Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s

by Norman Longmate

  Sunbury

  Tooting

  Tooting Bec

  Tottenham

  Twickenham

  Upper Sydenham Station

  Victoria

  Walthamstow

  Blackhorse Lane

  Farnan Avenue

  Wandsworth

  Wanstead

  Wapping

  Wembley

  West Ham

  West Hampstead

  West Norwood

  Westminster

  Whitehall

  Willesden

  Wood Green

  Woodford

  Woolwich

  Dairsie Rd.

  Woolwich Arsenal

  Yiewsley

  Lottingem

  Luton

  Maastricht

  Magdalen Laver

  Maidstone

  Maldon

  Malines

  Medmenham, Central Interpretation Unit

  Mersea Island

  Méry-sur-Oise

  Mimoyecques

  Mitcham

  Mons

  Mottingham

  Mountnessing

  Nazeing

  Nijmegen

  Nordhausen

  Norfolk

  North Fambridge

  North Romford

  Northwood

  Norwich

  Ober Raderach

  Oberjoch

  Orpington

  Kynaston Road

  Overveen

  Paglesham

  Paris

  Pas-de-Calais

  Peenemünde

  abandoned

  attempts to destroy

  established

  Penshurst

  Pinner

  Pitsea

  Plumstead

  Plymouth

  Portsmouth

  Potters Bar

  Purfleet

  Purleigh

  Raaphorst

  Rainham

  Ranworth

  Rastenburg

  Raveningham

  Rethen

  Rettendon

  Richmond

  Riga

  Rinxent

  Rockland St Mary

  Romford

  Rotherfield

  Rowhedge

  Roxwell

  Ruislip

  Saint-March d’Ouilly

  Savonnières

  Schwedt

  Shoeburyness

  Shotesham All Saints

  Sidcup

  Sidlice

  Siracourt

  Sneek

  Sottevast

  Southampton

  Southend

  Southey Creek

  Southgate

  Southminster

  Stanmore

  Stettin

  Stockholm

  Suffolk

  Sunbury

  Surlingham

  Surrey

  Sussex

  Swanley

  Tarnow

  Tavannes

  Ter Horst

  Thiennes

  Thirslot Creek

  Thorpe

  Tilbury

  Tourcoing

  Tournai

  Traunsee

  Usedom

  Uxbridge

  Voorde

  Walcheren

  Walcheren Island

  Waltham Abbey

  Waltham Holy Cross

  Warlingham

  Wassenaar

  Watten

  Weimar

  Welbourne

  Welling

  Westcliff-on-Sea

  Westerham

  Whitlingham

  Wiener Neustadt

  Winchester

  Wittringen

  Wizernes

  Wolgast

  Woodford

  Woodham Ferrers

  Writtle

  Yalding

  Zinnowitz

  Zwolle

  I have used a conversion factor of 11.32 Reichsmarks to £1 throughout this book. This is the middle figure for the exchange rate, 11.76 to 10.88 RM, on 31 August 1939.

  In his speech in Munich on 8 November 1942, during the annual celebration of the unsuccessful Nazi Putsch of 1923.

  As Dornberger pointed out, the professor’s valuation, of 1-2 million marks, was a ludicrous underestimate, the true figure being ‘several hundred million’. Its annual budget alone was already 150 million RM (£13.2 million).

  Dornberger p. 186. David Irving, p. 74, places the second test at 10.10 a.m. The two sources also disagree about the weather in the morning, which Dornberger says was ‘fine’ but Irving describes as ten-tenths cloud. Both agree the afternoon was fine.

  The official history gives the number dispatched as 597 and the losses as 40.

  Churchill’s statement in his memoirs that Hitler ‘inspected Peenemunde about the beginning of June 1942’ is wrong and rests on an inaccurate intelligence report.

  He was himself detained in Auschwitz, not Buchenwald, but has based this account on the evidence of eyewitnesses.

  See page 65.

  Not near Malö, which is nearly 200 miles south-west of Kalmar, as several previous accounts have stated.

  As in most details concerning the Poles, the sources disagree. Dr Jones refers to only one container, which included some parts from other rockets.

  See page 76.

  For obvious reasons, small discrepancies almost always occur between local and central figures for casualties and damage, especially when compiled at different dates.

  This account dates Duncan Sandys’s speech wrongly and also describes him as Secretary of State for War, but these mistakes do not affect the subsequent criticism.

  The historian’s difficulties in recording facts accurately are nicely illustrated by these incidents. The county ‘Incident-Sheet’ record, compiled by people on the spot at the time, gives two different versions of the village’s name – Ruckland St Mary and Rocklands St Mary – and both are wrong.

  As often, the records disagree on the detailed figures. Another report gives the total of seriously injured at Friern Road as 16 and at Shardeloes Road as 47, though agreeing on the number of dead.

  As so often, the names are wrongly recorded in the official Ministry records, appearing as ‘Totly Street’ and ‘McCullam Road’.

  For a full account of this couple’s rescue see my anthology The Home Front.

  For an account of the Folkestone Gardens incident from the point of view of a rescue party officer, see p. 331.

  This airburst, at 4 a.m. on Friday, 26 January 1945, caused widespread damage in Cotswold Gardens.

  See Chapter 27, p. 341.

  For another Shrove Tuesday incident, see Chapter 23, p. 294.

  See Chapter 26, p. 333.

  See Chapter 15, p. 195.

  See Chapter 15, p. 204.

  The actual diagram prepared by Dr Jones to illustrate the rocket’s aiming point is reproduced opposite.

  This figure appears in the document attributed to a Dutch citizen who had reached Brussels. It was almost certainly too high.

  See Chapter 16, p. 214. The report given here is reproduced exactly as written, with the original punctuation, etc., and only a few small cuts.

  See Chapter 15, p. 203.

  See Chapter 29, p. 360.

  See Chapter 21, p. 268, for details of this incident.

  See Chapter 24, p. 299.

  At this point I have omitted some of the more upsetting details but I hope sufficient remains to show the dedicated work of the people concerned.

  See Chapter 23, p. 290.

  See Chapter 15, p. 205.

  See Chapter 27, p. 339 for an account of this incident by one of those affected by it.

  See Chapter 17, p. 221.

  See Chapter 16, p. 214 and Chapter 24, p. 304.

  See Chapter 22, p. 278.

  A post-war song by the American satirist Tom Lehrer aptly referred to von Braun starting to learn Chinese, so strong was his instinct for self-preservation.

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  Norman Longmate, Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s