocket scientists they wanted, they did get the service of others, employing them at the Royal Aircraft Establishments at Westcott and Farnborough where they made significant contributions out of all proportion to their numbers. The V2s they had acquired also provided the model for a British-designed equivalent, which incorporated a small cabin for training an astronaut – but nothing came of it.
Chapter 12
The Reckoning
Statistics on the V1 and V2 offensive against Britain and targets on the continent, primarily Antwerp and Liege, vary considerably between the sources but the figures below give some idea of the dimension of the Vergeltungswaffen offensive and what the recipients of these terror weapons had to endure during the nine-month campaign. The German people suffered too, not only from accidents in the missiles’ development and production, but also from errant missiles on the front line. Then there were the thousands of foreign labourers and PoWs, who endured unspeakable deprivations, starvation and retribution, before many of them succumbed to a blessed death, particularly at Peenemünde, Mittelwerk, and in building the massive launch sites in the Pas de Calais.
One source has it that Wachtel’s Flak Regiment 155(W) fired a total of 12,263 V1s, of which 9,521 targeted England, 5,672 crossed the coast and 2,340 reached Greater London, killing some 5,500 and seriously injuring 17,000. The worst V1 incident was at New Cross on 25 November 1944, when 168 people were killed and 121 injured, while those that hit the borough of Croydon destroyed 110,000 houses and damaged another 1,500,000, while 500 people were killed by the flying bombs elsewhere in England. Antwerp and Liège were the primary targets for the 2,448 V1s launched on the continent, causing an enormous number of casualties among the residents and transient Allied troops.
Of the 5,200 V2s built, only 3,000 were launched operationally, 1,115 against England, of which 517 hit London, killing 2,754 Londoners and seriously injuring 6,523, while 537 landed elsewhere in Britain, ended up in the North Sea, burst prematurely or broke up in the air. Overall, the V-weapons destroyed 107,000 houses in Britain, and damaged a further 1,500,000. Another 1,664 V2s were fired at Antwerp, killing 1,736 and injuring 4,500, the worst incident being on 16 December 1944, when 567 were killed and 291 injured with a direct hit on the Rex Cinema. France was the target for seventy-six V2s, The Netherlands nineteen and Germany eleven. A total of 12,000 PoWs and slave labourers were thought to have died in the production of the two weapons at Peenemünde and Mittelwerk.
However, statistics alone do not tell the whole story of expensive time delays, procrastination and vacillation within the respective German and British hierarchies, of wasted effort, conflicting political and personal agendas, all combining to reduce the impact of the new weapons on the course of the war – and the effectiveness of the Allied defences against them. Many lessons were also learned, or re-learned on both sides, and it is worth summarising some of the more obvious here.
In attempting to supplement their armoury of long-range artillery with flying bombs and rockets, the Germans were able to circumvent some of the main constraints of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, inter alia putting themselves way ahead of any other nation in guided-weapon technology and thus able to inflict a heavy blow on the Allies in England and on the continent. However, they failed to capitalise fully on their potential. At least in the early years it was von Braun who persuaded Hitler that the A4 (V2) was worth pursuing, and kept him updated with every optimistic development. Similarly, the Luftwaffe was playing catch-up with the FZG-76/Fi 103 (V1) flying bomb, without the official backing it needed fr
om Erhard Milch, second in command of the air force, who paid only lip service to the project (Chapter Three). Attitudes changed when it seemed that both weapons could be effective additions to the arsenal, and Heinrich Himmler himself began taking a keen interest when it seemed that both missiles were about to materialise. Himmler had no interest in the missiles per se, in their quality control, improvements in guidance or terminal accuracy, only in the number of missiles he could bring under command and when, believing that ownership of the two programmes would bring additional power to his SS. Indeed, his utter contempt for the project scientists and engineers was very evident when, in March 1944, he had von Braun, Klaus Riedel and Helmut Gröttrup arrested on trumped-up charges (Chapter Three ), presumably thinking that it would not be difficult to replace them. Dornberger and Speer knew better and pleaded successfully for their release to enable them continue their unique contributions. More delays were attributed to Himmler in the wake of Operation HYDRA when he insisted that all work in progress must be moved from Peenemünde to the relative safety of Mittelwerk, at a particularly crucial time for the A4/V2, when the Baltic site was on the point of completing vital work there. He also claimed that only complete control by his SS could weed out agents and spies embedded in the foreign workforce and prevent further leaks on the classified work which were believed to be helping the Allies.
Above all, however, there were the delays caused by Hitler blowing hot and cold over the V-weapons, and more specifically on the provision of a facility at Peenemünde to generate A4s for pre-production trials, the Führer only becoming more decisive in their favour when he realised that they offered the only means of retaliating in kind for the Allies’ heavy bombing of German cities. Then, having eventually given his backing, Hitler would not hear of any obstacle to the production of the missiles, brushing aside von Braun’s warning that the A4 was meant to be a test vehicle, optimised for trials only, not as an operational weapon – and von Braun was right. Early production V2s were found to have many defects, including disintegration before impact, leading to more delays as many hundreds of modifications had to be incorporated in the field. Haste here had been a false economy.
In addition to the lack of official encouragement in the right quarters, competition for critical resources, the raw materials, skills and equipment needed for the evolutionary weapons, delayed the ‘in-service’ dates of both missiles. For instance, compromises had to be accepted in the V2 guidance system, because the Kreiselgeräte company was unable to undertake a long run of the Sg 66 system, due to other demands on the firm. Also, with an initial paucity of equipment needed to complete the production of the V2s at MIttelwerk, the incomplete missiles had to be transported to Berlin to have their electrical systems added. Building a rocket in this way took eleven months, five of which were consumed remedying defects encountered during the trials at Blizna. Even when the campaign of these ill-proven weapons got into its stride, internal tensions and interservice rivalries at all levels held back technical improvements and tactical deployments far more than any Allied actions against them. Also, the fierce competition between the respective protagonists of the flying bomb and the rocket to get their missiles to the front line first was driven more by the prestige it could bestow than military imperatives, so there was little if any cross-flow of information or co-operation between the two project teams, all of which was again counter-protective, and, once operational, it was the respective launch rates which mattered. On the front line and in the rear areas, further modifications, running repairs and improvisation were the order of the day, with little time or expertise remaining to improve performance. One exception was the introduction of lightweight V1s, given wooden wings and nose, and a smaller warhead to allow more fuel for greater range, but this came too late to Influence the course of the war. Crucially, the guidance system was never improved, but shortening the range of the flying bombs from their launch sites to continental targets did improve their accuracy.
Those who argued that the resources allotted to the V-weapons could have been better spent on manned aircraft production may not have been aware that, from the beginning in 1943, the Luftwaffe had all the material resources it needed for aircraft production although supplies of aviation fuel to the front line was fast becoming inadequate; the main problem was a dire shortage of pilots, especially experienced pilots. In fact, in 1944, the German aircraft industry produced more fighters than the Luftwaffe could man despite many of its skilled mechanics being drafted into the ground defence force. Given that the Luftwaffe’s twin-engine bombers were obsolescent, and that it had no heavy bombers, the V1s and V2s were the only strike assets available, so they became Hitler’s darlings of the time.
Much time was wasted in building Hitler’s initial preference for huge concrete launch sites for the V2s in France, and many of the V1 static ski sites, in the obvious path of an inevitable Allied invasion; the thousands of men involved and the supporting logistics would have been better employed elsewhere. From the German standpoint, the best that can be said of the static sites, particularly those which acted as decoys, with skeleton manning and cosmetic repairs, is that they diverted a great deal of Allied air effort away from other more profitable targets. Bombing the huge, semi-underground reinforced-concrete launch sites in France (Watten, Wizernes, Siracourt and Mimoyecques), before their completion may have been necessary, but it certainly found no favour with the chiefs of Bomber Command and the USAAF’s 8th Air Force. They claimed that their best contribution to CROSSBOW was to continue bombing the German heartland, with the target list including those industries involved in the production of the two missiles. Be that as it may, the heavy bombers were said to have flown nearly 70,000 sorties and dropped 122,000 tons of bombs on CROSSBOW targets with no little objective evidence of their success. However, the ‘law of unintended consequences’ did play its part here, when the bombing of bunker and ski sites drove the Germans into dispersing their missile launch sites tactically. Thereafter, the Allies had to mount countless reconnaissance sorties, to seek out these elusive, fleeting sites for the fighter-bombers to follow, often to no avail and always at risk from increasingly effective German AA. Additional resources also had to be found to counter the V1s air-launched over the North Sea and those targeting the logistics centres at Antwerp and Liège, while the port at Ghent had to be activated to back up Antwerp, given the German successes with the V-weapons there.
The old adage that ‘time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted’, was certainly true in Operation CROSSBOW but only when good visual reports and photographs were subjected to expert scrutiny and acted on in time. There is good evidence that the photographic interpreters (PIs) at the Medmenham CIU served the Allies well but such intelligence as they produced, even that which was well validated, was not always used expeditiously, or to best effect, in necessarily precise mission planning, weapons/target matching and employment to be carried out against the likely enemy activity and weather in the operating area. This often resulted in many sorties having to be aborted, wasted effort or unnecessary collateral damage, the raids against Peenemünde in August 1943, and that against the Haagse Bos in March 1944, providing examples of this (Chapter Eight). In the former PR had revealed the most important target elements at Peenemünde but poor bombing resulted in the death of only one of the key scientists, Dr Thiel, at a cost of forty-one RAF bombers and their crews, and the loss of several important informants who were killed when the PoW/foreign workers’ sleeping quarters were destroyed. Failure to rectify this mistake with a second attempt was, in hindsight, another major blunder, allowing valuable work at Peenemünde to continue almost unhindered from the air until the Russians were on the doorstep. In the latter case, the raid against the Haagse Bos, inadequate mission preparation and inaccurate bombing, arguably employing unsuitable assets, caused the deaths of some 500 Dutch civilians and the total destruction of Bezuidenhout.
The author, a one-time fighter-bomber/tactical reconnaissance pilot himself, and
later a battle manager in NATO, is anxious not to lay blame for some lack of definitive success in this air war against the V1s and V2s, particularly in seeking out and destroying such obscure ground targets without the sophisticated aids to navigation and weapons delivery, and with none of the precision-guided weapons available today. He fully recognises the enormous difficulties faced by the planners in prioritising targets in a fast-moving situation, the co-ordination of inter-dependent forces and the many agencies involved in the multiple, conflicting tasks they faced in 1944/45 – so often in the necessary haste and fog of war. Despite the preeminence of the Allies, they too faced a paucity of resources, especially when the demands of the impending invasion competed with those of CROSSBOW at critical times in 1944.