Horsford's V-2 Rocket Attack

 

During the latter stages of the Second World War, the German Army unleashed perhaps the most impressive of the German 'Wunderwaffen' (super weapons). The V-2 rocket was the progenitor of all modern space rockets and military ballistic missiles, with the first sub-orbital space flight being achieved by a German V-2 in 1942.

 

The 'V' stood for vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapon), and both the V-2 and V-1 were featured in Nazi propaganda as a retaliation for the massive RAF and USAAF raids that heavily bombed German cities from 1942 until their surrender.  The V-1 flying bomb, aka 'doodlebug' or 'buzz bomb', was the world's first cruise missile; its pulse-jet emiting the characteristic buzzing sound. Interestingly the V-1 was known briefly in Germany, on Hitler's personal orders no less, as 'Maikafer' (cockchafer).  Anyone familiar with the large, blundering cockchafer, aka 'May bug', 'billy witch', 'buzzy witch' or 'spang beetle', will certainly agree that the buzzing sound is similar.

 

With the V-1 there were defensive strategies that could be employed.  German double agents helped persuade the enemy that they were missing their targets, ensuring many were safely targeted away from their intended destination.  The V-1 was also vulnerable to 'ack ack' anti aircraft artillery (from the then RAF phonetic alphabet for AA).  Fighter aircraft also successfully intercepted and shot down V-1s, or even nudged them off target by coming alongside and using the airflow over their own wings to tip the wing of the V-1 into an out-of-control dive.  The first combat victory for an Allied jet fighter was a Gloster Meteor getting up close and  'tipping'  a V-1, in a last-ditch effort, after its guns had jammed.

 

Around 8,000 V-1s were launched against England, with half of them being destroyed by fighters, ack ack or barrage balloons.  London was the primary target, although Southampton, Manchester and Gloucester were also targeted.  It's thought that 13 were either targeted at, or flew off course to, Norfolk  -  none of which came near Horsford.  V-1s killed some 6,000 and injured 17,000 people in England.

 

The V-2 was a completely different weapon to the V-1.  There was simply little defence against a weapon that was dropping silently at 1,800mph, from an altitude of 55 miles.  However, the double-crack of the speed-of-sound-busting rocket was occasionally heard. As the V-2 explosions came without warning, the British government initially attempted to conceal their cause by blaming them on defective gas mains.  Never ones to be fooled for long, the public soon began sardonically referring to V-2s as “flying gas pipes”.

 

The only, expensive and difficult, defence against the V-2 menace was to destroy the rocket infrastructure on the ground.  25% of all bombing missions, during 'Operation Crossbow', were at one point focusing on V-2 sites and infrastructure, some of which were Volkswagen and Porsche factories.  The rockets were only completely silenced once allied troops finally rolled through the launch sites. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched at the Allies, mainly against England but also Belgium.  Estimated civilian deaths are 9,000, which pales a little compared to the 12,000 forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners who died producing the weapons.

 

As the push into Europe continued, the German army repeatedly moved V-2 launch sites to prevent the technology falling into Allied hands.  One unit, 'Artillerie Init 444', moved to Gaasterland in the northwest Netherlands in late September 1944.  This move put London out of range, resulting in attacks against Norwich. Because of accuracy problems, these V-2s did not actually hit Norwich proper.  However, they did reach a number of Norfolk locations including Mile Cross, Hellesdon, Crostwick, Spixworth, Taverham . . and Horsford.

 

It's said that lightning never strikes twice.  Try telling that to Botany Bay Farm, off Shortthorn Road, Stratton Strawless.  Just shy of a month since a crippled USAAF P-51 Mustang fighter crashed close by, a German V-2 super weapon impacted and exploded in Horsford woodland on the farm.  Civil Defence records state that the crater was 20ft deep and 30ft across, and that it had damaged Botany Bay Farm.  The explosion would have ejected around 3,000 tons of material into the air.  No casualties were recorded.

 

Fighter Command (then called ADGB = Air Defence Great Britain) recorded the V-2 as 'Big Ben 29', 'Big Ben' being the codename for V-2 LRRs (Long Range Rockets) and '29' for the 29th such weapon launched against Britain.  At least one Chain Home radar site had tracked the rocket after launch, and it had been sighted by two aircraft.  But detection of the launch and flight were of little defensive use against a weapon travelling at such speed, with an unknown destination.

 

'Horsford's'  rocket was the third of 43 launched against Norwich between 26th September and 12th October 1944.  Of those 43, 27 fell on land in Norfolk and five fell into the sea close enough to be recorded.  The V-2 landed at 10.55am on Wednesday 27th September, a day after Operation Market Garden ended in an Allied withdrawal from the Arnhem area.  Norwich man John Crowe, now deceased, recalled being taken to see the Horsford site as a boy.  In addition to the “huge” crater, he recalled seeing a very large oak tree which had been totally uprooted by the blast and stripped of all its foliage.

 

On 10th November 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally revealed a few guarded details about the V-2 menace to the House of Commons, and the country.   By that time the attack on Norwich had been over for almost a month.

 

Although the first sub-orbital spaceflight was by a German V-2 in 1942, extending mankinds reach into the cosmos was the last thing on their minds;  the event went pretty much unrecorded.  However in 1946 a 35-millimeter motion picture camera was launched on an American-recovered V-2 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, USA. The rocket reached 65 miles high before dropping back to Earth, slamming into the ground at 500 feet per second. The camera itself was destroyed but the film, protected in a steel cassette, was unharmed. The scientists who recovered the intact film were later described as “ . . ecstatic, jumping up and down like kids”.

 

Before 1946, the highest pictures ever taken of Earth's surface were from the  'Explorer II'  balloon, which reached 13.7 miles in 1935.  This was high enough to discern the curvature of the Earth.  But the V-2 camera reached more than five times that altitude, where the grainy film and photos clearly showed the planet set against the blackness of space. The highest V-2 flight was to an altitude of 100 miles.  When the movie frames were stitched together, Clyde Holliday, the engineer who developed the camera, wrote in National Geographic that the V-2 photos showed for the first time  “ . . how our Earth would look to visitors from another planet coming in on a space ship.”

 

Amongst the many firsts of the V-2 rocket was that which occurred in 1949.  Another American-recovered example took a little chap by the name of  'Albert II'  83 miles high, making him the first monkey in space.  Sadly his parachute failed so he was unable to enjoy his fame.

 

 

My thanks to the following for their assistance with this article:

Bob Collis, featured in  'The Blitz: Then & Now Vol 3'

Website  V2Rocket.com

 

 

If you have any further, or conflicting, information in regard to this event then please don't hesitate to contact me.

 

 

Lee Wright

leewright@contractor.net

8th July 2014