Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s (51 page)

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.