by Brian Ford
We like to think of the developments of that time as highly organized, well funded, carefully prepared and amazingly productive. The reality is far from the public perception, with private fads and personal rivalry causing crazy changes in policy and priorities. Step one way and you’d rule the world with astonishing new ideas; move in another direction and you could be executed on the spot. A proposal that was unwanted at one moment could become the highest priority in a changed climate of opinion. At the end of it all, many of these astonishing new advances were harnessed by the victors through illegal means — murderous criminals were hailed as heroic innovators if they could bring benefit to their hosts. Even the word of a president could be ignored if it helped promote the cause of progress.
It is sometimes said that the secret weapons of World War II were ridiculous, or expedient, or simply lucky guesswork; in fact, many of them introduced revolutionary concepts from which we benefit to this day. So much of what we now take for granted began as secret science during World War II.
THE TRIGGER FROM VERSAILLES
World War I was the birthplace of secret weapons. Small rockets were used in large numbers, and poison gas was used by both sides. That terrible conflict was brutal and disfiguring, and the victors at once laid all the blame on Germany. The Treaty of Versailles was touted as an agreement to end all wars, and the German people were relieved to see the conflict at its end. They initially joined with everyone else in wishing to see the perpetrators of warfare punished for their crimes. Yet Versailles did not bring this about. The treaty failed to identify the roots of the conflict, but instead simply blamed all the German people for the war, and demanded that they repay the victors unimaginable sums of money by way of reparation. Germany was even obliged in future to use her shipyards for the construction of Allied vessels. The Germans felt humiliated, not liberated.
Typical of the aftermath was the Ten Year Rule which the British government adopted in August 1919. Calculations of the budgets for the armed forces would now be made on the assumption that the ‘British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years’. As a victorious nation, Britain felt confident that Germany had been humiliated and could never again pose a problem to any other state, so military expenditure was slashed. We think of Winston Churchill as being instinctively in favour of preparedness for war, but in the years following World War I his attitudes were very different. In 1928 Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was his powers of eloquence that persuaded the Cabinet to agree that this Rule would remain in force until it was specifically rescinded. By 1931, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald thought that the international situation was becoming dangerous, and that perhaps the Ten Year Rule should be abolished. The First Sea Lord, Sir Frederick Field, warned in the same year that the British Navy was ‘below the standard required for keeping open Britain’s sea communications during wartime’. No port in the entire British Empire, he said, could be adequately defended, but nobody took any notice, and the Ten Year Rule remained a key component of British foreign policy.
Not until 23 March 1932 was the Ten Year Rule abandoned by the Cabinet. Even then it was countered with a cautionary statement: ‘This must not be taken to justify an expanding expenditure by the Defence Services without regard to the very serious financial and economic situation’ which Britain faced.
Matters were quite the reverse in Germany. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles forced the whole German nation to accept complete responsibility for World War I. Henceforth, the German Army (the Reichswehr) would amount to a maximum of just 100,000 persons; there could be no conscription; and the size of the Navy (the Kriegsmarine) was restricted, with absolutely no submarines being permitted. In addition, Germany could hold no poison gas, and have no airships. Instead of being a people freed from the tyranny of their leaders, the whole German population was made to feel personally culpable for the cruelty of the war. With extra money being printed to help pay reparations, the German currency spiralled into hopeless inflation, and then a global stock market crash followed. Germans who had rejoiced at the fall of the Kaiser were seeking a new leader, any leader, who could restore their morale and give them back some dignity. Germany had not even been permitted to join the new League of Nations, and had lost all her overseas territories. The humiliation of the nation — when no foreign troops had ever set foot on German soil throughout the course of the war — left the people vulnerable to any charismatic leader, even a diminutive Austrian painter.
The ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles were not limited to problems in Europe. The United States government refused to ratify the treaty and Kaiser Wilhelm — whom everyone assumed would be put on trial — was exiled to the Netherlands. The British Prime Minister Lloyd George was determined that the Kaiser should hang, but the American President, Woodrow Wilson, refused and argued that there were Allies they would also wish to see executed for their conduct during the war. Attempts to extradite the Kaiser and take him to court failed and, surprising as it seems, the Kaiser survived to see World War II, eventually dying in 1941. The fledgling USSR, still trying to create a new national state out of the ruins of revolution, capitalized on the sense of uncertainty by secretly offering the new German government facilities in the USSR to develop and test new weapons — in exchange for assisting the Soviets in building up their own new Army General Staff. In March 1922 German officers went to Russia to start their illicit training; in April 1922 the Junkers Company started manufacturing aircraft at Fili, near Moscow, and the German Krupp Company was soon established at Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia. At Vivupal, near the spa resort of Lipetsk, Russia, German pilots went on training courses for the future German Air Force (the Luftwaffe). By 1926, the German Army was using a Russian tank training school at Kazan and a chemical warfare institute in Samara Oblast. The Soviet Army was given the benefits of the latest German developments in military theory and weapons technology. By 1929, Germany was actively helping Soviet industry to modernize, and tank production at both the Leningrad Bolshevik Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Company was being streamlined. Russia was not the only country to help out. Britain was also increasing her legitimate trade with Germany during this period, selling many of Britain’s best designs of aircraft engines to the burgeoning German air industry. These were fitted into the existing German aircraft, while Germany’s engineers examined the British engines and set out to improve them so that German manufacturers could equip future generations of warplanes. When Hitler came to power in 1933 this cooperation came to an end, but by then the secret roots of German militarism had been well-established.
Deny a nation its right to development, and it will do it covertly. Limit the size of its army, and it will raise the quality of each soldier to the highest level. Place constraints upon the size of its warships, and it will develop the most efficient, lightweight, state-of-the-art vessels in history. Tell it to eschew airships, and — who knows? — it might even opt to develop space rockets instead. A victorious nation should always seek to dignify the population of a defeated state, for they have often suffered greatly during the conflict imposed upon them by their leaders; humiliating them will never augur well for the future. In considering secret weapons in the context of World War II, we can see that their origins lay long before the outbreak of war.
SCIENCE AT SPEED
For today’s citizen, the secret weapons of World War II should be seen as a mainstream matter, not a specialist subject; for they reveal how rapidly science and technology can advance. Projects that meandered indifferently for decades acquired a dramatic momentum and developed faster than ever before in history. Given a similar sense of urgency, could we not introduce ways to sequestrate carbon dioxide, capture geothermal power, produce superabundant food without despoiling the landscape and conquer diseases like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis? Rapid results provided the key to the secret development of weapons of World War II, and we have not yet learnt how to generate the same sense of
urgency in peacetime.
The one exception I could cite would be the vision of a man on the moon, which President John F. Kennedy put to the American nation on 12 September 1962. He promised America that their great nation would have a man walking on the lunar surface within a decade — and the speech fired up the nation in a frenzy of support. He found, uniquely in peacetime, a common cause to bring energies together, and the rate of progress until the moon was reached paralleled the efforts made during World War II. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon on 21 July 1969; the whole project had been successfully telescoped into less than seven years. So — it can be done. Before, however, we reach the conclusion that it’s easy to fire up innovation and the speed of progress in peacetime, we should reflect on one crucial matter: the race to the moon was performed by teams led by the German rocket engineers who invented the world’s first space rocket, the V-2. The impetus we saw in the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) was a continuation of the culture of wartime Germany, harnessed this time for the purposes of peace. Even here, it was secret weapons that pointed the way ahead.
The essential lesson of history is that people never learn from the lessons of history. The secret science of World War II, and its legacy in the wars we wage today, arose from that unchangeable fact.
CHAPTER 2
FLYING WEAPONS: SECRET AIRCRAFT
Aircraft of every conceivable size and shape appeared during World War II. Throughout the war, and in the years immediately preceding it, both Allied and Axis forces produced novel aircraft of increasingly sophisticated design and increasingly impressive specifications, as well as incredible new missiles that paved the way to the future, as we shall see in the next chapter. Mustangs, Messerschmitts, the Zero and the legendary Spitfire are all remarkable aircraft and between them they altered the course of the war. Many planes that had been developed in peacetime were converted from civilian to military use. Thus, for example, the Douglas DC-3 airliner was modified to become the legendary Douglas C-47 Dakota, the military transport Skytrain. Over 10,000 of them were produced in California at Long Beach and Santa Monica, and also at Oklahoma City. Similarly, in Seattle, Boeing had launched their B-247, the world’s first all-metal airliner, in 1933. They moved on to commence design of the larger B-322 in 1934, and in 1940 were given a contract to convert the aircraft for military use. It became the B-29 Superfortress bomber.
Although all these aircraft played a crucial role in World War II, not one of them was a secret. Only the Germany military establishment produced an astonishing range of top-secret flying devices, some of which defy the imagination, and many of which led to future technology.
THE DIRIGIBLE — BLIMPS AND AIRSHIPS
But in the years leading up to the war, it wasn’t aircraft that dominated the airways, but huge dirigible airships. Some were still in use throughout World War II — but where did they begin? A dirigible is a lighter-than-air balloon which can be driven forward and steered. Those that don’t have an internal skeleton to support the shape of the balloon are known as blimps; a true airship has a framework that provides its shape with fins and motors to drive it forward and steer it. They began with a French enthusiast, Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier, who flew across the English Channel in 1785, in a balloon fitted with moveable wings (for propulsion) and a fan-tail (with which to steer). A design for a steam-powered dirigible featured in the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, and in the following year Henri Giffard flew 12 miles (20km) from Paris to Trappes in a steam-driven airship. By 1884, the French were flying an airship 170ft (52m) long and lifted with 66,000ft3 (1,900m3) of hydrogen. It was powered by an electric motor running from a battery weighing 960lb (413kg). In 1896 an engineer from Croatia, David Schwarz, designed a metal-covered airship which was first flown at Tempelhof airfield, Berlin, shortly after he had died that year. His widow, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 Marks (almost $100,000 today) for the details of Schwarz’s research by a retired military enthusiast who was fascinated by the idea of building a huge airship of his own.
The person who bought the plans was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Although several versions were at work at the dawn of the twentieth century, including those of the French and Italians, it was the Zeppelin airships that came to dominate. Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ-1 was first flown in 1900, with the LZ-2 following in 1906. The Zeppelin airships had a frame made of light alloy girders that contained separate gas cells and were covered with fabric. They captured the public imagination, and in 1908 H. G. Wells published The War in the Air which described how airships could attack and obliterate entire cities. In 1912, an Italian airship was sent on reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines and this was the first military use of an airship. The German airships continued to be a success; by the start of World War I they had already carried 37,250 passengers on 1,600 flights lasting 3,200 flying hours and covering 90,000 miles (144,840km) without an accident. Airships would play a crucial role during this first global conflict but the technology behind them would also influence technological developments in World War II and beyond.
Airships during and after World War I
Airships were used by the Germans before World War I for reconnaissance patrols across the North Sea. This escalated on 19 January 1914 when the Germans dropped bombs on Britain from a Zeppelin, killing two civilians and injuring 16 more. Every few weeks a further raid was launched, and May 1915 saw the first bombing raid over London in which seven people died. In June 1915 Lieutenant Rex Warneford was sent on a bombing mission from Britain against the airship hangers at Evere in Belgium. The Zeppelin LZ-37 suddenly appeared, returning from a bombing raid over London, and Warneford decided to attack. He tried shooting at it with his rifle — the only gun he carried — but was driven off by the Zeppelin’s machine guns. Warneford doubled back and climbed above the enemy, dropping his bombs on top of the airship. The detonations set fire to the hydrogen gas and the Zeppelin crashed in a pillar of flame. It was the first time a Zeppelin had been downed in the war.
The sight of the airships over English soil was terrifying to the population, though they did little real damage. Most of their bombs fell wide of the target, and they were vulnerable to searchlights, night fighters and cloud. When the British began to use incendiary shells the destruction of hydrogen-filled airships was easier. In 1916 four Zeppelins were brought down in the battle of Verdun, and from then on they were prey to British fighters. At the end of the war, all German airships were to be handed over to the victorious powers, but most were damaged or destroyed by the Germans. Many of the airships constructed across Europe in the following years were built from the German designs.
After the war, these machines of terror re-emerged in a more peaceful guise. The British inaugurated a round-trip airship service to New York in July 1919 with the R-34, and ten years later construction began on the R-100 and R-101. In these airships, then the largest ever built, the structure of the ship was based on a geodesic lattice, a revolutionary concept that had been introduced by the young Barnes Wallis. Wallis (who was later to design the ‘bouncing bomb’) was an engineering apprentice who went on to become one of the greatest innovators in aircraft construction. His design for a lattice of light alloy girders allowed the construction of a remarkably lightweight framework. However, the haste to develop these huge aircraft led inexorably to tragedy. The R-101 was still undergoing tests and modifications when she was ordered to fly to India to carry officials to a conference; but she was not properly prepared and on 5 October 1930 she crashed in France, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. The British Air Ministry cancelled all further flights, and sold R-100 for scrap in 1931. The United States Navy ordered the British R-38 for military use but it was inadequately designed and was destroyed prior to delivery. Several semi-rigid airships were constructed in the Soviet Union and their SSSR-V6 set the world record for endurance with a flight of 130 hours. It eventually crashed into a mountain in 1938 with the loss of 13 of the 19 peopl
e aboard. In 1923 the Americans launched their own design of airship, the USS Shenandoah, which was the first to be filled with non-inflammable helium.
Germany had continued to design airships secretly in spite of the original ban imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. To help finance their development, the German designers undertook contract work for the United States, building the LZ-126, which was later named the USS Los Angeles, in 1924. Negotiations to end the treaty continued throughout; Germany argued that the conditions had been unilaterally imposed upon her, and so the treaty was really nothing more than a Diktat, or dictated peace. Hitler also argued that Part V of the treaty had called for all sides to reduce their military capability, and he showed that the Allies had ignored the ruling. In 1932 the German government announced that it would no longer observe any of the military limitations imposed by the treaty. By then, the treaty restrictions had already begun to be eased, and in fact the Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) was launched in 1928. It went on to fly 990,000 miles (1,600,000km) without a single injury to any passenger, and made the first circumnavigation of the globe by air. The United States Navy built two further airships, but all were eventually lost: the USS Shenandoah went down in a thunderstorm in 1925, the USS Akron crashed off New Jersey in April 1933 and the USS Macon crashed off Point Sur Lightstation State Historic Park in 1935. The German airships continued to dominate until the Hindenburg (LZ-129) burst into flames and crashed at Lakehurst, New Jersey, while approaching the landing mast on 6 May 1937. It was made into one of the most famous disaster films of all time, and led to the end of the civilian air transport by these airships.
