Guided Missiles Could Have Won

by JOSEPH WARNER ANGELL

6

ALARMING underground reports of long-range “secret weapons,”designed by the Germans to bombard England from Continental areas, reached the British with increasing frequency throughout the spring of 1943. Responding to the threat of new weapons that might, if used in time, turn the course of the war, British Intelligence discovered that the disturbing rumors were founded on fact. In a vast and hitherto secret experimental station at Peenemünde, on the Baltic coast, the Germans were perfecting revolutionary weapons: the V-l, a jet-propelled pilotless aircraft, and the V-2, a gigantic supersonic rocket against which there could be no defenses, once it was air-borne. And on the Channel coast of France huge labor forces were feverishly constructing a great chain of V-weapon launching sites.

Knowing that the new weapons must be stopped, the British decided to make the first attack on the more likely target — Peenemünde. The raid was planned with utmost care and secrecy, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command in personal charge of preparations.

Late in the evening of August 17, 1943 — a day already made memorable by the RegensburgSehweinfurt mission of the American Eighth Air Force—and in the brilliant light of a full moon, a great fleet of RAF heavy bombers began the long run to the Baltic coast. The thousands of airmen aloft over Germany were unaware of the actual nature of the Peenemünde installation. Fearful that revelation of the truth about Peenemünde would reach the public and arouse alarm and despondency in the homeland, Harris had briefed his men that they were attacking a radar experimental station of such critical importance that they must be prepared to accept 50 per cent losses.

The attack against Peenemünde began shortly after midnight, and at the time appeared to be enormously successful. There is, however, wide and perhaps irreconcilable variance in final estimates of the success of the attack. The British and Germans at first regarded Peenemünde as “completely gone.” Colonel Walter Dornberger, who headed the German V-2 installation and who was talking with his brilliant rocket technician, Wernher von Braun, in the Officers Club when the first alarm sounded, now takes credit for having seen, after the first shock of the raid, that damage to key installations was negligible; and for ordering, therefore, a hasty setting of fires and a blowing up of roads and unimportant buildings so that British strike-photos, taken on the following day, would give evidence of greater destruction than was actually accomplished. (The chapter “Day of Darkness” in his history of the V-2 gives a rather different impression, however.)

In any case, there were two important consequences of the August raid. The Germans were given full warning that massive efforts would be made to prevent or disrupt the use of their new weapons, and they proceeded to disperse V-weapon production activity from Peenemünde.

Ten days after the raid on Peenemünde the Eighth Air Force sent out its first CROSSBOW¹ mission — an attack by B-17s on the German construction at Watten on the French coast. The extreme ends of the secret weapons axis, in so far as it was visible to the Allies, had thus been hammered by Allied air power in the opening blows of the CROSSBOW campaign. But continued aerial reconnaissance revealed new constructions of colossal size, seven in all, four in the Pas-de-Calais and three on the tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula.

Discovery of a second type of German construction on the French coast was made late in October. In response to reports from ground agents in the Pas-de-Calais a close photographic cover of the area around a heavily wooded hamlet revealed a series of concrete structures, the largest of which were two curiously shaped buildings, each nearly 300 feet in length, resembling gigantic skis laid on edge. By the middle of November, twenty-one “Ski Sites" had been identified.

As Allied reconnaissance of the French coast continued with unremitting effort, a significant relationship between the Ski Sites became apparent : the alignment of all the Ski Sites in the Pas-deCalais indicated an orientation directly on London. It was impossible for British Intelligence to escape the conclusion that the closely integrated and rapidly growing network of installations— including the seven Large Sites - was to be used for some type of concentrated long-range attack against the world’s most populous city - and the heart of the staging area for the forthcoming invasion of the Continent.

A few military and civilian analysts regarded ihe whole series of Ski Sites, together with the seven Large Sites, as a gigantic hoax by the Germans, a deliberate fraud of the first magnitude to frighten or divert the attention and effort of the Allies from their attempt to invade the coast of France. General Spnatz, for example, was not for many months convinced that those installations were other than an inspired German feint. A larger number of scientists and technicians, however, were of the opinion that the Large Sites were being prepared to launch huge rockets weighing as much as 100 tons and that the smaller Ski Sites were to send vast numbers of the Peenemünde pilotless aircraft, estimated to weigh 20 tons, against the civilians of London and against Allied troop and supply concentrations.

Rumor added other interpretations. The Germans, it was reported, were preparing to bombard London with huge containers bearing gruesome and fatal “Red Death"; the Germans were preparing to shoot enormous tanks of poison gas to destroy every living creature in the British Isles; the Germans, even, were preparing a gigantic refrigerating apparatus along the French coast for ihe instantaneous creation of massive icebergs in ihe Channel or for dropping clouds of ice over England to stop the Allied bombers in air.

The conflicting opinions of the experts seemed nearly irreconcilable. But clearly the Allies must do something.

The Allies made their decision on the 3rd of December, 1943. The CROSSBOW sites must be neutralized, and if possible destroyed, by aerial bombardment. It was by no means an easy decision, for withdrawing the air power necessary to bombard the Large Sites and Ski Sites into uselessness might easily jeopardize the double strategy of the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive — destruction by air power of Germany’s war potential and weakening of the German Air Force to the point where it could not hinder the Allied invasion. On the other hand, if Hitler could successfully employ new weapons before the invasion could be launched, it was possible that OVERLORD, the great cross-Channel operation, could never be executed. The Allied Air Forces, already committed to ihe greatest task ever given to air power, were therefore called upon to accomplish an additional objective.

7

A FEW hours after the critical decision was made, the American Ninth Air Force was alerted to commence CROSSBOW bombing operations with the highest priority. Simultaneously, another more intensive aerial reconnaissance than any conducted before was begun.

The whole of a belt extending 150 miles in width from London and Portsmouth was covered. At the end of the first week’s reconnaissance operations sixty-four Ski Sites had been identified, an increase of twenty-six sites over the number reported before the decision of December 3. As the sustained reconnaissance continued, every foot of land from Ostend on the Belgian coast to the tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula was photographed from the air. The huge task of photography and analysis, completed by the third week in December, revealed in addition to the seven Large Sites a chain of Ski Sites, 10 to 20 miles in width, extending more than 300 miles along the French coast. Sites in the Pas-de-Calais were all oriented on London, those in the Cherbourg Peninsula on the port of Bristol.

The Ninth Air Force, hampered by bad weather, could not begin CROSSBOW operations until December 5, and for the next two weeks continually unfavorable weather prevented the execution of more than a limited number of ineffective attacks.

At the beginning of the third week of Allied CROSSBOW operations, the number of identified Ski Sites had risen to seventy-five, none of them significantly damaged by air attacks. With the weather continuing in their favor the Germans were clearly winning the first heat in the race against time. Considering the dangers in the situation if it were to continue, Allied authorities agreed that an all-out attack on the entire CROSSBOW network by Eighth Air Force heavy bombers would, when weather permitted, be the most effective means of slowing down the Germans. But the weather continued to favor the Germans. It was not until Christmas Eve, 1943, that the Eighth Air Force struck its first great blow against the vast chain of Ski Sites.

Operation 164, the largest Eighth Air force operation to date, put more than 1300 American aircraft over the Ski Site network. The crews were told only that they were attacking “special military installations" of critical importance, but the outside world learned for the first time of the new German threat. Bold headlines in American newspapers announced that U.S. and British fliers had hit the “Rocket Gun Coast,” and editorial writers spoke of the possibility that the Germans had at last created their long-sought and “ultimate" diversion of Allied plans. Allied authorities continued to be silent on the significance of the Christmas Eve mission, but in London and Washington there were prolonged and intense discussions on the importance of the CROSSBOW threat and on the scale and type of effort necessary to preserve the safety of England and ensure that the forthcoming invasion of Europe would not have to be postponed or disrupted.

Until December, 1943, the British had hesitated to convey to their American partners the full measure of their alarm over the threat of the new German weapons. The principal American air commanders were themselves in the dark, for even as late as the Christmas Eve raid the Brilish had withheld some of their own Intelligence estimates on the possible dangers of the new German weapons. American authorities in Washington were understandably disturbed, inasmuch as American air power was bearing the brunt of Allied CROSSBOW operations.

When he had become fully aware of the gravity of the threat, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson appointed a committee of experts from all the military services and from key civilian agencies to study reports flown in by special courier from London to Washington. After some days of close consultation the Americans were indeed gloomy. The committee agreed that without “some stroke of fortune now unforeseen there was no real solution to the problem.” The Germans might be on the verge of using unforeseen types of biological and gas warfare, of throwing against England revolutionary explosives of “unusually violent character.” Hitler might be preparing to achieve one or all of three grandiose objectives: postponement or disruption of the Allied invasion of the Continent; cessation of the Combined Bomber Offensive; a truce in consequence of a stalemate.

Among the varied proposals for countering the threat of these disasters was the suggestion that the Allies might launch a gas attack against the Ski Sites, but this was dismissed, as was a proposal to attempt a reconnaissance in force of the French coast. Serious thought was given, also, to proposals for redrawing the entire OVERLORD plan.

These and others were discarded in favor of a simpler solution, the employment of more air power and the improvement of the bombing techniques against the Ski Sites. General Arnold was particularly interested in the proposal to employ air power more heavily and more effectively. He felt that thus far the Allies had indulged in too much guesswork and pure speculation. Arnold was determined, in so far as possible, to place at least one phase of the CROSSBOW problem on a pragmatic basis.

On January 12, 1944, General Marshall approved a recommendation that the Army Air forces be given, as a project of the highest priority, the development of a new method of attacking the CROSSBOW sites. Major responsibility for the task, which might normally have been assigned to forces in the theater of operations, was given to the AAF Proving Ground Command at Eglin Field, Florida.

8

CONVENTIONAL directives would not do in so urgent a situation. On the morning of January 25, Arnold telephoned from Washington to Brigadier General Grandison Gardner, in command at Eglin Field. At first General Arnold spoke in evasive terms: “Must be careful what I say, but maybe you’ll recognize what I mean when I say that about 150 of them located North Coast of France . . . shaped like skis.” He then indicated the purpose of his call: ”I want some . . . reproduced. I want to make simulated attacks with a new weapon. I want the job done in DAYS not WEEKS. It will take a hell of a lot of concrete . . . give it FIRST PRIORITY and complete it in days — weeks are too long.”

General Gardner immediately mobilized the full resources of the 800,000-acre Proving Ground and its thousands of personnel. With utmost secrecy the Army Air Forces duplicated in the remote pine barrens of the Florida Panhandle the activity so closely observed on the Channel coast of France. The task assigned to the Proving Ground was absorbing and exacting: the reproduction in exact detail and the destruction, by various means, of a series of German Ski Sites.

Building materials were scarce, and neither time nor security permitted conventional negotiations for construction priorities. Proving Ground purchasing agents roved the country for hundreds of miles around. Construction materials were rushed by air, train and truck and boat, into the secret ranges of Eglin Field. Working in twelve-hour shifts, thousands of civilian and military personnel — many of them drawn from offices and housekeeping tasks — assembled concrete, steel, lumber, brick, and building blocks into a series of key target buildings and entire Ski Sites. The Army Ground Forces sent camouflage units and a full antiaircraft battalion to prepare the Eglin Field CROSSBOW sites for effective tests of German defenses.

Within minutes after the first concrete had hardened, every type of weapon available to the AAF was thrown against replicas of the German installations. As additional target buildings and sites were finished, the success of each variety of munition and the efficiency of every type of aircraft were scrupulously checked by teams of military and civilian experts. Daily, General Gardner relayed the test results to General Arnold by telephone. From Washington detailed cables were immediately dispatched to the theater.

When it had been conclusively proved, after exhaustive tests of every weapon and method of attack, that one technique was superior to all others—minimum altitude attack by fighter aircraft especially equipped to pinpoint very heavy bombs on the most vulnerable point at each site — General Gardner and a team of Proving Ground officers flew to England to demonstrate the new method of knocking out the Ski Sites. The Proving Ground Mission discussed the Eglin Field tests with General Eisenhower and with every leading British and American air commander in the theater. A motion picture of the tests, prepared by top Hollywood experts, gave most of those to whom it was shown their first detailed view of the massive sites, as well as conclusive evidence of how they could most economically and efficiently be rendered useless.

To the Americans, it seemed evident that the Eglin Field tests demonstrated how to neutralize the Ski Sites without jeopardizing the Combined Bomber Offensive. There would be no further need, they reasoned, to divert the great numbers of heavy bombers that were still carrying on, with uncertain results, the Allied CROSSBOW offensive.

The efforts of the American CROSSBOW mission provoked, however, a controversy over bombing methods that was sometimes bitter and never resolved. Differences of opinion—between the Americans and the British — on the best method of knocking out the Ski Sites before Hitler could use them were at best regrettable, at worst an advantage to the Germans.

The conflict over bombing policy increased as D Day approached. While the British held firmly to their refusal to adopt the Eglin Field technique, and heavy bombers were diverted in increasing numbers from the Combined Bomber Offensive, a new alarm swept England.

In February, ground agents had reported the appearance of a new type of site, apparently designed to launch the “Peenemünde projectiles.” Designated “Modified Sites,” these were very simple constructions as compared with the Ski Sites. They could be quickly built, easily camouflaged, and because of their small size were very poor targets. For the third time the entire French coast was subjected to a “total" reconnaissance, which revealed an alarming number of the new type of sites. The Germans, meanwhile, continued to employ thousands of workers repairing bombed Large Sites and Ski Sites — whether in a desperate attempt to prepare them for use or as a means of drawing Allied bombs from targets in Germany, the Allies did not know .

A few weeks before D Day — and notwithstanding a report from General Doolittle that, on the only theater mission (May 7) employing the Eglin Field technique, single fighter-bombers had achieved, with a 2000-pound bomb, damage equivalent to nearly 2000 tons from heavy bombers — Eisenhower ruled that for such time as it would require the heavy bombers to strike a final big blow against the Large Sites and Ski Sites, CROSSBOW would have priority over all other air operations. The Modified Sites would, for the time being, be left alone. And whatever Hitler might —or might not — have up his sleeve, OVERLORD would begin on the day appointed.

In May the big bombers pounded CROSSBOW sites for the last time before D Day, and returned to their primary task of giving the final preinvasion punch. On the morning of June 6, OVERLORD began. At the end of the first day’s operations, Allied forces had crossed the Channel and were holding the beachhead they had won that morning. And as the long last minute of D Day passed into history, the great network of CROSSBOW sites— strung out along the French coast for hundreds of miles— remained shrouded in silence.

9

FOR six days after the launching of OVERLORD, the CROSSBOW areas in the Pas-de-Calais and on the tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula were quiet. No Allied aircraft bombed CROSSBOW targets, for the vast network of Ski Sites lay in ruins and the seven Large Sites were visibly shattered.

The tense days of anxiety and alarm over the CROSSBOW threat to the safely of England and the execution of OVERLORD appeared to be over. But on the night of June 12, 1944, the silence of the Pas-de-Calais was broken. Catapulted from the steel rails of a Modified Site launching ramp, hidden near a farmhouse on the French coast, the first German secret weapon fired in combat began its noisy, fiery journey to London. Four V-1s, or “flying bombs,”struck London that night. During the next few days German CROSSBOW batteries remained inoperative.

And then, on the night of June 15, there began an entirely new phase of the war in Europe — the Battle of the Flying Bomb. In little more than twenty-four hours the Germans fired nearly 300 V-1s against England. Clearly CROSSBOW was not a hoax.

Once again, in London and Washington, there were intense and prolonged consultations. At a most inopportune moment CROSSBOW had become a dismaying actuality — worse yet, a potential threat of the first magnitude. With OVERLORD little more than a week under way, with every plane and bomb that could be employed already committed to the land battle, and with the safety of England itself apparently in jeopardy, the decision was critical, if not desperate. But Allied heads remained cool.

Early in ihe morning of the 16th, as V-1s continued to strike London, Churchill assembled his entire War Cabinet, together with Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Field Marshal Brooke, chief of the British Imperial Staff, and others who were to have a voice in one of the war’s fateful decisions. Though little was known about the number and capabilities of the Modified Sites, it was agreed that London would have to withstand whatever was in store for it —the Battle of France was to remain the primary concern of the Allies. Nevertheless, General Eisenhower would be asked to take all possible measures to neutralize CROSSBOW sites, and long-standing plans for the deployment of balloons, fighter aircraft, and radar-controlled antiaircraft against the flying bombs would be put into effect at once by the Air Defense of Great Britain.

General Eisenhower’s response was swift. On his orders, a comprehensive plan was drafted for the bombing of CROSSBOW sites by units of the American Eighth and Ninth Air Forces and by the RAF Bomber Command. An informal order, first given on June 16, was reaffirmed by a memo from Eisenhower lo Tedder, dated the 16th, in the following explicit terms: —

In order that my desires, expressed verbally at the meeting this morning, may be perfectly clear and on record with respect to CROSSBOW targets, these targets are to take first priority over everything except the urgent requirements of the battle; this priority to obtain until we can be certain that we have definitely gotten the upper hand of this particular business.

At once fleets of RAF heavies struck against the CROSSBOW network, principally the Large Sites, from which, it was presumed, the giant rockets would be launched. Having withstood the best efforts of “conventional” 2-ton bombs, the huge installations were soon being pounded by the British with their monstrous new “Tallboy” bombs, 12,000-pounders. The American Eighth struck repeatedly at the supposedly “neutralized” Ski Sites and other targets presumably related to the firing of V-1s. But for all the combined efforts of Allied air power — efforts that in July and August cost the Allies a fourth of all their combat sorties and a fifth of all their tonnage— the flying bombs still continued to rise in only slightly diminished numbers from their launching ramps hidden along the coast of France.²

Meanwhile, it had been absolutely verified that the V-2 was in mass production. And against this weapon, which traveled far in advance of the speed of sound, there could be no defense, once it was airborne. Only by stopping the rockets at their firing sites or at production and transportation centers could the Allies prevent Hitler from using his now actual wonder-weapon. The Eighth, therefore, struck Peonomünde repeatedly and with outstanding success. The RAF sent fleets of bombers to V-2 production centers deep in Germany, and from its bases in the Mediterranean the Fifteenth Air Force joined in the attack.

While pursuing their effort to prevent, or diminish, Hitler’s use of the V-2, the Allies learned two facts about the highly touted weapon that gave a kind of negative hope. For one thing, several of the Large Sites had been captured when Allied troops drove the Germans from the Cherbourg Peninsula. The American air commander, Lieutenant General Louis H. Brereton, toured these monstrous enemy installations late in June. Though he estimated the Cherbourg sites to be only half-finished — a reassuring finding-General Brereton described them as “more extensive than any concrete construction we have in the United States, with the possible exception of Boulder Dam or similar waterway projects.” The second negative reassurance came from the examination of a V-2 that had misfired at Peenernünde and landed, virtually intact, in Sweden. It was regarded by Allied scientists and technicians as a marvelous mechanism technically, but it was apparent that the V-2’s war head —barring use of a revolutionary explosive — was no greater than that of the simpler and less costly V-1.

However, if Hitler had vast quantities of V-2s, he could, the experts said, blow London off the map. The Allies therefore prepared a bombing plan, to be used when rocket firings commenced, that would require their entire bombing forces, in order to demolish in one great blow more than 250 V-2 targets in Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France. Simultaneously, plans were drawn for a mass evacuation of London.

The last V-1 fired from a launching site in France struck England on the afternoon of September 1, 1944. Allied ground troops, advancing rapidly up the French coast, had forced the flying bomb firing units to withdraw northward into Holland. Thereafter, the greatly reduced numbers of flying bombs that hit England were fired from Heinkel 111s equipped to air-launch V-1s or from ground sites in Holland.

On the day the last V-1 was fired from France, British civil defense authorities halted their planning of precautionary measures against V-2 attack. On the 3rd of September all operational air commands in the European Theater were ordered to suspend every type of CROSSBOW operation pending further notice. Three days later, on the assumption that there would shortly be no further danger from either ground-launched V-1s or the still silent V-2, all Allied bombing attacks against CROSSBOW targets were canceled, except for occasional strikes against airfields that might be used for the air-launchings of V-1s. On the 7th of September a member of the British War Cabinet announced to the press that the “ Battle of London" was over, except “possibly ... a few last shots. As had been the case during the week following D Day, the CROSSBOW danger appeared to be over.

But the cycle was to repeat itself, for at the dinner hour on the evening of September 8 the first of more than a thousand 12-ton V-2 rockets that were to strike England fell soundlessly and exploded in a London suburb. Six seconds later a second V-2 struck another suburb. That same day the Gerrnans fired several of their giant rockets against Paris.

But spectacular as was the scientific achievement apparent in the V-2, the weapon had been committed to battle too late, its military effectiveness was more limited than had been anticipated, and reliable intelligence reports indicated that the Germans had not produced sufficient quantities of the weapon to make it a long-continuing danger of great significance. Moreover, the steadily advancing Allied ground troops would, in time, deny Hitler the use of both V-2 factories and firing sites. This combination of evidence, all quickly evaluated in the Allied deliberations on the morning of September 9, led to the decision - and it proved to be a sound one — that only limited measures should be taken to meet the CROSSBOW threat in its third and penultimate phase.

The final phase of the Allied CROSSBOW campaign involved a series of discussions in December, 1944, and January, 1945, regarding the policy to be adopted following intelligence reports that the Germans were preparing to use a third V-weapon, variously designated the V-3, V-4, and the “final weapon.” Early in December, American agents in Argentina and Turkey reported that “reliable sources” had revealed the Germans would, within thirty days, begin bombardment of American cities on the Atlantic seaboard with stratospheric rockets capable of demolishing 40 square kilometers around the point of impact. After painstaking investigations, the War Department and AAF Headquarters in Washington concluded that while such rockets and war heads might be in the experimental stage in Germany, it could be assumed that they were not ready for use in combat. In Europe, General Spaatz came to a similar conclusion. And thus ended the Allied discussion of policy concerning the German V-weapons.

10

AFTER September 8, 1944, the Germans fired some 1100 V-2s against England, together with approximately 800 V-1s. Against Continental targets, principally Antwerp, they concentrated a heavy fire of V-1s and V-2s. Belgium suffered far greater damage, proportionately, than did England. In both countries the loss of life and destruction of properly was appalling, considering the essentially limited numbers of V-weapons fired by the Germans.

Although only about 2500 V-1s and fewer than 1000 V-2s exploded in England, nearly 10,000 British civilians were killed and some 25,000 were seriously injured. More than 200,000 buildings (principally dwellings) were totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair: 1,339,000 buildings, less seriously damaged, required some type of repair. At least 4,500,000 British civilians were rendered homeless or to some degree inconvenienced. In the second week of September — following the cessation of the major V-l offensive—a labor force of more than 60,000 — many of them drawn from the armed services — was engaged on repairs to buildings capable of reconstruction.

In Antwerp the damage was even more intense. During the V-weapon attack, which lasted—with only one day’s interruption — for 175 days, two thirds of the buildings in the greater Antwerp area were damaged. The dead in Antwerp were nearly 5000, and the number of wounded was in the tens of thousands. The American Consulate General estimated that a fourth of all the buildings in Belgium had been damaged to some extent by the time the last V-weapon was fired, late in March. The cost of replacing Belgian buildings destroyed or damaged was set at approximately $2,000,000,000.

It is impossible to do more than speculate on what Germany might have done with its longrange weapons, notably the V-2, had they been produced in far greater numbers and been committed to combat in the earlier years of the war. Dornberger and von Braun have stated that the V-2 would have been ready for combat as early as 1942 if Hitler had not canceled Peenemünde’s first priority in 1939. The A-10, or transatlantic rocket, could have been operational by 1946, Dornberger suggests, if work on it had continued after the outbreak of war. As to Germany’s capacity to manufacture groat quantities of the V-2, Willy Messerschmitt, Germany’s outstanding avialion authority, is known to have informed Hitler that with an all-out effort at the proper time, German industry could have produced 100,000 V-2s per month.

Though the major responsibility for the German failure to use the V-2 must rest with Hitler, and to some extent with his advisers in the High Command, it cannot be denied that once Hitler decided — in May, 1943 — to use the weapon, there remained unforeseen technical difficulties that had something to do with the failure to use the V-2 before D Day, when it would have been more effective. Von Braun would have it that Hitler’s belated decision was doubly wrong, in that he demanded the use of the weapon before it was technically ready.

To what extent the destruction of the original launching sites along the French coast was responsible for the delay in the inauguration of the V-l offensive is difficult to determine v\ it II absolute accuracy. One absolute fact is known about the original CROSSBOW sites. From the vast network of steel and concrete spread out for hundreds of miles along the coast of France - probably, in its entirety, a construction effort as large as any yet undertaken in peace or war - the Germans launched only one missile, a V-1 that misfired. All other V-weapons were fired from mobile sites, developed after the beginning of Allied CROSSBOW bombings. In some degree, the continuedand large-scale — construction at the CROSSBOW sites after the opening of Allied bombing attacks was a purely diversionary operation on the part of the Germans — perhaps Hitler’s one good guess in the whole affair. Nevertheless, there is evidence that Hitler, and to some extent the leaders of the Todt Construction Organization, continued building operations at the Large Sites until the very moment they were overrun by Allied ground forces, only because of the German penchant for the colossal. Dornberger explains the long-sustained, grotesquely wasteful, and “fantastically costly" operations at the Large Sites— planned to shelter 200,000 personnel and monumental quantities of machinery and supplies — by referring to “a fatal German weakness — feats for the sake of feats.”

In his last gigantic moments in the underground bunker in Berlin, with the thunder of Russian guns and British and American heavy bombs penetrating the buried recesses of steel and concrete, and with final knowledge that Allied tanks and foot soldiers were closing in from the East and West, it is not impossible that Adolf Hitler remembered certain words he had spoken to a German colonel of artillery two years earlier.

On that day in 1943, ten years after his first visit to the little rocket station at Kummersdorf, Hitler had summoned Dornbergcr and von Braun to his Personal Headquarters, to tell them that he might use the V-2 against England. When — after seeing the motion pictures that changed his mind, and hearing Dornberger’s account of what might yet be done —Hitler emerged from his brooding silence into the storm of words, he furiously rejected Dornberger’s modest apology, “The judgment of its psychological effort, of its usefulness, and of its possible strategic results in this war was not our task. At the beginning of the development we didn’t think this rocket should have an alldestroying effect.”Fiercely, Hitler turned to Dornberger and screamed, “ You didn’t intend that, but I did!!" And then, in a moment of quiet, Hitler stared searchingly into Dornberger’s eyes, and said: —

If only I had had faith in you earlier! In all my life I have owed apologies to two people only — General Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, who repeatedly drew my attention to the importance of [the V-2] . . . for the future, and yourself. If we had had this rocket in 1939, we would never have had this war. Now and in the future. Europe and the world is too small for war. . . . War will become unbearable for the human race.

Since 1945, when in Europe Hitler and his Germany died and in Asia the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, the forthcoming era of rocket-atomic warfare has steadily advanced on mankind. No one can know whether Hitler’s last words to Dornberger were prophecy or requiem.

The world knows, however, that rocket and atomic research continue, under governmental control, in America and in Russia. Since 1945 the Russians have had Peenemünde, and America has had Dornberger and von Braun and — with one exception—the key members of their great team of rocket experts. What the Russians now have, or have under way, is perhaps a better guarded secret than is some of our own activity in rocket and atomic research. But it is no secret that Joseph Stalin and his associates have their dreams. Unlike Hitler, they are inclined to keep the details to themselves.

(The End)