German V1 and V2 Rockets in WWII

A few years after leaving high school - a stay at home young wife - boredom overtook me and because I like to read, I headed for the library. Over the next few years I was a frequent visitor to the libraries. One of the first books I checked out was a thick book called Pearl Harbor. I learned things in that book I never learned in a history book. It opened my eyes a bit to the reality of the world - what we learn in school, on TV, in the movies and what we don't unless we dig a little. It was the first of many books I read about World War II. I think I read every one written about the war in the Pacific - Queen of the Flat Tops, The Battle for Sunda Strait, Battle of the Coral Sea, The Battle for Corrigidor, PT109 and many more. Only when I had exhausted the Pacific and the battleships did I start on the war in Europe. By no means am I an authority on World War II, but I have absorbed a lot of knowledge from the books.

I sat one afternoon discussing World War II with my Father, a veteran who had landed at Omaha Beach and followed General Patton and Omar Bradley across the continent, battle after battle. Talk turned to Pearl Harbor and I mentioned the mini subs and Dad told me that mini subs were not used until much later in the war. Arguing with my Father was the last thing I wanted to do, so I ended up borrowing Pearl Harbor from the local library so that we could both look through it together and we discussed the book at length several times.

Over the past year, I have sat at my Father's side and written the story of his life. One part is detailed in the hub entitled Motorized Couriers of World War II. I have shared the manuscript recently with several who scanned over part of it and instantly informed me that the story had no value. There was no blood and guts, our Father never fired a shot, no one would pay a penny to read it and besides that - it wasn't true. One told me that he was very well versed in the history of World War II and V1 rockets were air launched only against London and that I should remove mention of the rockets on the continent. Again - I did not argue, but I found it hard to believe that Dad had been mistaken about the rockets - I had asked him about it when he mentioned them because I too, was under the impression they had been used only against British land targets. I can still see him sitting in his chair, pursing his lips, lowering his head and shaking it slowly. "Oh, no. They were used in Europe. The German's used those rockets all over at the end." His eyes were not sparkling with laughter and merriment - there seemed far more in the dark depths during this conversation as if memories of the night driving, the sounds, the smells, war and death had not moved so far distant for him. He described the whining noise and then the silence before they exploded and sat for a moment silent himself as if he had just come in from one of those runs and was going over the details in his own mind.

Not sure of the facts myself, I did some research on German rockets. The war after all was 50 years ago and maybe Dad wasn't remembering things quite the way they happened. The story I found was very interesting and I learned a lot. The German High Command was very aggressive with the rocket program. And, yes, London was a major target for the rockets. Of the 30,000 rockets launched, some 10,000 were aimed at Britain, but less than 2,500 actually made it to London. After the Normandy Beach invasion, the German High Command became determined to cut off the allied supply route. One port in Europe that had not sustained major crippling damage was at Antwerp in Belgium. Antwerp became the target for another 2,500 rockets and 9,000 more were aimed at other targets on the European Continent. Fortunately, these weapons were highly undeveloped and only managed to hit their target about 25% of the time.

I knew and recognized some of the towns my Father mentioned, so I got out a good map of Belgium to see what the relationship was distance wise for those and Antwerp. I spotted Leige, a town Dad talked about a lot. Not far across the border was Maastricht, Holland where Dad spent a night at an army aid station following a jeep accident, both approximately 100 miles or so from Antwerp.

By Sept. 1944, German rockets were being fired at Paris, Lille, Mons, Maastricht and Liege. This continued on through March 1945. During this time, my Father would have been on the road as a motorized courier and there is every chance that he did indeed encounter the German Rockets.

The research led me to believe that few are really aware of the extent of the use of rockets in the Battle for Europe. Most attention was focused on their use against London. Some of this may have to do with the fact that American and British bombers were very affective at taking out the manufacturing and launching facilities. The Germans, however, had every faith and hope that these weapons would be be their only hope of winning. To that end, assembly and launch sites were almost as mobile as the troops who manned them. This mobility allowed them to keep the rockets launching from Belgium, to Holland and over the river back to Germany.