As far back as late 1943 the strategic air forces had become involved in a costly struggle related to the task of preparing for the invasion: the struggle against the V-weapons. The Nazis had persisted with plans to launch an area offensive of their own with wildly inaccurate—and in the case of the V-2, costly—missiles.
As early as May 1943 the Allies had observed the construction of the first of seven “large sites” in the Calais and Cotentin areas related to secret weapons. Six of these huge concrete structures were intended to store V-1 and V-2 missiles and to act as launching sites for the latter. A seventh, at Mimoyecques (Calais), was to house a third V-weapon that was a superartillery piece, a “high-pressure pump gun.” It was designed to fire a special finned projectile, boosted by a series of charges detonated in a very long barrel. This was potentially far more dangerous to London than the V-1 or V-2, but it is uncertain whether the Nazis could have gotten it working properly in time for use in the war.
The Allies promptly attacked the large sites, and in November they spotted the first of 96 “ski sites.” Some correctly suspected that these were ramps for launching V-ls, but the extent of the threat was hard to gauge. Some feared that the rocket’s warhead might be as big as ten tons. Nor could the Allies be sure that the missiles would be merely area-bombardment weapons. And while the V-2 was hopelessly inaccurate, the V-1 could conceivably have been fitted with a radio-control system and used against precision targets—in fact the Nazi Air Ministry had planned this at an early date, only to drop the idea when higher authority wanted just revenge attacks on London. Some among the Allies regarded the construction sites in France as a decoy to draw the Allied air effort from important targets. Others feared that they were designed to house even deadlier things; poison gas or biological weapons were among the least fantastic guesses. The Eighth Air Force and, on a much smaller scale. Bomber Command, joined the tactical air forces in pounding the large sites and ski sites.
They were damaged, but the results did not seem commensurate with the effort. Although tests on duplicate ski sites, and an actual attack by Ninth Air Force Thunderbolts, showed that low-altitude strikes by fighter-bombers were far more effective on these objectives than the heavier planes, the British insisted on using the latter.
Even if at unnecessary cost, the Allies seemed to have dealt with the ski sites, while Ninth Air Force bombers had damaged Mimoyecques; the Germans abandoned half the site. But the Germans had merely given up on the ski sites and shifted over to a simpler launcher. These smaller “modified” sites, as the Allies called them, were more easily built and camouflaged, were simpler to repair when damaged, and were much more difficult targets. Although the British heard of them in February, none were identified in photographs until April 27. They did not seem to pose an immediate threat, and there was not much air effort to spare for them in the month before D-Day.
From December to early June the Eighth Air Force alone had lost 49 planes and dropped 17,600 tons of bombs in attacks on V-weapons targets. This was a high proportion of the 154 planes lost and the 36,200 tons of bombs expended in the campaign. Probably much of this effort was wasted. While the Germans had hoped to start V-1 attacks early in 1944, it is likely that factors other than attacks on the ski sites caused the delay. The British attack on Kassel in October 1943 forced the movement of some production facilities; other area attacks reduced production. The first 2,000 V-l’s built were faulty, and were scrapped. The attacks on the French railroads also slowed preparations for the V-1 offensive.
The Allies were content with having prevented German secret weapons from interfering with the invasion, although as it turned out, neither the V-1 nor the V-2 would have been accurate enough to effectively attack the ports from which the invasion was mounted. The Allies thought the danger over, when the modified sites opened fire on London on June 12.
Although not a major threat to the war effort, the V-ls killed many civilians, and as repeatedly noted earlier, no government is likely to tolerate attacks on its capital without reacting violently, whatever the military wisdom of the attacks or the counteraction. The British were upset; they had hardly expected renewed attacks on Britain at this late date. There was wild talk of using gas against the launching sites or even of killing German civilians in reprisal. Eisenhower agreed to a major offensive against V-weapons sites. On June 16 he gave the V-weapons campaign higher priority than anything but the immediate requirements of the battle in France. In practice, it received higher priority than attacks on the French transportation system, dumps, and airfields. The Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command struck launchers and supposed storage facilities.
An enormous effort was expended on V-weapons targets in the summer of 1944, including over a quarter of the tonnage of bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command in July and August. But much of this effort was misdirected by the British Air Ministry. It insisted on hitting the old ski sites, which it was known were not being used; the large sites, the purpose of which was still uncertain; and eight “storage sites” for V-ls, which the Germans had in fact abandoned in May in favor of three underground depots in caves and tunnels. Low-level attacks on the real launchers were neglected. Finally, 5 Group, using the new Tallboy deep-penetration bombs designed by Wallis, hit the underground storage depots and the large sites; the latter were abandoned after these attacks. These may have been the most effective attacks against the V-weapons.
Spaatz considered attacks on the launchers and large sites with conventional weapons a poor idea. Fie urged knocking out the power system in the Calais area, believing that this would paralyze both the large sites and the storage sites, and favored hitting the large sites with radio-controlled “war weary” heavy bombers, packed with ten tons of TNT or napalm. (Some of these missiles were finally sent against the large sites in early August, but by then the British had already dealt with them effectively.) Spaatz preferred to concentrate conventional heavy bombers on gyrocompass plants in Germany and any large storage depots that could be identified in France. But he was largely overruled. Some attacks were made on targets believed to be connected with V-weapons in Germany itself, but these attacks were costly and had little effect.
The V-1 was largely defeated by defensive measures. Many of the fastest fighters—notably Tempests, Meteor jets (see Chapter 9), and a whole wing of RAF Mustangs—were kept in England to stop the V-ls. Many of the V-ls that got through the fighters were shot down by skillfully redeployed antiaircraft guns, aided by effective new radars and gun directors and proximity-fuzed shells. Finally the armies overran the launching areas. The Nazis kept up a small-scale assault with air-launched V-ls fired by bombers; later, long-range V-ls were launched from the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Germans fired older-model V-ls at the port of Antwerp and some other target on the Continent, hoping to interfere with Allied supplies. These killed many Belgians, but did the Allied war effort little harm.
The main V-1 offensive had hardly stopped when V-2 attacks on London began on September 8. (Later the V-2 was also used on Antwerp.) The rocket, fired from mobile installations in the Netherlands, needed no elaborate launcher and was not so vulnerable to active countermeasures. Fighter Command occasionally hit V-2 launch sites, but they were not suitable targets for the heavy bombers.
The counter-V-weapons campaign was a costly and not too successful commitment for the Allied strategic air forces. They had delayed and reduced the German attack, but after the bombing of Peenemunde in 1943, the delay and reduction was mainly from the indirect effects of area attacks or attacks on other objectives, rather than those deliberately aimed at the missile threat. The Allies had often struck targets that were irrelevant. They apparently did not know enough about the V-weapons to concentrate their efforts against vulnerable points in production; the factory making the V-2’s fuel pumps, for example, would have been a good target. But it is arguable that an all-out attack on the production of liquid oxygen, which the Allies knew the V-2 needed, and the gyrocompass plants (as Spaatz wanted) would have rendered the missiles ineffective. And if the bombs expended on the V-weapons targets had been devoted to attacks on oil production, they might have done more to stop the V-weapons than any direct attack.
The V-1 more than paid for itself by causing the British to invest tremendous efforts in defensive measures and by diverting Allied bombs from more important targets. Curiously, the cheap, slow V-1 cruise missile proved more effective than the spectacular and costly V-2 rocket. The V-2 could not be intercepted and was rarely caught on the ground. But for those very reasons, the British could only grit their teeth and endure them. The deaths of British civilians were tragic, but of less than no help to the Nazis. The V-2s, however, unlike the V-ls, were a costly drain on German resources and unjustified by any diversion of the resources of the Allies.*® The V-2 was a great step toward the conquest of space, but as a weapon it was a bust. After World War II, many of the men involved in its development wound up working in the American aerospace effort. But without intending to, in a sense they had really been working for the Western powers all along.
World History
