Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s (19 page)

The flying bombs had come as an unwelcome shock to the public, and the politicians had been dismayed at their resulting unpopularity. Everyone wanted to believe that it was now all over bar the shouting, and though when the Germans had coined the term ‘V-1’ (
Vergeltungswaffe
or Revenge Weapon No. 1) for the flying bomb back in July, the prospect that it would be followed by V-2, the rocket to which Churchill had publicly referred back in February, now seemed remote. ‘Allies nearing Nazis’ reprisal weapon depots. We may soon wrest secret of V-2 from enemy,’ asserted the
Evening Standard
on 25 August. The Allied advance might ‘stop . . . Hitler’s chance of ever using the much boasted V-2 rockets,’ suggested its fellow London evening newspaper, the
Star
, on the same day. The
News Chronicle
struck an equally cheerful note in a front-page story on Monday, 4 September. ‘V-2 may never start,’ it predicted. ‘Can it be fired from inside Germany? It is thought improbable.’ The
Daily Express
, always a paper to look on the bright side, was even more encouraging next morning. ‘The Germans were known to have four V-2 launching sites in northern France. They are all now either captured or in the range of our massed guns. Are there other V-2 launching sites in Germany? This is considered unlikely. And there is substantial evidence to indicate that the rockets may never be sent against Britain.’

So similar and detailed were the press stories – the
Daily Express
even carried an account of the captured quarry at Hautmesnil and of the Germans’ problem with airbursts during rocket trials – that it seems likely they were reflecting official guidance. Up to now the Ministry of Information had been involved mainly in preparations for intensifying the existing censorship if and when the rockets started to fall. It had also, as the Chief Censor himself described,

prepared complete plans for carrying on the work of the news and the censorship divisions continuously in the basement of the Ministry. . . . Accommodation had been provided there for the representatives of the British press and for the Dominions and United States correspondents and we were expecting to be marooned there while London was being devastated by the huge twelve-ton rocket.

Now that it had a happier tale to tell, the Ministry made the most of it and, far from restraining the more optimistic statements by members of the government, did its best to secure them the widest possible publicity.

Although it was Duncan Sandys whose remarks were to be most widely quoted and remembered, it was in fact Herbert Morrison who led the rejoicing and first used a phrase about ‘the Battle of London’ that was soon to become notorious. Morrison, Lambeth-born, had always considered himself a Londoner first and foremost and on 6 September delivered a long and jubilant statement in praise of his native city:

London has been in the front line in the final victorious phase of the greatest war that history has ever known. . . . There may conceivably still be trials in store for us before the Allied armies have rooted out the last of the vipers’ nests, but Hitler has already lost the Battle of London as surely as he has lost the main battle of France. . . . The day has come when London can openly rejoice in the great part she has played in the overthrow of Nazism.

That day Morrison advised the Cabinet that no further action was needed on any of the recommendations made by the Rocket Consequences Committee, and on the following morning Duncan Sandys held an even more widely publicized press conference, which seemed to establish beyond question that the secret-weapons danger was over. Behind the scenes this had already caused a great deal of ill-feeling. The Air Ministry, which had borne the brunt of the public’s and, even more, the Prime Minister’s criticism over the flying-bomb, was naturally anxious to take the chief credit for defeating it. It proposed that the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, or his deputy, the Parliamentary Secretary, Harold Balfour, should preside, assisted by a suitable air marshal who, it was learned, had actually asked Duncan Sandys for his notes. Churchill was furious. Sinclair, he pointed out in an angry memo to Ian Jacob on 4 September, was away and Balfour had not been involved in ‘Crossbow’. ‘I forbid the slightest change’, wrote the Prime Minister categorically, ‘in the arrangements which have been made by the Ministry of Information. . . . A statement to the press can only be made by the chairman of the committee set up by me with Cabinet authority.’

Although one Air Ministry official protested to Ian Jacob that it was their minister who was responsible to parliament for air defence, Churchill, perhaps fortunately for the civil servant concerned, never saw this letter, since he was by now on his way to Canada. It was therefore, and very justly, Duncan Sandys, who got most of the limelight when the reporters assembled in unprecedented numbers in the largest conference room that the Air Ministry headquarters, at Senate House in Gower Street, could provide on Thursday, 7 September 1944. The Minister of Information, Brendan Bracken, was in the chair, and the C-in-Cs of Ack-Ack Command and Air Defence of Great Britain, Frederick Pile and Roderic Hill, sat beside him, but it was Duncan Sandys whom everyone wanted to hear. His opening statement, ‘Except possibly for a few last shots, the Battle of London is over’, made headlines everywhere, often with its qualifying phrase omitted. Even less attention was paid to his brief exchange with an unidentified journalist which still survives in the official transcript of the proceedings:

Question: Is there a V-2 weapon, sir . . . ?

Mr Duncan Sandys: . . . I am a little chary about talking about the V-2. We do know quite a lot about it . . . which perhaps is more than you have at the moment, but in a very few days’ time I feel the press will be walking over these places in France and they will know a great deal more about it than we do now.

This occasion brought Duncan Sandys firmly, for the first time, into the public eye and was a personal triumph. That evening he held a celebratory cocktail party at his flat in Vincent Square at which Dr Jones, who had not been invited to the press conference, was a guest, and next day, Friday, 8 September 1944, Brendan Bracken, like Sandys and Cherwell a close and trusted confidant of the Prime Minister, sent him an enthusiastic account of the occasion and its subsequent coverage, duly enciphered as signal ‘Cordite No. 23’:

Duncan Sandys held the largest press conference I have seen since I came to this ministry. His account of how the government handled the flying-bomb menace was beyond praise. He spoke for more than an hour and answered many questions and at the end he was cheered by the press and, as you know, the press are a hardboiled lot. The newspapers are full of Duncan’s praise and his speech has been reported in every part of the world.

‘Ignition!’

Firing order to German rocket units, 8 September 1944

As one by one the dates on which the rocket was to make its operational debut approached and slipped past, it began to seem that it would never be used in action. But at last, after a demonstration at Blizna in May 1944, its future commander, General Metz, fixed what everyone felt to be a realistic target – September. On 31 August General Dornberger, still resenting his displacement by Kammler, was present at a final planning meeting in Brussels presided over by the elderly and amiable General Heinemann, commander of 65 Corps, but the real power, it soon became clear, belonged to his much younger and more forceful Chief of Staff, Colonel Eugen Walter, of the Luftwaffe: the corps headquarters, responsible for both secret weapons, ‘interleaved’ army and air-force officers. Nominally General Metz, recently brought back from the Eastern Front, was in charge of A-4 units, but it was Kammler who had called this late-night meeting and he soon demonstrated that he considered himself (as special commissioner for the A-4) in charge of everything to do with the rocket, from research to launching. Colonel Walter, who for practical purposes had ousted his own superior, General Heinemann, was now pushed aside in his turn. He first consulted Supreme Headquarters on Kammler’s status then asked to see his written orders, but a man enjoying Himmler’s support was not to be defeated. Kammler, Dornberger complained later, had ‘never done a single day’s military service nor enjoyed any military instruction whatsoever’ but he now ignored his superior officers and countermanded Metz’s instructions. The rocket attack, which should have started on 5 September, was postponed while they made a further appeal to headquarters, and General Jodl and his staff tried to save the face of their subordinates before capitulating. They failed. On 2 September Colonel Walter was told that Kammler would direct the A-4 offensive and would not be answerable to his nominal superior, General Heinemann, an arrangement personally confirmed by Hitler. Metz, a general without an army, now dropped out of the picture.

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 louts 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.