Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (12 page)

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cut off the fuels from the jet, and the missile then flew in a gigantic parabola, reaching a height of about fifty miles and falling about two hundred miles away from the launching point. Its maximum speed was about four thousand miles an hour, and the whole flight took no more than three or four minutes.

At the end of August it seemed that our armies might expel the enemy from all territory within the two-hundred-mile range of the rocket from London, but they managed to hold Walcheren and The Hague. On September 8, a week after the main VI bombardment ceased, the Germans launched their first two rockets against London.
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The first V2 fell at Chiswick at seventeen minutes to seven in the evening, the other at Epping sixteen seconds later. About thirteen hundred
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were fired against England in the seven months before our armies could liberate The Hague, whence most rockets were launched. Many fell short, but about five hundred hit London. The total casualties caused by the V2

in England were 2724 killed and 6467 seriously injured. On the average each rocket caused about twice as many casualties as a flying bomb. Although the warheads were of much the same size, the strident engine of the flying bomb warned people to take cover. The rocket approached in silence.

Many counter-measures were tried, and still more explored.

The raid on Peenemünde over a year before did more than everything else to alleviate the threat. The V2 attack would otherwise have started at least as early as the VI attack, and it would have been from a shorter range, and therefore more accurate in June than it was in September and after.

The United States Air Force continued to bomb Triumph and Tragedy

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Peenemünde in July and August, and both they and Bomber Command attacked factories making rocket components. We owe it to our armies that they had pushed the rocket back to the limit of its range before the Germans were at last ready to open fire. Our fighters and tactical bombers continually worried the launching points near The Hague. We made ready to jam the radio control of the rockets, should the Germans use it, and we even considered attempting to burst the rockets in the air by gunfire as they fell.

Our counter-measures confined the attack to four or five hundred rockets a month, shared between London and the Continent, compared with an intended rate of nine hundred.

Thus, although we could do little against the rocket once it was launched, we postponed and substantially reduced the weight of the onslaught. About two hundred rockets a month were aimed against London, most of the rest against Antwerp, and a few against other Continental targets. The enemy made no mention of his new missiles until November 8, and I did not feel the need for a public statement until November 10. I was then able to assure the House that the scale and effects of the attack had not hitherto been serious. This fortunately continued to be true throughout the remaining months of the war.

Despite the great technical achievements, Speer, the highly competent German Minister of Munitions, deplored the effort that had been put into making rockets. He asserted that each one took as long to produce as six or seven fighters, which would have been far more useful, and that twenty flying bombs could have been made for the cost of one rocket. This post-war information confirms the views Lord Cherwell had so often expressed before the event.

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It was fortunate that the Germans spent so much effort on rockets instead of on bombers. Even our Mosquitoes, each of which was probably no dearer than a rocket, dropped on the average 125 tons of bombs per aircraft within one mile of the target during their life, whereas the rocket dropped one ton only, and that with an average error of fifteen miles.

Hitler had hoped to have yet another “V” weapon. This was to have been a multi-barrel long-range gun installation dug into the ground near the village of Mimoyecques, in the Pas de Calais. Each of the fifty smooth-bore barrels was about four hundred feet long, and it was to fire a shell about six inches in diameter and stabilised, not by spin, but by fins like a dart. Explosive charges were placed in side-tubes at frequent intervals up the barrel, and were ignited in succession as the projectile accelerated. The shell was intended to emerge from the barrel with a speed of at least five thousand feet per second, and with so many barrels the designers hoped to fire a shell at London every few minutes. This time however Hitler’s hopes were completely disappointed: all the trial projectiles “toppled” in flight and range and accuracy were therefore very poor. A hundred scientists, technicians, and serving officers met in Berlin on May 4, 1944, and came to the unpleasant conclusion that the Fuehrer would have to be told of the failure. We did not know this until afterwards, and as a precaution our bombers repeatedly smashed the concrete structure at Mimoyecques, which five thousand workmen laboured as repeatedly to repair.

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While I have recorded the story of Hitler’s “retaliation”

campaign against England, we must not forget that Belgium suffered with equal bitterness when the Germans attempted to use the same vindictive weapons against its liberated cities. We did not of course allow the German attack to go un-parried. Our bombing of German production centres, and other targets, happily reduced the scale of effort against Belgium as much as against ourselves; but it was not easy to re-deploy fighter and gun defences, with all their elaborate control, in the newly won territories. German records show that by the end of the war Antwerp had been the target for 8696 flying bombs and 1610 rockets; 5960 of all these fell within eight miles of the city centre, and between them they killed 3470 Belgian citizens and 682

Allied Service-men. A further 3141 flying bombs were aimed against Liége, and 151 rockets against Brussels.

The people of Belgium bore this senseless bombardment in a spirit equal to our own.

The German “V” weapons, though in the event unsuccessful, impressed us with the potentialities of these new methods. In a report to the Cabinet Duncan Sandys emphasised the decisive importance which guided missiles might have in future wars, and pointed out the need for devoting substantial resources to their development. The following extract may be deemed significant:
The advent of the long-range, radio-controlled, jet-propelled projectile has opened up vast new possibilities in the conduct of military operations. In future the
possession of superiority in long-distance rocket
artillery may well count for as much as superiority in
naval or air power. High-grade scientific and engineering staff, together with extensive research facilities, will

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have to be maintained as a permanent part of our
peace-time military organisation.

We began to design our own guided missiles, and by the end of the war we had founded a permanent organisation for this purpose.

Such is the tale of the new weapons on which Hitler pinned his stubborn hopes for many months, and of their defeat by the foresight of the British Administration, the skill of the Services, and the fortitude of the people who, by their conduct for the second time in this war, gave “Greater London” a prouder meaning.

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4

Attack on the South of France?

The Strategic Decisions of the Teheran Conference — The Plan to Land in the South of France

— Delay in the Capture of Rome — General
Marshall’s Visit to England and the Mediterranean

—“Overlord’s” Need for More Ports in the South or
West — A Telegram from Smuts, June
23 —

Opposing Views of the British and American
Chiefs of Staff — Correspondence with President
Roosevelt — General Wilson is Ordered to Attack
the French Riviera — My Plan for a Landing on
the Atlantic Coast — A Visit to Eisenhower and a
Conference at Portsmouth, August
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— Mr.

Roosevelt’s Adverse Telegram.

L
IBERATING NORMANDY was a supreme event in the European Campaign of 1944, but it was only one of several concentric strokes upon Nazi Germany. In the east the Russians were flooding into Poland and the Balkans, and in the south Alexander’s armies in Italy were pressing towards the river Po. Decisions had now to be taken about our next move in the Mediterranean, and it must be recorded with regret that these occasioned the first important divergence on high strategy between ourselves and our American friends.

The design for final victory in Europe had been outlined in prolonged discussion at the Teheran Conference in November 1943. Its decisions still governed our plans, and Triumph and Tragedy

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it would be well to recall them. First and foremost we had promised to carry out “Overlord.” Here was the dominating task, and no one disputed that here lay our prime duty. But we still wielded powerful forces in the Mediterranean, and the question had remained, “What should they do?” We had resolved that they should capture Rome, whose near-by airfields were needed for bombing Southern Germany.