Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s (17 page)

With his family having gone away to Cornwall to escape the flying-bombs, and D-Day safely past, Dr Jones now had leisure in the evenings to puzzle over another outstanding and important question, the likely scale of attack. Ultra intercepts referred to the sending back of ‘apparatuses’ to Peenemünde from Blizna and these, he now guessed, were rocket warheads. As No. 17053 had been dispatched on 17 June and No. 17667 in early July (i.e. 614) the total of rockets likely soon to be ready for use, allowing for the period not covered, was probably at least 1000.

On 16 July 1944 Dr Jones had written an interim report on his findings, which within the next day or two, so fast was information now coming in, was in some respects, he realized, inaccurate, but of the reality of the rocket threat there could no longer any doubt. ‘I did not want’, Dr Jones later wrote, ‘to destroy my old professor’, nor put him in a position where ‘he might try to argue to the end and. . . . Churchill would be torn between the facts and a loyalty to his most trusted friend.’ He therefore warned Cherwell privately of the accumulating evidence before the crucial meeting of the ‘Crossbow’ Committee scheduled for 10 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 July 1944, in the Cabinet War Room, at which his recent report was the main item of business.

The Prime Minister, it rapidly appeared to Dr Jones’s now experienced eye, ‘was clearly in a . . . mood . . . to test every piece of evidence submitted to him’ and ‘briefed to “gun” for the Air Staff’, reflecting the current public discontent at the government’s failure to prevent the flying-bomb arriving. The minutes of the discussions were, however, discreet and detached:

Although there had been considerable fragmentary intelligence regarding the German Long-Range Rocket for a year or more . . . it was only within the last fortnight that it had become possible to establish definitely which intelligence referred to the rocket. . . . It was believed that about 150 experimental rockets had been manufactured and that perhaps up to 1000 production models had been made. . . . Evidence from Poland suggested that 50 per cent of the rockets fired might fall within a circle of ten miles radius. . . . The maximum range appeared to be about 200 miles, but it was probable that the effective range would not exceed 150 miles.

At the mention of a possible stockpile of a thousand rockets, Churchill, Dr Jones recalls – though the minutes omitted this dramatic detail – ‘exploded and started to thump the table’. Even the minutes reveal his evident displeasure:

In reply to a suggestion by the Prime Minister that we had to some extent been caught napping, Sir Charles Portal said that . . . the evidence had been most closely watched and all action that could be thought of had been taken so far as could be done without harming the essential interests of OVERLORD.

The unfortunate Dr Jones, less culpable than anyone, now faced the Prime Minister’s full fury, patiently explaining the reasons for his conclusions and that, having had to attend seven meetings that day, he had not yet had time to inform Lord Cherwell of his discovery, made only a few hours before, that ‘the projector’, on which hopes had been pinned of detecting and destroying the launching sites, was a myth. Eventually, to Dr Jones’s relief, the Prime Minister calmed down, giving him a reputation among his colleagues as the man who ‘had shut Winston up’. Herbert Morrison ‘urged that every possible counter-measure should be taken to prevent the attack’, but his intervention was hardly necessary, for Churchill himself was now firmly in the ‘rocket party’. ‘The highest priority’, it was agreed, should be given to bombing the nine major German hydrogen peroxide plants, and to developing means of jamming the rocket’s supposed radio control system, though ‘control might well be automatic’. ‘Marshal Stalin’, Churchill reported, ‘had agreed to render us all assistance to obtain information from Debice [i.e. Blizna] when the Russian forces capture that area’ and the US Air Force had that day ‘carried out a heavy attack on Peenemünde’. If both allies agreed, the British government were prepared ‘to threaten the enemy with large-scale gas attacks in retaliation should such a course appear profitable’. With this cheerful prospect before them, the participants in the meeting filed out into Whitehall in the small hours to get what sleep they could, punctuated by the explosions of flying-bombs, now arriving in a more or less continuous procession.

Except possibly for a few last shots, the Battle of London is over
.

Duncan Sandys, MP, 7 September 1944

Churchill’s late-night meeting of 18 July 1944 brought the subject of the rocket to the top of ‘Pending’ trays throughout Whitehall and two days later prompted a long essay in self-justification from Lord Cherwell. ‘I am’, it began untruthfully, ‘most reluctant to waste your time (or my own) in arguing to what degree on past occasions I was right or not’, and went on to claim that he had, of course, been right. ‘I did not’, insisted Cherwell, ‘assert that the rocket was impossible . . . but it seemed to me extraordinary, when . . . the pilotless airplane was available, that the enemy should divert the huge effort required to develop an immensely more difficult alternative method. And if he has, I do not think he has employed his scientists to the best advantage.’ This remained Cherwell’s contention throughout the coming months – as though in some way people killed or injured by a rocket would be consoled to learn that the Germans were using their resources inefficiently – and, no doubt in the hope of causing more trouble, he added that, ‘not having been shown all the secret evidence’, he could not ‘offer a view on the likelihood of attacks in the near future’. The totally false implication that Cherwell was being kept in the dark brought an angry inquiry from Churchill, and during the next month numerous officials were drawn into the argument, only ended by a note from Ian Jacob to the Prime Minister on 25 August assuring him that ‘No secret information is withheld from Lord Cherwell.’

On 20 July, Herbert Morrison was also busy writing to the Prime Minister:

It is clear, I think, that there is something wrong with the Intelligence side. It was a surprise to me, as it appeared to be to you, that we should have been told for the first time on Tuesday that the scale of attack envisaged was four or five times greater than had previously been contemplated . . .. We are having to deal with a potential . . . menace of great gravity, which may materialize at any moment, on the basis of evidence which is both scanty and conflicting. It might be worthwhile to consider whether there is not an undue number of official and other meetings about the organization of our counter-measures which may leave insufficient time for those with executive responsibilities to get on with their jobs.

Churchill discussed this note with Duncan Sandys that afternoon, but on 26 July Herbert Morrison circulated another paper, uncompromisingly entitled: ‘Long-Range Rocket. Need for Re-Examination of Government Plans’:

Nearly a year ago, and in an atmosphere of scepticism, the Cabinet instructed that paper plans should be drawn up for dealing with attacks on London by long-range rockets of heavy explosive content. . . . With the emergence of the flying-bomb . . . the plans . . . were put on one side. Last week, however, we were advised by Intelligence that 1000 rockets with a range of possibly 200 miles were believed to be in advanced state of preparation and that the warhead weighed probably 7 tons. . . . The latest theory is that no elaborate launching sites are necessary and . . . that the enemy will mount an attack on a fairly considerable scale.

On the basis of flying-bomb experience, and scaling up the casualties caused by its one-ton warhead, Morrison calculated that, if 60 per cent of the rockets landed in Greater London, ‘about 30 per projectile would be killed’, producing 18,000 dead ‘from the assumed stock of 1000 rockets’. The number of seriously injured he put at three times that figure. To meet this need, if the London hospitals were cleared of other patients, as in 1939, and treated as ‘casualty reception units’, with patients being evacuated after initial treatment, ‘about 4000 cases could be handled per day . . . just double the worst day in the 1940/41 blitz’, but ‘the strain on staff would, of course, increase with each successive week’ and ‘it is . . . possible that the hospital service would be swamped’. As for house damage, Morrison forecast that ‘each rocket . . . would be likely to produce A and B damage’ (i.e. houses demolished or having later to be pulled down), ‘within a radius of 600 feet, C damage’ (houses uninhabitable until given maajor repairs) ‘up to 1200 feet and D damage’ (where the occupants could remain but with ‘appreciable discomfort’ up to 2400 feet, with ‘a considerable amount of minor damage to roof coverings, odd windows, etc.’ beyond that area. Inevitably, thought the Home Secretary, there would be a mass flight from London:

The exodus might reach such proportions as to present a completely unmanageable problem both for the police and for the railways and the pressure of evacuees by bus, tube or on foot on the north and west perimeter of London might result in the complete breakdown of the emergency accommodation and feeding arrangements. . . . Many workers would leave London with their families in order to make sure that their families were settled in a place of safety. . . . It is quite impracticable to devise any system of control which would effectively secure that the people who ought to stay, stay, and the people who ought to go, go.

As for morale, one of Morrison’s official responsibilities, this was already suffering from the flying-bomb and would grow worse:

The British public will accept hardship, suffering and casualties that are due to unpreventible enemy action. They will be less ready to submit even to inconvenience which they judge to be due to government inactivity or lack of preparations. . . . As the areas of sheer devastation grow under continuous bombardment, I fear the public will become angry. . . . In my view the rocket attack must from now onwards be regarded as a major effort by the Germans to avoid sheer defeat. It must be met by us by a corresponding effort, both in active attack and passive defence, and not regarded as fatalistically inevitable.

A Cabinet meeting that day gave Morrison the opportunity to underline these points in person and to strengthen them by reporting the effects of the flying-bombs: 16,000 dead or seriously injured in London alone in six weeks and 700,000 houses damaged. Cherwell now weighed in with his view ‘that the assumptions made by the Home Secretary as to the scale of attack were unduly pessimistic’ and that ‘he doubted whether the available stocks of rockets were as large’ or ‘whether the size of the rocket warhead would be as great as had been suggested. Again, the estimates of damage and casualties were based on a degree of accuracy which the rocket was unlikely to achieve’. These were all perfectly sound comments, but by now Morrison’s alarm had infected his colleagues. Duncan Sandys said that ‘the probable scale of attack’ might be ‘considerably heavier’ than the Home Secretary had described, the Minister of Health admitted he was planning, if necessary, ‘to clear the London hospitals completely’, the Minister of War Transport was ready to move 250,000 people a day up to twenty miles out of London, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the need for protected accommodation for up to 55,000 civil servants. The Minister of Production was already dispersing some manufacturing effort, while even Morrison’s traditional adversary, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, had a helpful suggestion to offer – that Double Summer Time, due to end on 13 August, should be extended. This was agreed, and on 3 August it was announced that the nation could enjoy its second extra hour of daylight until 16 September.

Meanwhile Morrison’s right-hand man, Sir Findlater Stewart, had been discussing with other departments how ‘to prevent information on the fall of shot reaching the enemy’, and his proposals were circulated by the Chiefs of Staff on this same day, when rocket fever reached its peak. The restrictions, the Chiefs of Staff commented, were ‘more stringent than those proposed for OVERLORD and would include . . . the suspension of diplomatic mail and telegrams . . . other than American and Russian’, a total ban on all overseas travel, except for servicemen and government officials, and the virtual cessation of telegraph and postal services, at least for the first forty-eight hours. Telephone calls, especially to Ireland, would be monitored and be liable to be cut off. So drastic was the scheme for depriving the Germans of any hint where the rockets were falling that even Sir Findlater Stewart himself was doubtful if it could be kept up for much more than ‘a week or ten days’, but the Cabinet, on 28 July 1944, nevertheless accepted it, against the opposition, so far as diplomatic communications were concerned, of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden (later Lord Avon). Eventually he got his way in the case of the United States and Russia, partly on practical grounds ‘since the United States Embassy possesses direct lines not under our control and the Soviet Embassy has a private wireless transmitter’. He would instead make a private approach to ‘the two ambassadors not to send any information about rocket attack by this means’.

Elaborate plans also went ahead for mass evacuation, largely in the hope of anticipating the panic flight which seemed the likely alternative. People leaving, it was proposed, would make their way on foot along eighty-seven preselected routes to a number of assembly points such as cinemas, where buses would be waiting to take them the short distance required to remove them from the target area. The Ministry of Home Security also made its own private preparations. ‘A new map of Greater London’, an internal memo announced, ‘is being mounted in the Map Corridor on which BIG BEN incidents will be plotted’, with the numbered coloured pins at present used to mark incidents being replaced by others in black once the rocket was known to be responsible. That day, too, the Cabinet set up a new Rocket Consequences Committee, presided over by Herbert Morrison, the other regular members being the Ministers of Labour, Production, Health and War Transport, with additional ministers being invited as necessary.

This was also a busy time for Air Intelligence. The industrious and daring Poles had by now compiled a massive 4000-word document on the rocket, ‘Special Report 1/R, No. 242’, accompanied by eighty photographs, twelve drawings, a sketch map of Blizna, a list of all known rocket firings – and, they now proposed, eight
¹⁰
large parcels of rocket parts, which could, if London agreed, be collected by a Dakota flying from southern Italy. With typical effrontery they proposed to use an abandoned German airstrip at Tarnow, 200 miles from where the rocket had crashed, to which the key items were transferred by bicycle. The operation, on the night of 25 July 1944, proved even more hazardous than anticipated, for two German Storch aircraft were using the airfield – fortunately they took off again – and after the British aircraft had landed safely it proved reluctant to leave the ground:

The engines roared, the aircraft vibrated, moved forward a few inches and stopped. It had been raining for the last few days and . . . the wheels had sunk in and made take-off impossible.

Flight Lieutenant Szrajer [the Polish co-pilot and interpreter] . . . ordered all the passengers to get out and the baggage to be unloaded. . . . The soldiers of the reception team were ordered to dig small trenches in front of the aircraft’s wheels and fill them with straw. . . . The plane still refused to move and once more the door was opened and everyone ordered to get out. . . . Flight Lieutenant Szrajer . . . decided to make just one more attempt. The soldiers ran to the carts, brought over boards and laid them under the wheels. For the third time the wretched passengers were told to board . . . and the luggage was loaded on. Eighty minutes had passed since the aircraft had landed and the short July night was beginning to brighten into dawn. This time, at last, the Dakota began to move and its take-off was accompanied by the joyful shouts of the underground soldiers who ran alongside waving their weapons and caps.

The arrival of the rocket parts, at Hendon, on 28 July, was also not without drama, for the Pole in charge of them, who knew no English, refused to hand the cargo over to anyone except General Bor, commanding the Free Poles in the United Kingdom, or a Polish colonel whom he knew. When British intelligence officers tried to persuade him he drew a knife, and everyone was relieved when General Bor finally appeared. The information the suspicious messenger had brought, when finally in the hands of Air Intelligence, proved very useful, providing, among much else, the first news of the airbursts which had so troubled Dornberger, which seemed to confirm that it was not yet ready for operational use.

On 31 July the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee dealing with the rocket issued a paper entitled ‘Imminence of Attack by BIG BEN’, which was circulated to the Cabinet two days later. It was far from reassuring:

It might well be that about a thousand of these rockets exist. . . . Launching sites exist, are of simple design and easy to construct. Plants for producing liquid oxygen in France and Belgium . . . are known to have been constructed. . . . Personnel have been trained in handling these weapons and at least a skeleton organization exists in the west.

Why, then, had the rocket not yet been fired? The Germans might, it seemed, be waiting till they could ‘launch the operation at greater intensity’. But this was only a respite:

In mid-July a well-informed high-ranking officer told a usually reliable source that BIG BEN would probably be used within two or three months’ time. . . . [There was also] a report from a usually reliable source . . . that BIG BEN would be launched by the beginning of September. . . . We therefore feel that a heavy and sustained scale of launchings against this country is unlikely to develop during August.

Meanwhile Dr Jones was hot in pursuit of the rocket’s remaining secrets. One valuable prize was a wooden replica, full-size as was confirmed later and as seemed probable at the time, of an A-4 – Cherwell’s ‘great white dummy’ in reality
¹¹
— found in a quarry at Hautmesnil, between Caen and Falaise, abandoned by the fleeing Germans. This, Dr Jones guessed, ‘had clearly been used to give the troops experience in handling the missile around the bends in the tunnels’. The same site yielded a heavy trolley, correctly assumed to have been used to transport the real missile, enabling its dimensions to be calculated beyond argument and from the slope of the nose cone, deduced from the curve of the front section, an informed guess to be made about its weight, the most vital clue to its likely range and explosive payload. The total weight was now, around the end of July, put at 24 tons maximum, which Dr Jones still suspected to be on the high side.