Does anyone know exactly which neighborhoods in London the first V1s and V2s hit? Streets if possible. The first V1 fell in June 44, and the first V2 fell in September 44.
I think the first V2 fell somewhere in Chiswick. I remember this information from an Imperial War Museum poster on the Tube some years back which IIRC did include the address, or at least the street.
The first V1 hit Swanscombe in Kent (which is to all intents and purposes part of East London), but I don’t know about the first V2. I think that a large number landed within a few minutes of each other during the first raid, so it might not be possible to pinpoint.
Lots of info. about the V weapons can be found at http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/vweapon.html .
I’m still looking for the info. you’re looking for.
Maybe I’m being pedantic (horrors!) but with reference to the subject of this thread: the V1 was a pulse-jet, not a rocket.
Don’t feel bad, though: I hear that the Imperial War Museum’s exhibit had their V1 labelled as a “Rocket”! (I read about this in Aeroplane magazine, though when I was at the IWM a couple of years ago I didn’t notice. Mind you, I didn’t have to read the plaque to know I was looking at a V1.)
What’s the difference?
TomH: Assuming you’re not just hounding me for being pendantic, here’s the difference: a rocket carries its own oxidizer (e.g. liquid oxygen) while a jet gets its oxidizer by ingesting air. For this reason, a jet can’t travel into space (or near-space). It’s hard to make a jet projectile ballistic (wrong power curve, streamlining issues). It is also very difficult to get a jet to go over Mach 3 (inlet airflow issues).
There’s still no reliable way to intercept a rocket (even a primitive Scud), but almost every jet aircraft (I don’t know about the SR-71 or the mythical Aurora) can be shot down by a rocket-powered missile.
I wasn’t hounding you, I was genuinely curious. Thanks for the explanation.
The V1 would have been called a cruise missile today - actually an unmanned airplane with a bomb in it. It was unguided in the conventional sense, though. After getting the best meteorological information they could. the Germans would aim the launch rail in the direction of England, and fill it with a carefully-measured amount of fuel. They then depended on luck for the V1 to run out fuel and crash into something useful. The same idea was used way back in The Great War with the American “Doodlebug” bomb, which had a timer mechanism that would release the wings. The V2, a true missile, had an early gyro-stabilized control system that wasn’t much more accurate.
The inaccuracy wasn’t all bad, though - since anyone in SE England knew they could be right underneath, the fear factor was widespread, and may have been more damaging than the bomb blast itself.
The V1 was called the “Buzz Bomb” because its pulse jet’s intake door flapped open and closed at a rapid rate that made a buzzing sound. It would let in a certain amount of air in the front, close the door and dump in the fuel, fire a spark, shoot a blast of hot gas out the back, and repeat. They actually used the same engine on the Volksjager fighter, a desperate late-war design that didn’t do anything - the buzz would have been pretty butt-numbing for the undertrained pilots, anyway.
Little-discussed fact: The US was making their OWN V1’s in the summer of 1945, in preparation for the land invasion of Japan. Ford assembled “Yankee Doodles” out of captured German parts and some US-made ones. There’s one in the New England Aviation Museum in Connecticut.
Elvis: The V1 was called the “Buzz Bomb” because its pulse jet’s intake door flapped open and closed at a rapid rate that made a buzzing sound.
Actually, I think it was the advancing wavefront of the explosion that caused the doors to close, and it was the sound of the wavefront (travelling at the speed of sound, which was faster than the wavefront) escaping through the flaps that caused the buzzing sound, not the sound of the doors themselves. The doors were basically a “check valve”.
Also, I think the V1’s had a timer; they didn’t just mosey along until they ran out of juice – that would have been exceedingly inaccurate. Every film I’ve ever seen where there was a V1 emphasized that the sound of the engine suddenly CUT OFF, it didn’t sputter out. Knowing how the Germans used sound in terrorizing (e.g. the “Trumpets of Jericho”), it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they figured that a sharp cut-off would be more frightening (insofar as it was deliberate) than a “sputtering out”.
I think it was cool that in order to avoid flying into debris/wasting ammo/getting killed in an explosion, RAF pilots would sometimes fly alongside the approaching V1 and use their own wing to roll it enough that it would spin out of control. See here.
I thought that the V1 had a gyro-compass for steering and a propeller ‘odometer’ to measure how far it had gone. The gyro was confused by sudden motion, hence the tipping it out of control. The engine cutting off was not the mechanism of attack but a side effect that was later remedied. The bomb dove (by deploying a spoiler) after the pre-programmed distance elapsed, and the rapid dive cut the fuel to the engine.
Correct. V1’s did not usually power out, they ended the flight going into a powered dive to the unlucky target “underneath” it. The only time it would power out is if something went wrong. They had a small “propeller” shaped domahicky on the front of it that spun, and after a certain number of “spins” or something like that, it put itself into a dive. So, I guess they had to figure out “how many spins” until the bomb was over London or wherever it was going… which was undoubtly an art in itself, but not exactly accurate by any means.
Eric
Hey Elvis, can you tell me more about that American “doodlebug?”
I knew a fellow who lived in Croydon throughout WWII, and he said everyone in his neigborhood called V-1’s “doodlebugs.” Croydon had the honor of receiving more V1s than any other part of London. I can’t help wondering if there is a connection.
V1 = Cruise missile
V2 = Ballistic missile
The German program was headed by Von Braun who, after the war, headed the American Apollo program that put a man on the moon. Whenever someone tells me an Italian discovered America I remind them a German put a man on the moon.
I believe Von Braun’s life was made into a book or movie titled “I aim at the moon”. A friend of mine remarked it should have been subtitled “but most of the time I hit London”. 
SofaKing, there was a major RAF fighter base at Croydon. No wonder it was a target.
Assuming you mean the WW1 Doodlebug, here ya go:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/early_years/ey3a.htm
There’s a replica on display at the USAF Museum near Dayton - a wonderful place, if you ever get near there.
This link only calls it the “Bug”, but I’m sure I remember the sign in the museum calling it the “Doodlebug.”
I would think there would have to be a connection to the V1 nickname, and certainly to the US-copy “Yankee Doodle” (officially the “Loon”) - http://www.neam.org/images/loon_lg.jpg or http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap15.htm .
The Canadian Air Force Museum in Ottawa has a Hawker Hurricane (or is it a Tempest? - no link in their Web site) wingtip with some serious dents in it from tipping V1’s - that’s another place well worth a visit, btw.
http://www.aviation.nmstc.ca/Eng/english_home.html
The most informative link I can find to the V1 (scarce, oddly) is: http://home-dome.com/Doodlbug.htm
Douglips, the gyro system seems to me to have been for simple stabilization, not guidance. Differing information can be found for the actual fuel cut-off and dive-control method. The point still is that guidance was by the point-and-hope method, however it worked.
Bernse, I thought the little propeller on the nose simply powered a little generator to keep the gyros powered, but the link above calls it a “firing pistol” (whatever THAT is).
Timothy, you sound closer to right than me about the origin of the “buzz” sound, but wouldn’t the engine still shut off abruptly (no “sputter”) if the fuel flow dropped even slightly below the amount needed to slam the intake doors closed? Re the “Trumpets of Jericho” sound, you must know about the ram-air-powered siren that the Stuka had - it sounded scary at first, I’m sure.
Sailor, you must know Tom Lehrer’s lyrics, “‘Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department,’ says Werner von Braun”.
Elvis1Lives: Timothy, you sound closer to right than me about the origin of the “buzz” sound, but wouldn’t the engine still shut off abruptly (no “sputter”) if the fuel flow dropped even slightly below the amount needed to slam the intake doors closed?
Yes, I suppose that’s possible. I’d have to ask a V1 rigger!
Re the “Trumpets of Jericho” sound, you must know about the ram-air-powered siren that the Stuka had - it sounded scary at first, I’m sure.
The “Trumpets of Jericho” was the “siren” fitted to Stukas.
Strangely enough, I’ve never seen a picture of the TOJ, and I didn’t see it marked when I inspected Hendon’s Stuka (which was actually a converted JU-187 – judging from the shape of the glasshouse – and a tank-buster – if I recall correctly what I’ve heard about it).
There’s something on the Hendon 187 that might be the TOJ – it looks like a horn – but I’ve seen airspeed devices on a Tiger Moth that look just like that.