Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s (10 page)

The meeting began with Duncan Sandys recapitulating the evidence already circulated. ‘The reports’, he conceded, ‘did not, of course, all tally, but they had sufficient common basis to lead one to the conclusion that the rocket was a fact.’ He dismissed the suggestion that ‘the whole affair was a fantasy or a hoax. . . . If it were a hoax, it was a hoax on an extremely big scale. . . . Peenemünde was a very important establishment and to choose it as the centre of a hoax which would invite the heaviest bombing seemed a very illogical proceeding’.

Lord Cherwell, however, was unimpressed by this argument, and made the most of the discrepancies and deficiencies in the evidence so far available. One prisoner, he recalled, had spoken of a powerful new type of fuel which ‘was scientifically quite out of the question’; a highly significant interjection by Dr Cook that a greatly increased performance ‘might not be impossible with a liquid fuel’ went unanswered. Cherwell thought it ‘extraordinary’ that there were no reports of ‘terrific’ flashes of light being spotted by Swedish fishermen in the Baltic and ‘curious that the rockets should be painted white and left lying about so that we could not fail to observe them’. He asserted flatly that ‘40 miles was the longest possible range for a single-stage rocket’, that ‘radio steering . . . would not be possible with a rocket’ and was doubtful if a 60 ton rocket could be launched at all, or, if launched, steered. He summed up his views unequivocally:

The impression that he had formed was that the rocket story was a well-designed cover plan. . . . He thought it was almost incredible that the Germans should have got, without an intermediate step, to something which we could certainly not develop under five years.

Cherwell used one phrase which was to become notorious but which does not appear in the official minutes, when he described the object seen at Peenemünde as ‘a great white dummy’. Even here, however, his remarks did not go unchallenged. Apart from the white-painted rockets, ‘there was also a black one’, it was pointed out. Sir Stafford Cripps, in peacetime an eminent advocate well used to assessing the value of evidence, came out, cautiously but decisively, against him. There was, he agreed, ‘not enough evidence to warrant definite conclusions’ about whether there was any immediate danger, but ‘there was nothing inherently impossible in the rocket’ and ‘it was evident that the Germans had genuinely made great efforts to develop it. . . . We must’, he advised, ‘therefore assume that there was a grave possibility of the rocket being fired within the next few months‘. The contributions of the other participants in the discussion were less helpful. Herbert Morrison, curiously for a professional democrat, wanted to know if the prisoners who had talked about the rocket were officers or Other Ranks, while, to Dr Jones’s disgust, Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, actually confused the ‘Paris Gun’ with ‘Big Bertha’, a solecism which would also have outraged General Dornberger.

Jones’s own opportunity came after Churchill had directly invited him to give his opinion, reminding the meeting that it was his discoveries, and his attendance at just such a meeting as this, which had established the existence back in 1940 of the German
Knickebein
navigational beams for their bombers. His verdict on the evidence was as decisive as Lord Cherwell’s, though directly contrary to it:

Dr Jones said that he had very carefully studied the whole matter and he was of the opinion that the rocket was genuine. . . . The evidence . . . was considerably stronger than the evidence . . . about the use of beams by the Germans. . . . He could not accept the theory of the hoax. The Germans were not at all adept at deception and, moreover, a deception which would bring down a great attack upon one of the two most important experimental establishments which the Germans possessed would be highly absurd.

Although no formal resolution to this effect was discussed, and Cherwell and his supporters in the ‘anti-rocket’ party were to continue to question its existence for months to come, it was now tacitly agreed that the rocket threat must be taken seriously. The obvious, indeed the only, counter-measure available was to attempt to destroy Peenemünde, the one place where activity connected with the missile was known to be going on, and discussion now turned on how this could best be done. This was a straightforward military problem on which the Chief of the Air Staff now offered his professional opinion:

Sir Charles Portal thought it would be a mistake to act against Peenemunde until a really heavy attack could take place, which would not only destroy the experimental establishment but would also kill a large number of highly important scientists. Buildings were still being put up at Peenemünde . . . and the flak defences were comparatively few. If we attacked with Mosquitoes now, we might cause the Germans to move everything of value before we could launch a real assault.

This advice was accepted by the Prime Minister, and it was also decided to reduce the number of reconnaissance flights over the area to avoid alarming the Germans. In case the rocket should still survive, despite the bombing of Peenemünde, it was also agreed to increase the provision of shelters, and to draw up plans for large-scale evacuation of government departments and of 100,000 of the ‘priority classes’. Preparations were also made for a new and more rigid form of censorship which would deny the Germans any news of the rocket’s arrival. About the chances of securing an adequate period of warning no one was optimistic, but it was agreed ‘that the manufacture and installation of the R.D.F. [i.e. radar] equipment required for detection of the firing points of long range rockets should be energetically pursued’ and that ‘plans should be prepared for immediate air attack on rocket firing points in Northern France as soon as these were located.’

This important meeting had left Duncan Sandys indisputably in charge of the rocket inquiry, on which he was now required to report weekly, but had also agreed that ‘Dr R. V. Jones should be closely associated with him’ in his parallel watch ‘on the state of development of pilotless . . . aircraft in Germany’; in the rocket investigation he still had no special status. Churchill’s latest ‘midnight folly’, as weary or unsympathetic participants called it, had also left Herbert Morrison convinced of the rocket’s existence and he now became alarmed that not enough was being done on the Civil Defence side. In a memo of 13 July he urged Churchill to authorize the production of 100,000 more Morrison shelters and on 22 July begged him to overrule the Chiefs of Staff, who were demurring at the modest amounts of steel and manpower required. Meanwhile, partly no doubt generated by the demand for information on the flying bomb and the rocket, messages from Europe about new weapons – including ‘liquid air bombs’, ‘atom-splitting explosive’ and projectiles with ranges of up to 500 miles – were becoming more frequent and even more disquieting. In his fourth report, on 9 July, Duncan Sandys mentioned this proliferation of reports, which included one, on 3 July, suggesting that a large site at Watten on the French coast, where reconnaissance confirmed that major constructional work was in progress, was connected with ‘German long-range rocket activity’. The fear that this was the dreaded ‘projector’ for which everyone had been searching, combined with references in some agents’ signals to attacks beginning in August or September, caused something like panic in some quarters. Lord Cherwell reacted forthrightly, however, to the suggestion that parachute troops should be dropped to find out exactly what was happening, in a memo to General Ismay on 29 July:

I find it difficult to understand what information which cannot be got from photographs could be obtained by paratroops in these earthworks in half an hour in the dark. . . . No doubt before sacrificing 150 highly trained men the Chiefs of Staff will assure themselves that the evidence connecting these particular sites with the L.R.R. [long-range rocket] is consonant. But no doubt I am biased by the fact that I do not believe in the rocket’s existence.

My poor, poor Peenemünde

General Dornberger, surveying effects of RAF raid, 18 August 1943

On one of the conclusions reached at Churchill’s ‘rocket’ meeting of 29 June 1943 everyone was agreed. As the minutes put it: ‘The attack on the experimental station at Peenemünde should take the form of the heaviest possible night attack by Bomber Command, on the first occasion when conditions were suitable.’ This meant waiting for the longer nights when the Lancasters and Halifaxes could reach and return from the Baltic in darkness, and moonlight was also considered essential to assist accurate bombing. On 8 July a planning conference was held at Bomber Command headquarters for Operation Hydra, as it was aptly named, the ‘hydra’ being defined as ‘a water-monster with many heads, which when cut off were succeeded by others; any manifold evil’. Most unusually, ‘Bomber’ Harris’s proposals were subsequently scrutinized by the Chiefs of Staff, Lord Cherwell, Herbert Morrison and the Prime Minister himself. Meanwhile new information about the target was still coming in. Ultra provided unexpected confirmation of its importance from a low-level routine document, listing the allocation of petrol coupons, which showed that it ranked second only to Rechlin, the German ‘Farnborough’, in priority for fuel supplies. The two reconnaissance flights in July, all that were permitted, both yielded useful intelligence. The power station, which had previously been thought to be not yet in commission – the Germans had in fact fitted smoke filters to the chimneys – was now recognized to be fully in use, and a decoy site, stretching over twenty acres, where fires would be lit to attract bombs in the event of a raid, was correctly identified as such. More unwelcome confirmation of Peenemunde’s significance came from the erection there of new anti-aircraft guns.

The level of accuracy acceptable in Bomber Command’s normal area-bombing was not going to be adequate on this occasion, and for weeks before the raid crews found themselves sent to the bombing range at Wainfleet Sands in Lincolnshire to practise the new ‘timed run’ technique, whereby bombs were dropped a certain number of seconds after flying on a fixed course from some convenient landmark, far enough from the target not to be obscured by smoke. By constant practice, No. 5 Group, the Command’s crack formation, cut down its average error from 1000 to only 300 yards wide of the aiming point. Another innovation was the use of a master bomber, a group captain, no less, who flew around the area throughout the raid directing the crews towards the most accurate markers dropped by the Pathfinders, while the new ‘red-spot fire’ flare, which burned for ten full minutes once on the ground, would, it was hoped, remain visible through the thickest smoke. To discourage ‘creep-back’ in the face of flak, and encourage the ‘press-on’ spirit, the crews were told at briefing that radar equipment for anti-aircraft use was being manufactured there, and that if the job were not completed the first time they would be sent back again and again, ‘even if’, one air-gunner recalls hearing, ‘it meant wiping out Bomber Command’.

Harris had wanted to have only a single aiming point, the scientists’ housing estate, but he was overruled and two others were added: the building believed to be used for development work and the two largest workshops, where actual manufacture was thought to be in progress. He was, however, given a free hand in planning the attack, and by 9 p.m. on Thursday, 17 August the first aircraft were beginning to take off under a rising moon for the long flight via Denmark. It began at low level in the hope of slipping below the radar screen; later the main force would climb to 7000 feet, still low enough, Harris believed, to ensure accuracy in what was essentially a precision attack. A tiny diversionary force of eight Mosquitoes was sent to Berlin, crossing the coast near Peenemunde but then flying on another 120 miles to the German capital, dropping ‘Window’, the reflector strips first used only three weeks before against Hamburg, to fill the German radar screens and suggest that a major attack on the capital was impeding. This feint attack, watched by Colonel Zanssen, still undergoing ‘rustication’ from Peenemünde, from the balcony of Dornberger’s borrowed flat in Charlottenburg, was brilliantly successful. It followed the heaviest raid yet by the US 8th Air Force, against Schweinfurt, which had provoked Hitler’s fury, and the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, General Hans Jeschonnek, was now licking his wounds near Hitler’s Rastenburg headquarters after being made painfully aware of the Führer’s extreme displeasure.

This Thursday was intended to be a red-letter day in the Peenemünde calendar, for the scientists were entertaining the most famous woman in Germany, the legendary test pilot Hanna Reitsch. Dornberger had put behind him the disagreeable events of the afternoon when his staff had protested at the pressure being put upon them, and ‘in the panelled Hearth Room lit by the festal glitter of brass chandeliers’ – further proof of the establishment’s lavish budget – von Braun, Dr Steinhoff and Hanna Reitsch were happily exchanging reminiscences.

Curled up in a deep armchair, this elegant, clear-headed and courageous woman told us about her life, work and ambitions. . . . Listening to the laughter of these young people, who cheerfully took all the surprises of technology in their stride . . . I felt less oppressed by the serious worries of the afternoon. . . . Towards half-past eleven [10.30 p.m. British time], tired out with the heat and the care and excitement of the day, I was walking the few steps that led to one of the residential houses when the air-raid warning sounded. It was not a new experience for us. The British airmen usually gathered over the central Baltic before they flew south with their load of bombs for Berlin. . . . Our A.A. had orders to fire only if we were actually being raided. All was quiet. The blackout was faultless. I got into bed and soon fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile, as so often, in the air things were not going according to plan. As the Pathfinders approached the coast, unexpected patches of cloud hampered identification of the surrounding islands, and the outline of Ruden, on the screen of their H2S ground-reflecting radar, was confused with the tip of the Peenemünde peninsula. As a result, some of their red markers were dropped two miles from the correct spot. Others, however, were correctly placed. At 0017 hours on Friday, 18 August 1943, 2317 hours Thursday, 17 August, British time, Master Bomber John Searby ordered the first main force to begin their attack, directed at the scientists’ housing estate. Ten minutes later it was over. At least 150 of the 227 aircraft in the first wave had, it later appeared, dropped bombs on or close to the target. Many of the rest had, tragically, thanks to the Pathfinders’ error, attacked a camp housing foreign labourers.

Dornberger, roused by his rattling windows, at first attributed them to the test-firing of an anti-dive-bomber weapon he had authorized, but was soon disillusioned as he recognized the sound of the local defences:

At intervals the light 2 cm guns barked from their elevated positions above the woods and from the roofs of the highest buildings. The 3.7 from the Gaaz harbour outpost was sending up many-coloured strings of pearls, with a ‘plop, plop, plop’ into the sky. . . . I sprang out of bed and had breeches and socks on in record time. Where the hell were my riding boots? . . . I had to make do with slippers. . . . The first window-panes tinkled out. Tiles came hurtling and clashing down the sloping roof, smashing on the ground. . . . For the moment, tunic over pyjama coat would do. Now for overcoat, cap, gloves and cigarcase.

Thus equipped, Dornberger set out to witness the attempted destruction of the place which, more than any other individual, he had created.

I was confronted, as though through a rosy curtain of gauze, by an almost incredible stage setting in subdued lighting and colours. Artificial clouds of mist rolled past me. . . . The moon shone through these fragile, cottony clouds, lighting up the pine plantations, the roads and the buses. . . . The buildings of the administrative wing, so far as I could distinguish them through the veiling mists, the drawing-offices, the development works and the canteen, appeared and disappeared at intervals through the rose-red fog like menacing shadows. Overhead was the star-strewn night sky with the beams of the searchlights whisking to and fro.

At 0025 hours, local time, the second wave, of 113 Lancasters, attacked. The original two-mile error by some Pathfinders had now been compounded, since the aiming point for the second wave was supposed to be some two miles from that assigned to the first. As a result, the aiming point was brought back to the scientists’ housing estate instead of forward to the ‘main workshops’, which were in fact the pilot, pre-production factory. Luckily the master bomber realized what had happened and managed to direct many of the second wave’s bombs to the proper spot, until, at 0033, the last second-wave machine turned for home.

By now the third, and most important, aiming point, the centre of the development works, was covered by drifting smoke, both from fires and from the smoke generators the Germans had installed for this purpose half a mile away. This was where the timed run was supposed to come into its own. At 0043 hours the third wave, 180 strong, began its attack. Their orders were to bomb visually if they could and many did so, though in fact only one load of target indicators had been dropped, as intended, amid the main laboratories and offices, and most had landed well to one side of the proper spot, and between the two earlier aiming points. Had more bombs landed near the development works they might well have claimed the lives of von Braun and Dornberger, who were in a nearby shelter, the latter now happily reunited with his riding boots which some unsung hero had fetched from his batman’s room.

As the second wave of bombers withdrew, Dornberger emerged from his shelter to take charge. No one knew what had happened at the residential estate at Karlshagen or at the pilot factory, since the telephone lines were dead, but runners were dispatched to find out and to turn out the special ‘labour service’ contingents earmarked to give help in just such an emergency. Even in the few minutes Dornberger had been below ground, the situation had visibly changed for the worse:

Great fires were painting the ubiquitous fog, now thickened with stinking smoke, dark red. Bright flames were darting from many places on the roof of the drawing-offices. Glowing sparks whirled upwards in dense clouds of smoke. The attic windows shone red. Some rafters on the residential building roof were on fire. All round us, on the roads and in the grounds, the hissing thermite incendiaries shone dazzlingly white.

Von Braun was dispatched to try to save the drawing office or at least ‘to get the safes, cabinets, records and drawings out’ and Dornberger himself set off ‘along the main avenue to the command shelter’, a melancholy progress:

The old office hut, where the accounts department, the printing and binding trades and smaller ancillary businesses were still housed, was enveloped in flames and past all hope of saving. . . . I could see a small fire beginning on the roof of the boiler house. . . . I sent men up to the roof. . . . Flights of bombers were passing uninterruptedly over the Works. There was a distant, hollow rumble of many bombs falling, mingled with the noise of A.A. guns. . . . Alternately throwing ourselves down and leaping up again, we reached the west side of the Measurement House, containing the Instruments, Guidance and Measurement Department . . . the most valuable part of the Works. The windows were dark. Behind the building a big fire seemed to be raging. I rushed round the corner and beheld the Assembly Workshop on fire in several places. The big entrance gates, 60 feet high, were burning. Tongues of flame shot, crackling and hissing, out of the shattered windows of the wings. Iron girders, twisted and red hot, rose above the outer walls. Parts of the roof structure collapsed, crashing down into the interior. . . . I looked at the windows in the east facade of the Measurement House. Many of them shone brightly. . . . The heat . . . had set fire to the wooden sashes. I took my two men along and we divided the floors between us. Fire extinguishers hung in front of almost every door. In fifteen minutes we had saved the Measurement House and with it an indispensable element for the continuance of our work.

The huge display of flares over a supposedly thinly populated stretch of the Baltic coast had attracted the attention of many of the night-fighter pilots milling aimlessly about over Berlin, and some members of the ‘freelance’ ‘Wild Boar’ squadrons set off at once in their direction, wreaking havoc among the Lancasters and Halifaxes of the third wave. Realizing at last that they had been duped, the Germans also ordered up several squadrons of Messerschmitt 110s based near Copenhagen, and these harried the returning bombers on their flight home, usually the time when losses were heaviest.

Duncan Sandys had waited at RAF Wyton for the return of Group Captain Searby (who had himself to shake off a pursuing night-fighter on the way back) and the other Pathfinders of 83 Squadron and, on hearing their encouraging news, at once telephoned Churchill, at the ‘Quadrant’ conference in Quebec. Later that day the Air Ministry sent a confirmatory telegram:

586 aircraft dispatched to attack RDF establishment PEENEMÜNDE last night. 41 missing.
⁵
Weather was clear over target and preliminary reports suggest that a successful attack was made in spite of an effective smoke screen.

The loss rate, just under 7 per cent, though high, was acceptable for a once-for-all effort on a uniquely important objective, in which almost 1600 tons of high explosive and 250 tons of incendiary bombs had been dropped, and early that afternoon the interpreters at Medmenham found that the first post-raid pictures, taken by a Mosquito at 10 a.m., showed that the place at which they had peered through their stereoscopes through so many weary hours had changed almost beyond recognition: