Most Secret War

by R. V. Jones

  I could hardly believe my luck, because I had spotted these same objects even before I found the rocket at Blizna, and had quickly dismissed them for what they were: bell tents. There was enough evidence on the photographs to show that they were not substantial metallic structures because they had been surrounded by protective walls of sandbags, with a gap left so that the occupants could enter and leave the tent and some of the tents had been struck, leaving the sandbag wall intact. So, whatever the structure was, it could be folded up enough to get through or over the sandbag wall.

  Happily, Hugh Smith had recruited one of his friends, Ronald Lampitt, who in peacetime was a commercial artist, to take over the drawing of our diagrams, and I asked Lampitt to draw me a cartoon of a rocket stuck on the pole of a bell tent with an astonished German soldier looking out from the flap with another holding a copy of the Medmendham report. I provided the cartoon with a covering page simulating one of our normal covers, but instead of having been headed, ‘Air Scientific Intelligence Interim report’, this one was headed, ‘Air Scientific Intelligence Tentative Report’. I then sent a copy to Douglas Kendall, with a note saying that a fortnight or so ago he had sent a rather unkind letter to the Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Intelligence) about the dangers of amateur interpretation. If he cared to peruse my enclosed report, he would see that I thoroughly agreed with him but that, in the interests of an old friendship, I proposed to give it no further circulation. Douglas Kendall stuck the cartoon on his wall, and our relations resumed their former warmth.

  Now that the weights were settled, most of my Intelligence task was over, and I settled down to writing up all the evidence. My report was completed on 26th August 1944; it ran to some 30,000 words, and gave detailed arguments for all my conclusions. A few points remained obscure, notably the nature of the radio beam control for those rockets (about 20 per cent of those subsequently fired against England) which were guided along a beam rather than by their internal gyroscopes and accelerometers—the first substantial use, in fact, of inertial navigation. The rocket that had fallen in Sweden, and which had so impressed us by the complexity of its radio control, was not in fact typical of those to be used for bombardment: its controls were much more complicated because it was intended to test out a guidance system for ground-controlled missiles.

  As for the figures given in my report, these may be compared with those by German sources as follows:

  A.D.I. (Sc.) Estimate German Statement 1

  Total weight 11½–14 tons probably 12–13 12.65 tons (experimentally down to 11.2 tons)

  Warhead Weight 1 ton nominal 1 ton (down to 97 tons sometimes)

  Liquid Oxygen Weight 4.5 tons 4.9 tons

  Alcohol Weight 3.5 tons 3.8 tons

  Carcass Weight 2.6–3 tons 2.87 tons

  Maximum Range 200–210 miles 207 miles

  Total Stocks Perhaps 2,000 (on 26.8.44) 1,800

  Monthly Production About 500 (on 26.8.44) 300 in May 1944.

  Average 618 (Sept. 1944 to March 1945)

  Total Forward Storage About 400 320

  Intended Monthly Rate of Fire About 800 900 as ‘target figure’

  One of the ways in which I estimated the intended rate of fire provides an example of the irony of security. When we captured a map in Normandy it showed the storage sites for rockets west of the Seine, and these had a capacity for holding 100-120 rockets. Also shown on the Normandy map were some other sites numbered 15 to 20 inclusive, the numbers running from east to west. These were sites that we had already photographed from the air, and which we had diagnosed as dummies erected to throw us off the scent of some unknown genuine sites. The map gave evidence that these were somehow connected with the rocket, and we could therefore conclude that there were 14 sites to the east of the Seine, some of which we had already photographed and identified as being of the same pattern. Assuming that all these sites were part of a deception programme, and that there was—with German consistency—a fairly rigid relation between the number of dummy sites and the number of genuine ones (none of which we had discovered), I assumed that since there were 14 dummies east of the Seine for six west then the rocket storage capacity east of the Seine would be in the same ratio. So to the 100-120 rockets stored west of the Seine there should be another 100-120 multiplied by 7/3 east of the Seine, giving some 400 rockets stored altogether. Further, assuming that the policy was to hold two weeks’ supplies in the stores, as we had found to be the practice with the flying bomb, this would suggest that the Germans intended a rate of firing of about 800 rockets a month. The result of this admittedly tenuous argument, which was supported by others of a similar nature, was thus surprisingly close to the German intention of 900 a month.

  An obvious countermeasure to the rocket was to bomb the factories that were making it. We had found the three main factories, Peenemünde, the Zeppelin Works at Friedrichshafen, and the Rax Works at Wiener Neustadt, each of which was to produce 300 rockets per month, and we had heavily bombed all three. This caused the Germans to concentrate the production of V-2s (and V-1s) in a great underground factory at Nordhausen which from August 1944 onwards produced 600 rockets a month. At the time of my report, all that we knew was that there was an underground factory the ‘M(ittel) Works’ somewhere in central Germany (actually it was in the Harz mountains north of Nordhausen) operating in conjunction with a concentration camp ‘Dora’. Dr. Jozef Garlinski has since told me that these reports came from Polish workers in the camp.

  Fig. 30. Drawing by R. Lampitt of a V-2 before any fell in Britain. The outline was based on air photographs and on papers captured in Normandy. The nomenclature came from Enigma information, and the technical details overwhelmingly from the Farnborough examination of the remains of the V-2 that fell in Sweden on 13 June 1944. Later examination showed that the hydrogen peroxide container should have been below rather than above the pump

  Figure 30 shows a drawing from my Report that Ronald Lampitt made of the rocket, based on the Farnborough reconstruction and what we ourselves could add from our other knowledge. Almost the only modification which had to be made once we captured some intacr rockets was that the hydrogen peroxide container (which provided fuel to drive the pumps which fed the alcohol and liquid air into the rocket jets) should have been about 3 feet lower than where it was shown on our diagram. I was also able to provide a diagram (see Figure 31a overleaf) giving the trajectory that I expected for the rocket. Figure 31b shows for comparison a diagram of the trajectory of the first successful rocket at Peenemünde, which was found after the war in an album in the Peenemünde archives; while the general philosophy is the same, showing that we had divined the German intentions correctly, our diagram is more accurate in portraying a parabolic rather than a circular trajectory after the rocket has ceased to burn, and the German draughtsman has also erroneously placed the maximum velocity at the top of the trajectory instead of near the point of impact.

  To complete my account, I included as appendices the reports on the rocket that I had written during the previous year, so that anyone could see the extent to which we had at any time been in error, and I concluded with a section on German policy in which I tried to answer the bewilderment still existing in Whitehall about why the Germans had developed such a weapon at all. I suspected that Hiter had been carried away by the romance of the rocket, just as our own politicians had been carried away by its threat: for some psychological reason they seemed far more frightened by one ton of explosive delivered by rocket than by five tons delivered by aircraft:

  A rational approach brought us nearest the truth regarding the technique of the Rocket. When, however, we try to understand the policy behind it, we are forced to abandon rationality, and instead to enter a fantasy where romance has replaced economy.

  The Germans have produced a weapon which, at the cost of years of intense research, throws perhaps a one or two ton warhead into the London area for the expenditure of an elaborate radio controlled carcase consuming eight or so tons of fuel. Their
own Flying Bomb achieves the same order of result far more cheaply. Why, then have they made the Rocket?

  Fig. 31a. Diagram from a Peenemünde album showing the trajectory of the first successful V-2 firing, 3 October 1942

  Fig. 31b. Diagram from the Scientific Intelligence report of 26 August 1944, showing the guessed trajectory. The German diagram erroneously has the maximum velocity at the top of the trajectory

  The answer is simple: no weapon yet produced has a comparable romantic appeal. Here is a 13 ton missile which traces out a flaming ascent to heights hitherto beyond the reach of man, and hurls itself 200 miles across the stratosphere at unparalleled speed to descend—with luck—on a defenceless target. One of the greatest realizations of human power is the ability to destroy at a distance, and the Nazeus would call down his thunderbolts on all who displease him. Perhaps we may be permitted to express a slight envy of his ability, if not to destroy his victims, at least to raise one of the biggest scares in history by virtue of the inverted romance with which those victims regard the Rocket.

  Finally, I added an epilogue, to state the case to which future Intelligence officers could point if they were ever threatened by such a muddle as I myself had had to face over the past sixteen months:

  When Intelligence first detects a new enemy development, there are generally insufficient facts to eliminate all explanations but the true one. If therefore these insufficient facts are submitted to a body of experts, each can hold his own theory without the others being able to prove him wrong; this situation can only be resolved by getting more information, and generally when this information is obtained, an approach through Intelligence rather than through technical experience is the more reliable one for reaching the correct solution. Expert advice can be dangerous in Intelligence problems, for rather a simple reason. Our experts are engaged in developing weapons for British use; the enemy experts for German use. The requirements and stimuli are different, and in any case a few bad experiments may discourage either side. Four situations can therefore arise in any one technical development,

  (a) Neither side makes it work. This presents no Intelligence problem.

  (b) Both sides succeed. This is a normal Intelligence problem, for it soon becomes a matter of general knowledge, and Intelligence is reasonably well briefed as to what to seek.

  (c) Our experts succeed, the Germans fail. This is an Intelligence worry, for proving the negative case is one of the most difficult of Intelligence exercises.

  (d) Our experts either fail or do not try, the Germans succeed. This is the most interesting Intelligence case, but it is difficult to overcome the prejudice that as we have not done something, it is impossible or foolish. Alternatively, our experts in examining the German development are no longer experts but novices, and may therefore make wilder guesses than Intelligence, which at least has the advantage of closer contact with the enemy.

  The positive contribution of technical experts to Intelligence problems can be great, and there are many cases where Intelligence would be remiss in not asking their advice; but from an Intelligence point of view, it must always be borne in mind that the advice comes from a British, and not from a German, expert. If this difference in background is not continually appreciated, serious misjudgements can be made. In the tactical field, Napoleon knew this danger well: he called it, ‘making pictures of the enemy’. In the technical field the same danger exists: the present investigation is sufficient example.

  I distributed 40 copies of the report, only to be telephoned two days later by Frank Inglis, who said that Portal was withdrawing them as a result of objections by Duncan Sandys. His objections were, I gather, to my epilogue, which he considered unjustified and unfair to the many experts whom he had called in. This was at least a way of ensuring that the report was read from cover to cover before the recipients returned it, but it was never recirculated. Indeed, when I requested its recirculation some months later, after the dust had died down, permission was still withheld on the grounds that the Chiefs of Staff had approved its withdrawal, and it would be difficult to get them to consider recirculation at that stage. It was, however, to be available for historical purposes, and I had some delayed gratification when I found that Winston Churchill had included a comparison between my figures and those of the Germans in the final volume of his war memoirs. And I am content to leave it to historians to decide whether or not its original withdrawal could possibly have been justified.

  In some ways, fate seemed to be on my side. I had said in the summary of the report that a heavy attack ‘could hardly be mounted before mid-September. Our threat to their launching area and to their lines of supplies may, however, cause the Germans to make an earlier, but smaller effort—if they can.’ And, indeed, this was clearly going to be a ‘near run thing’, as our armies were now racing north-eastwards. Progress was so good that although I had given the range of the rocket as 200-210 miles, it seemed that we might make a clean sweep of all the possible launching areas. Certainly the Vice-Chiefs of Staff thought so (although Roderick Hill did not) for on 6th September they advised that the threat was over. Either on this advice or on his own, Duncan Sandys therefore decided to hold a press conference on 7th September to announce that the battle of London was over. Happily, I was not invited to the conference, although he was big enough to invite me to a cocktail party in his flat in the evening.

  The papers for Friday 8th September therefore came out with headlines and pictures showing Mr. Sandys proclaiming the end of the battle. At twenty minutes to seven that evening Charles Frank and I were in our office when there was a double bang; he and I looked at one another and said almost simultaneously, ‘That’s the first one!’ To mock the day’s headlines, the V-2 had arrived. The one which we had heard had fallen near Chiswick and another had fallen near Epping. What most of those concerned with the celebration had overlooked was that our armies were held up by the rivers, and although they were now through Belgium, they had not been able to cross the Scheldt and the Rhine, and so there was an area around the Hook of Holland which was still in German hands, and within 200 miles range of London. Herbert Morrison was in the Slough of Despond.

  The next morning, Charles and I went to Chiswick to inspect the crater, and after the weekend Rupert Cecil flew me down to Cornwall to take a few days off with my family. While I was away our Airborne Forces fought the action at Arnhem, with Colonel Frost—who had led the Bruneval Raid—holding the Bridge to the last. Unfortunately, despite tremendous gallantry, it proved a ‘bridge too far’, and the vital V-2 launching area remained in German occupation throughout the winter. The German records showed that by 7th April 1945 they had successfully launched 1,190 rockets against London with a further 169 failures; of these we detected the fall of 1,115, of which 501 fell in the London Civil Defence Region. We detected the rise of many of these rockets by radar, so that it was possible to give a few minutes’ warning while a rocket was on its way. We should also not forget that Antwerp suffered more than London, in that it was the target for 1,610 rockets and 8,696 flying bombs, with Liége a target for 3,141 bombs.

  In September 1944, one of the United States Army Air Force officers attached to Air Intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart McClintock, asked me whether I would write an article for the Eighth Air Force magazine on the future of the long range rockets, because he thought that the United States Air Force ought to be alerted to their possibilities. Charles Frank provided the basic calculations, and I wrote the article. It might be fitting to conclude this chapter with the closing paragraphs of our 1944 article:

  There can be no doubt that with the A4 the rocket has come to stay for a long time, if only for its non-military applications; in no other way can we get free of the earth’s atmosphere, with all that this freedom may mean to astrophysical studies. The attainment of the upper atmosphere will in itself be a major factor in experimental meteorology, and sooner or later someone will seriously try to reach the moon—and succeed. Military applications are bound
to be made, whatever the limits imposed by treaties, and we should do well to keep an eye on the possibilities. If we were to allow ourselves more liberty of conjecture, we might consider using atomic fuels to drive an exhaust of hydrogen molecules, or perhaps lighter particles, giving an entirely different order of performance.

  It is an often stated requirement that a weapon of war should have a probable error comparable with its radius of destruction, so that a few shots would ensure the obliteration of the target. Practical weapons seldom approach this ideal, although in the future it may be attainable through homing devices. With a very long range rocket we may have to accept errors, and it may be easier to increase the radius of destruction by the use of new types of explosive based on the fission of the uranium atomic nucleus. If such an explosive becomes practicable, it will probably have a radius of destruction of the order of miles, and on this account alone it might best be carried in some unmanned projectile, of which the rocket would be a particularly suitable type by virtue of its relative immunity from interception and of its potentially better accuracy at long ranges compared with pilotless aircraft. Speculation of this kind is fascinating, but can well wait for a paper at a later time when it is nearer realization.