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Vengeance Weapons

© Ralph Zuljan

The London Blitz was a time of incredible hardship for those Britons who endured it. But few today realize there was a second Blitz, the "Baby Blitz" during the latter days of the war. This blitz was not carried out by waves of Heinkel, Junker and Stuka bombers, but by mindless robots, the Vergeltungswaffen -- vengeance weapons.

There were two distinct sorts of vengeance weapons, the V-1 and the V-2. Despite the similarity of the names they were radically different weapons. The V-1 was literally a flying bomb, the V-2 a true rocket, the first ballistic missile and brainchild of Werner von Braun, the engineer who made it possible for Man to land on the Moon.

The V-1 had a number of popular designations, primarily the buzz bomb or the doodlebug. It acquired these nicknames as the result of the very loud noise it made as it passed overhead. It has been described as a ticking sound, the sound of a freight train, or a motorcycle. As result of its large, single jet engine the distinctive approach of a doodlebug could be heard up to 30 miles away. In France, where most of the launch sites were situated, it was known as "La Casserole", because it bubbled when it flew.

Advanced weapons research had been going on in Germany since the 1930s, a result of the Versailles Treaty limitations on the size of the German Armed Forces. It did not, however, receive much funding or attention until midway through the war. Despite a spectacularly poor demonstration in May 1943 (the V-1 exploded within seconds of launching) Hitler was persuaded to continue the vengeance program. Launch failures were on the order of 39% at this time. In October 1943 successful demonstrations at Peenemunde convinced him that this weapon would win the war. By June of 1944 launch failures had been reduced to a remarkably low 5% and on June 16 the second Blitz was underway.

Doodlebugs were erratic, to say the least. Sometimes they did not even make it off the launch pad before they exploded, or they spun in the air, whizzing off in unexpected and unwelcome trajectories. Quite often they simply fell out of the sky, far short of any planned target. The 2500 or so that did make it to London had a very low "kill" rate, about one person to one bomb. However the property damage was enormous and many people were killed by falling masonry and flying glass. The only fortunate aspect of the doodlebugs was the shallow blast crater, which was rarely deep enough to hit water or gas mains. Fire was, therefore, not a major aspect of buzz bomb attacks. Terror, however, was. The horrendous noise produced by the doodlebugs was nearly as demoralizing as Hitler had hoped.