by Helen Fry
The two generals had inadvertently provided, arguably, one of the most important pieces of intelligence thus far. Their conversation was reproduced in the 1970s in a book by R.V. Jones, who had been head of the Scientific Section of MI6, but he was not able to specify that it had come from the bugged transcripts because they had not then been declassified. Instead, he merely made reference in his book to ‘a remark by General von Thoma’.6 The Chiefs of Staff were briefed;7 it was concluded that von Thoma’s rocket statement ‘may seem slender evidence after this lapse of time [since the agents’ reports of 1942], but it represented a crucial point in the intelligence picture at that date’.8 Von Thoma’s evidence was deemed reliable because it appeared to be an eye-witness account and it was unlikely that his information was a ‘plant’; or ‘chicken-feed’ (to use espionage language).9
Air Intelligence officers once more turned their attention to the site at Peenemünde as the possible location. At RAF Medmenham at Danesfield House in Buckinghamshire, the aerial photographs of Peenemünde from 1942 were pulled from storage and re-examined in every minute detail. Looking at them again, it was possible to make out the mobile launchers for the powerful new V-1 flying bomb (the ‘vengeance weapon’) and V-2 rocket.10
By April 1943, the Air Ministry was still trying to understand the nature of the site at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast of northern Germany. Declassified reports, maps and aerial photographs of the site are deposited in Air Intelligence files.11 These include a report dated 29 April 1943, headed ‘Extract from an Interpretation Report of the New Development at Peenemünde’, in which it was still not clear that Air Intelligence knew of the site’s exact purpose:
The general appearance of the factory, which is situated in a clearing in the forest, suggests that it may be employed in the manufacture of explosives … The building near the centre of the works has the appearance of a gas plant. It has a chimney and dumps of coal or coke can be seen at either end of the building … Several low buildings in the areas 10, 11 and 12 have been erected since 15.5.42.12
On 26 May 1943, the secret listeners at Trent Park overheard a lengthy discussion between General von Arnim and a senior German officer whose voice they could not identify. They spoke about the V-2 rocket – the ‘retribution weapon’ – and the world’s first long-range ballistic missile:
C: I wonder how the development of these rockets will turn out. You don’t hear anything more about them …
A: Yes, this rocket business is all very well, there are all sorts of things, but you can’t propel an aircraft all the time with it.
C: No, not aircraft, bombs – they just fire rockets.
A: Fire rockets?
C: Yes. I know the ‘liquid rocket’. It can easily travel 200km but it has tremendous dispersal.
A: That doesn’t matter.
C: It has a tremendous dispersal, but you need large copper boilers and precious metal for the burners and for the jets. It would be economically quite impossible to produce it in large quantities in order to keep up a continuous fire. I believe they are heated by means of pure alcohol which produces a steely blue flame 8 or 12 metres long which comes out at the back. The great … of liquid …
A: I have heard that they have a range of even 300km.
C: They can reach 300, there’s no difficulty about that. You just need to make the fuel boiler longer. I saw one which we developed some time ago and was present at the first tests. It had a range of 150 or 200km.13
As a direct result of the conversations at Trent Park, Air Intelligence chiefs acted. RAF pilots were sent out again on secret reconnaissance missions to photograph the Peenemünde site.14
‘The first discoveries in the M Room about Peenemünde caused great excitement,’ recalled Fritz Lustig. ‘It was quickly realized that a new rocket programme was underway. Picking up this kind of intelligence for the British was very important to us because it could mean the difference between winning or losing the war.’15
OPERATION CROSSBOW
On 29 June 1943, Churchill’s Cabinet Defence Committee met in the Cabinet War Rooms. At that time, chief scientist Professor Frederick Lindemann told Churchill that he believed the objects seen on the aerial reconnaissance photographs of Peenemünde were either torpedoes or fake dummies to divert attention away from the real weapon.16 Dr R.V. Jones believed that the accumulating evidence for the V-1 programme should be taken seriously. After considering Dr Jones’s views at the meeting, Churchill authorised an attack on Peenemünde.17 Because it was beyond British radio navigation beams, Churchill told the Committee: ‘We must bomb by moonlight … we must attack on the heaviest possible scale.’18 The reasoning behind the mission was straightforward: ‘The destruction of this experimental station, large factory workshops and the killing of scientific and technical experts would retard the production of this new equipment and contribute largely to increasing the effectiveness of the bomber offensive.’19A target information sheet for aircrew was issued:
The target is the Experimental Establishment at Peenemünde situated on the tongue of land on the Baltic Coast about 60 miles N.W of Stettin, engaged upon the development and production of a new form of R.D.F equipment which promises to improve greatly the German night fighter air defence organization.20
The only information the air crews were given was a briefing before the mission that if they failed, they would repeat the raid a second night, and the following night, until the job was done, and regardless of casualties. Preparations began for the mission that would eventually take place in mid-August 1943 under the wider name of Operation Crossbow. In a meeting between Air Intelligence chiefs at Bomber Command on 7 July 1943, it was decided for security reasons that any reference to ‘rockets’ or ‘Peenemünde’ was to be eliminated in all reports. The meeting concluded that ‘the plant is being called an Experimental Establishment’.21
On 8 August 1943, with only ten days until the operation to knock out Peenemünde, a conversation was picked up at Trent Park between Lieutenant Colonel Wolters (captured in Tunisia on 11 May) and General von Arnim (captured in Tunisia on 12 May) at Trent Park:
WOLTERS: In his speech, Goebbels hinted at a new weapon – he was speaking of various things which we have in mind. I heard recently on good authority that there are great things afoot, which actually date back a long time. We are said to be building (?) enormous rockets. UDET (?) I believe, was working mainly on the things. These rockets –
VON ARNIM: Which go over England?
WOLTERS: Yes. They are supposed to be fired from the neighbourhood of Brussels.22
By full moon on the night of 17/18 August 1943, pilots of Bomber Command left their base and carried out the first attack on Peenemünde Army Research Centre in a mission codenamed Operation Hydra that included 324 Lancasters, 218 Halifaxes and 54 Stirlings. This was the start of the much larger Anglo-American operation aimed at destroying any sites connected to the V weapon programme and the production plant for hydrogen peroxide needed for the rockets. The first wave of bombers attacked the sleeping and living quarters, the second the factory workshops and the final wave the experimental station itself. The raid was deemed a success because it delayed Hitler’s rocket test launches by at least four weeks to six months. But it came at a price. Two hundred and fifteen British aircrew were killed. Forty bomber aircraft were lost and hundreds of civilians in the nearby concentration camp, Trassenheide, also died. Two German V-2 rocket scientists, Dr Thiel and Chief Engineer Walther, were killed during the attack.23 It was later confirmed that 720 people had been killed on the first raid on Peenemünde.24
The impact of the Allied bombing of Peenemünde cannot be over-emphasised. It bought extra time for the Allies and delayed Hitler’s first launch of a V-1 on London until 13 June 1944, a week after the successful D-Day landings.25 Without the intelligence from the M Room, it is doubtful that the Allies would have realised the full significance of Peenemünde until it was too late. Germany could have won the technological war which would hav
e made it difficult to mount the D-Day landings the following year. It was a major landmark in thwarting Germany’s race for weapon superiority.
It was anticipated that Germany would not cease its weapon development programme but shift it elsewhere. The new launch sites for the V weapons in France and Holland were often first picked up in bugged conversations at Trent Park or via interrogations at the CSDIC sites.26 Under the umbrella of Operation Crossbow, the Allies continued to bomb suspected V-1 and V-2 launch sites until the end of the war.27
Hitler’s captured generals continued to talk about the secret weapon programme in their casual conversations, and explicitly about the new V-2 rocket that was being developed at Peenemünde.28 Von Thoma spoke to his comrades again about how he had seen some of the early experiments with rocket apparatus before the war, but these had been nothing less than a disaster.29 He claimed to know that the rockets would only go to about 10,000 metres and few would be able to reach London. He did not realise how far the technology had advanced and commented to Bassenge that the rockets were ‘too expensive for the game to be worth the candle’.30 Von Thoma was quite scornful of the presumed decisive effect of firing rockets on Britain and said:
If there really is something, it is only rocket stories. Of course that is rather laughable and does not decide the outcome of the war. It creates only uncomfortable disturbance here. Instead of perhaps a few aeroplanes coming over here in the evening, a rocket flies in.31
Bassenge added: ‘Even if all London is reduced to rubble and ashes, it is unimportant for the outcome of the war because they (V-2s) can get to Glasgow or anywhere else at the time.’32
Within a week of the RAF attack on Peenemünde, the secret listeners overheard another conversation, this time between Neuffer and Bassenge, in which Peenemünde was specifically mentioned:
BASSENGE: This place Peenemünde was begun at a time when I left the technical office and therefore I never went to see it
NEUFFER: But for what purpose? Hadn’t we already got Rechlin?
BASSENGE: Well, Peenemünde was not built by the German Air Force [G.A.F], but by the army and we had only one section built into it by the G.A.F which attracted my interest, and that was the rocket business.33
The conversation rambled on. Ironically, at the end of the discussion, the generals seemed quite dismissive.
‘This business about a new weapon – I don’t believe it. As a matter of fact – I mean as regards a new weapon – technology today is such a complicated affair – you can’t just produce a new weapon out of a hat,’ said Neuffer.
To which Bassenge replied, ‘I consider it all bluff, nothing more.’
‘Just one of those Jules Verne affairs,’ Neuffer responded.
Bassenge agreed: ‘Yes. In England they’re joking about it.’34
Of course, nothing was further from the truth. British intelligence had taken the leaked information very seriously.
On 11 September 1943, Generals Neuffer and Bassenge discussed the secret weapon again, but this time with naval Captain Meixner:
NEUFFER: Perhaps there really is a secret weapon or –
BASSENGE: Yes. For instance there are the liquid rockets, 5 to 6 metres long. They contain an explosive charge about the same as that of a good torpedo.
MEIXNER: Good, but that will penetrate one block of houses at the most.
BASSENGE: No, it doesn’t penetrate that either. The effect is just like a 1,000kg bomb. You can fire the things and they can travel a comparatively long distance; you can use them for a sweeping fire on fleets here. The things are extremely complicated and have a frightful amount of copper and valuable metal in them … I know all about these things. I’ve seen them.35
In another discussion with Neuffer that day, Bassenge stated that the rockets were about 10 feet in height with the explosive power of a 1,000kg bomb but were expensive.36 ‘These things have an extremely complicated apparatus,’ he said, ‘a frightful lot of copper and very valuable metals inside because otherwise the jet or fuel injector – that is most certainly the most expensive and valuable steel – melts away with the colossal temperatures which are generated.’37
Bassenge made comments about the possibility of Hitler using gas because Goering wanted it as a reprisal weapon.38 Bassenge maintained that no really serious preparations for gas warfare had been made by Germany. Von Thoma replied that if the Germans tried to use gas, they would be completely finished because the Allies were superior in chemical warfare.39 He commented that the gas specialists were Jewish and most were working in London. The British intelligence report stated: ‘Others [generals] have expressed similar views, though one or two are frightened of the Nazis using gas as a last desperate measure, and even bacilli have been mentioned.’40
In another conversation with Neuffer the following month, Bassenge said: ‘Giant rocket guns … those enormous things are the rockets filled with liquid, they are twice as high as this room (note: height of room is 10ft), are this size in diameter (demonstrating) and it is a sort of aerial torpedo with rocket propulsion … in the air. It climbs pretty vertically, goes as high as this in a curve and drops like this.’41 Although the rockets proved to be comparatively inaccurate, he commented that they would land somewhere within the London area.42
To which Neuffer responded: ‘Then we’d better all go out into the trench!’ At the end of the report, a comment has been added by MI19 that Bassenge’s experience of the secret rocket programme was somewhat dated.43
The subject of secret weapons continued that day when Bassenge told Neuffer: ‘I set up a department “D” for rocket development, together with a very good engineer by the name of Bender.’44 He then proceeded to give technical details, referring to directional control by radio and the use of rockets to attack aircraft in formation.
Admiral Hennecke, commandant of sea defences in Normandy before being taken prisoner, was asked by a senior British naval officer (unnamed) about the use of chemical weapons.45 He replied that the Germans widely believed that the British would use gas warfare and they had therefore taken considerable precautions along the frontline. He added that he did not think the Germans would use gas because the British were ‘in a much better position to wage that type of warfare on account of their air superiority’.46
Captain Meixner posed the view that the secret weapons ‘may force the British to make a premature landing.’47 He was referring to the Second Front, an invasion of Europe which the German generals knew would come, but they had no idea when and where. The defeatist camp was pretty much agreed that the rockets would not win the war for Germany and would only cause bitterness amongst the Allies. Major General Sattler commented to Colonel Borcherdt that he believed the V-2 was to weigh ten times more than the V-1 and that it would ‘require a colossal installation to launch the larger projectile’.
V-1 AND V-2
References to the V-1, V-2, Peenemünde, secret weapons and rockets continued to be picked up in subsequent conversations, not only from the German generals, but also lower-rank prisoners being held at Latimer House and Wilton Park.48 One particularly important prisoner being held at Latimer House was Herbert [Peter] Cleff, a member of the German army’s scientific civil service. Cleff became disillusioned with the Nazi regime after his own brother died at Stalingrad and decided to help the Allies. He provided helpful information about the V-1 and V-2. Captured at the end of 1942, Cleff was valuable to British intelligence because he had first-hand experience in the field. Lieutenant Commander Donald Burkewood Welbourn, a Naval Intelligence interrogator at Latimer, described Cleff as:
Probably the most brilliant all-round engineer I have ever known, being skilled with his hands at anything from watch-making to general fitting, and being certainly the most original kinematician of his generation. I soon was spending a lot of my time walking the fields round Latimer with him, talking both engineering and politics. I lent him a few books on theoretical engineering which I had with me, and he started to write for his younger
brother the superb notebook on kinematics.49
Cleff told Felkin, head of Air Intelligence at Latimer, that he knew of a new type of aircraft engine working on the ram jet principle. Within a few months, this was identified as the V-1.
On 30 July 1943, a German pilot referenced Peenemünde and told his cellmate: ‘The experimental flights were carried out up there in the Baltic from Peenemünde.’50 Another conversation between two German bomber pilots came less than a week after the RAF had bombed the site. A pilot codenamed A713 asked: ‘Is it all complete?’ His cellmate, A130, replied: ‘Yes, all completed … now they are going to bring out the “Peter X 2” … that is … being tried out. They have it at Peenemünde at present.’51
Other prisoners discussed the destruction of Peenemünde.52 On 27 October, two soldiers (one captured from Regimental Headquarters in Italy, the other in Tunisia) showed concern that they might find themselves under one of the rockets being fired on England:
M238: It’s hell being a POW and perhaps on top of it all, we’ll get one of these new things dropped on us.
M304: The whole of the civilian population was evacuated from Rügen three years ago and from Peenemünde as well.
M238: They must got … somehow … under cover when they set a thing like this going.
M304: How do you mean? The thing is set up, it is ignited by remote control, electrically, and then it goes off.
M238: They get into shelters beforehand, below ground …
M304: Well of course. They may be something … it is ignited electrically by remote control and then it rises very slowly from the ground with mighty crashing, banging and hissing – it is frightful!