So much time had been lost that events had overtaken the elaborately worked-out plans to use the rocket. The original intention had been to bombard not merely London, Bristol, Southampton and Portsmouth but, rather strangely, Aldershot and Winchester. The Germans contemplated a front about 160 miles long, in a direct line, but covering about 250 miles of coastline, from Cap Gris-Nez, midway between Calais and Boulogne, to the Cotentin peninsula, round Cherbourg. There would be giant ‘bunkers’, at Sottevast and Wizernes, and another forty-five unprotected smaller sites, supplied through seven main storage depots, La Meauffe, Hautmesnil and Elbeuf in Normandy, Mery-sur-Oise, near Paris, Tavannes and Savonnieres, some 200 miles inland, and, much further north, Hollogne, near Liege. Four field storage depots near the launching sites had been planned, at La Motte, Thiennes, Bergueneusse and Fransu, in the Pas-de-Calais, and six transit dumps, scattered over the whole area. Liquid oxygen was to be manufactured in France, at seven centres, which would supply a large storage depot, at Rinxent, near Boulogne, and another at Saint-March d’Ouilly, near Falaise, for the six small sites, and the giant Sottevast bunker, beyond the Seine. Alcohol was to be manufactured in Germany, but stored at Tourcoing, near Lille, for the main launching area, with eight forward sites, one of them in Normandy, between Caen and Saint-Lo, the rest between the Somme and Calais.
This whole elaborate supply structure now had to be replanned, since every site concerned was in Allied hands. The same cause had upset the original German Order of Battle, which had envisaged some fixed detachments based in bunkers, with other, mobile ones, moving about between the smaller sites. When Kammler took over his headquarters were at Kleve, about 15 miles south-east of Arnhem and just across the German border with Holland. His men were organized into two formations. Group North, under Colonel Hohmann, consisting of two batteries of 485 (Mobile) Artillery Detachment (Art. Abbt. (mot.) 485), was at Kleve but was now ordered forward to The Hague. Group South, under Major Weber, consisted of two batteries of 836 (Mobile) Artillery Detachment and also of the former 444 (Training and Experimental) Battery, now promoted to an operational role. On 8 September 1944 this was at Euskirchen in Germany, about 15 miles south-west of Bonn and about 25 from the Belgian frontier. The SS was also supposed to be forming another unit, known as SS Werfer Batterie 500.
The loss of the bunkers had forced the Germans back on what Dornberger had always considered the proper tactical use of the rocket, its discharge by mobile units from constantly changing sites. Each launching team required only a small convoy of vehicles. It normally consisted of three Meillerwagen, each carrying a rocket and drawn by a half-track lorry, which also transported the crew. With these large, low-loading trailers came three tankers, for alcohol, liquid oxygen and other fuels, a generator truck, an armoured command vehicle and a number of staff cars. The tankers were made of a special aluminium, at once strong and light, but the real triumph of German ingenuity lay in the Meillerwagen, which served as rocket transporter, inspection gantry and firing frame. On reaching the launching site it was tilted upwards into a vertical position by hydraulic jacks, which took about 15 minutes, leaving the rocket resting on a solid, cone-shaped metal plate, on an open, four-sided frame, this launching base being known to British intelligence, from its shape, as ‘the lemon squeezer’. It was designed to deflect the rocket’s burning jet sideways and protect the ground or platform beneath. The erect Meillerwagen frame also provided a platform, 40 feet high, on which the soldier setting the gyroscope near the nose could stand, while others, at lower levels, filled the fuel tanks and checked the electrical circuits. The Meillerwagen was then moved away and lowered back to the horizontal, to be used another day.
All this took little more than an hour, during which time the rocket had been linked to the command trailer by electric cables, and the non-technical troops who formed part of the unit had been digging a slit trench. At an announcement by the officer in charge – ‘X minus three minutes. Counting down’ – everyone took shelter and the actual firing sequence was initiated, with vapour from the liquid oxygen beginning to stream out of the vents in the fuselage in a fine mist. At ‘X minus one minute’ the vents were closed by remote control, the mist ceased and, as a final warning, a green flare was fired. If everything seemed in order the order came: ‘Ignition!’ As the control button was pressed by one of the other occupants of the command vehicle, a stream of sparks began to burst from the rocket’s tail, which settled down into a jet of red and yellow flame. A second button cut off the rocket’s outside fuel supply and switched it to its own batteries, and a third brought into action the pressure pump forcing 33 gallons per second of alcohol and liquid oxygen into the combustion chamber. Slowly, trailing a flame its own length behind it, the rocket hoisted itself into the air, while inside the command lorry the seconds since lift-off were counted aloud. If all went well, after 4½ seconds the nose would tilt in the direction of its target; at 23 seconds those on the ground ceased to hear it, for it was travelling faster than sound; by 30 seconds they considered themselves safe, for if it did come down it was likely to fall several miles away. By 35 seconds, now six miles up and travelling at twice the speed of sound, it might still be visible as a dot, through binoculars, thanks to its trail of liquid oxygen, gleaming white against the sky, and nicknamed ‘frozen lightning’. The crucial moment came about 54 seconds after ignition, when the commander announced ‘All burnt!’ The rocket had now consumed all its fuel and was travelling on its own from the velocity it had built up, at 3200 feet per second, nearly 2000 miles an hour. It became the custom at this stage for the officer in charge and the propulsion engineer who had actually pressed the firing buttons to engage in a ritual handshake, perhaps with some Germanic heel-clicking, before the launching platform was re-installed on the Meillerwagen, which trundled off to be loaded at the nearest storage depot with another A-4, while the fuel tankers headed for the liquid oxygen and alcohol supply points. What had by then happened to the rocket they had just launched they could only speculate, but, if all had gone well, it should have reached a maximum speed of 3600 m.p.h. and a height of 50 to 60 miles, before plunging to earth at some 2200 to 2500 m.p.h., likened by Dornberger to the impact of fifty 100 ton railway engines colliding with the same spot in London at 60 m.p.h. He took pride, too in the missile’s elegant and graceful appearance, whether in the silver-grey aluminium of some of the earliest models, the contrasting black and white or red and white squares, sometimes with fins picked out in contrasting shades, of many of those fired at Peenemünde – a livery designed to make them easier to follow in flight – or the standard Wehrmacht greenish-grey of most of the operational missiles. Now at last the rocket was to be used in action.
On 7 September 1944 Kammler had twelve launching units at his disposal, three of them from 444 Battery and the other nine from 485 – a total of about 6000 men and 1600 vehicles, including supporting technical units. 444 Battery, on German soil at Euskirchen, had the honour of firing the very first A-4 launched at an enemy. The target was Paris, and two rockets were fired in rapid succession, at 10.30 a.m. and 11.40 a.m. on Wednesday, 7 September 1944. Both were total failures, falling back on to the firing table. After two days’ frantic examination the cause was located – a malfunctioning mechanism had prematurely cut off the rockets’ fuel supply – and at 7.28 a.m. on the morning of Friday, 8 September (8.30 British time) the unit tried again. This time they succeeded. The rocket climbed into the sky and shortly afterwards plunged down into the suburbs of Paris, but, curiously, no one seems to have realized the significance of the explosion, nor to have passed the news to London.
444 Battery was now ordered to move to Walcheren Island in Holland, while the honour of firing the first round against the real enemy, England, went to its sister battery 485. During Thursday, 7 September, the occupants of three pleasant tree-lined suburban streets in The Hague – Nonijnenlaan, Koekoekslaan and Lijsterlaan, all in the residential area of Wassenaar – found German lorries outside their door and l
outs in SS uniforms banging on their doors, but, to their relief, the occupants were merely ordered to pack up and move elsewhere, leaving doors unlocked and windows open.
Once they had gone, the Germans laid cables to provide an extra electricity supply from the adjoining roads of Rijksstraatweg and Rust en Vreugdlaan. Next morning, Friday, 8 September 1944, a convoy of six trucks and a Meillerwagen rolled in, followed by others, rockets were set up at either end of Koekoekslaan, and the launching procedure began. The missiles were aimed to land 1000 yards east of Waterloo Bridge, the heart of a closely built-up area of south-east London, the precise spot selected being – though the Germans can hardly have known this – the site of the National Fire Service station in Southwark Bridge Road, SE1. At 5.38 p.m. local time, 6.38 in England with its extended Double Summer Time, the ‘Ignition!’ order was given for both missiles. The rocket bombardment of the United Kingdom had begun.
12
INCIDENT AT STAVELEY ROAD
An enemy missile dropped in the centre of the concrete roadway, forming a crater about 40 feet across.
Ministry of Home Security report, prepared on 11 September 1944
Friday, 8 September 1944 had been a typical autumn day in southern England. After a cold night, the morning was bright and sunny, but during the afternoon the skies clouded over, and rain followed. In spite of the weather there was much to feel cheerful about. On Saturday, 26 August, the papers had reported a turning point in the campaign in Europe. ‘Gen. de Gaulle enters liberated Paris. Last Germans surrender after ultimatum,’ ran the Daily Telegraph headline, while downcolumn was recorded ‘A US Forecast. End of war by October’. ‘London’s buildings quickly broke out into a flutter of tricolours,’ reported the New Yorker’s excellent correspondent, Mollie Panter-Downs, on reaction to the news from France. ‘Nobody appeared to mind when one confused building superintendent ran up the Dutch flag instead.’ The ringing of the church bells added to the general sense of jubilation, for those of St Paul’s had not ‘uttered a sound since June, when it was decided that the bells might drown out an approaching robot’. The 3rd of September revived many poignant memories, for it was not merely the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of war but, like that earlier 3rd of September, a Sunday, and also a National Day of Prayer. For Londoners, even more significantly, it was explosion-free. ‘The peace of these last few days passed belief,’ wrote Vere Hodgson, in Notting Hill. ‘I have been out twice today and never had to listen for danger.’
The following week the good news continued. On Tuesday, 5 September, a corner of The Times’s front page, otherwise devoted to advertisements – ‘No Coupons. Rust tweed suit, unworn: £15’, ’For sale, Excellent indoor shelter, steel arch, £25’ – contained the small announcement, ‘Allies enter Holland’. On the main news page one cheerful item jostled with another: ‘Antwerp captured’, ‘Pressing on in Italy’, ‘Cease Fire in Finland’, even ‘Standing-Down of the Home Guard’. The impending replacement of the blackout by a dim-out, with thinner curtains permitted and even some street lighting restored, due on Sunday, 17 September, added to the feeling that it was all over except the flag-waving. The Daily Herald on Wednesday, 6 September 1944 described events in the capital the previous day:
Rumour upon rumour swept through London yesterday: Germany had capitulated; the King was to broadcast; Parliament had been recalled. Not one of these rumours was true but they spread from London to the suburbs, from the suburbs to the provinces. People left their suburban homes and came to town to join in the celebrations. There were taxis full of singing soldiers. There were stories that barricades were being put up in Piccadilly to control the overjoyed crowd. . . . Brussels radio had announced that ‘foreign stations’ had announced at 9.30 that morning news of the capitulation of Germany. A little later . . . the message was ‘killed’, but the report had got a flying start.
The next morning, Thursday, 7 September, the press carried Herbert Morrison’s cheerful ‘Hitler has lost the Battle of London’ speech of the previous day, but one man at least remained unconvinced. ‘It appears that Civil Defence is ending,’ wrote the borough librarian of much-flying-bombed Croydon in his diary. There is a sort of dizziness in the news; it is so good that one wonders if all is really well.’ On Friday Duncan Sandys’s press conference was splashed across every newspaper, often accompanied by congratulatory leading articles. All this made pleasant reading that Friday evening, when there was not much to tempt anyone out. The two films which had just opened, Wing and a Prayer, with Don Ameche winning the war in the Pacific, and Take It or Leave It, about an American sailor on leave, were, on the kindest interpretation of the reviews, undistinguished, while the theatre had not yet recovered from its doodlebug doldrums. The current bestsellers, G. M. Trevelyan’s English Social History and Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, were hard to come by and the most popular occupation in London that Friday evening was probably listening to the radio. On the Home Service one could hear Jack Payne’s Orchestra, American Commentary and As You Like It, interrupted by the great event of the day, the Nine O’Clock News. It was a typical evening’s listening for what seemed all set to be a typical wartime evening.
The London Borough of Brentford and Chiswick, formed in 1932, lay just outside the London County Council area, but well within that of the London Civil Defence region, being served by both the Underground and the Southern Railway – Chiswick Station to Waterloo took twenty minutes. Its wartime experience had been ‘middle of the road’. Chiswick was fiftyfifth in the ‘league table’ of V-1 incidents suffered by the 95 boroughs in the London Civil Defence Region, with 13 flying-bombs, and it had, to 8 September 1944, endured 635 incidents, inflicted by two parachute mines, 359 HE bombs and some 7000 incendiaries.
Close to the river, which formed Chiswick’s southern boundary, lay Staveley Road, a ‘middle-middle-class’ district, with semidetached, and a few detached, houses. At first, when the area was developed in the 1920s, they had enjoyed the social cachet of names alone – Westcourt, Elsmere, Dunrobbin – though further building had led to their being numbered. Although it now included a ‘council school’ for eleven – to fourteen-year-olds, the road still contained some vacant plots and was quiet and spacious, renowned for the cherry trees which lined it; every spring the King’s mother, Queen Mary, came to look at their blossom. But on the evening of Friday, 8 September 1944, Staveley Road was a dismal place, with the few people about hurrying home to get indoors before the drizzle that was just beginning settled down into a steady downpour.
At 6.34 p.m., totally without warning, a huge hole appeared in the middle of the roadway opposite number 5. Houses on both sides of the road collapsed and for hundreds of yards around walls cracked, tiles clattered to the ground and windows shattered into lethal fragments. All that anyone heard was a ‘plop’ and a sudden rumble, though many felt the force of the explosion, like the caretaker of Staveley Road School who had been crossing its playing field and suddenly found himself hurled twenty feet to the ground. ‘I picked myself up’, he told a News Chronicle reporter, in an interview destined not to be published till a whole year later, ‘and staggered to the nearest wrecked house; a woman – I later learned it was Mrs Harrison – crawled out of the wreckage and died in my arms.’ Mrs Harrison, a sixty-five-year-old housewife, had been sitting by her fireside with her husband. In the same instant died a young soldier, Frank Browning, walking down the road to visit his girlfriend, and a three-year-old infant, Rosemary Clarke, killed in her cot. Dornberger and von Braun had claimed their first victims.
Thanks to the evacuation after the flying-bombs, and because some people had not yet arrived home, the casualty list was surprisingly light: 3 dead (although the official figure at the time was 2), 10 seriously injured, another 10 slightly hurt. Three wrecked houses, numbers 24, 26 and 28, had all been empty. A fifteen-month-old girl living next door to the dead baby survived; her mother, the wife of an airman, had taken her to safety in North Wales a few days before, although,
as she recalled bitterly, she and her husband had only just finished paying for their now ruined home. This was only one of many families with new reason to hate the Germans; 11 houses had been demolished outright, 15 more had to be evacuated for extensive rebuilding, 12 more had been seriously affected and 556 more had suffered ‘minor damage’, though a far larger number of people had been inconvenienced, for there was, the official account noted, ‘a very large crater 20 feet deep in the middle of the road’, and the water and gas mains had been broken.
Brentford and Chiswick coped well with incident no. 636 – it was to suffer only one more, a very minor one, during the rest of the war. A rest centre, on ‘St Thomas’s playing field’ – the areas was full of sportsgrounds and pavilions – was promptly opened, and provided shelter for sixteen people, until closed on 15 September. Ultimately fourteen families were rehoused and three individuals found private billets. An incident inquiry point, opened on Saturday, was needed only for a day, since everyone affected was soon accounted for.
Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s Page 18