This proved to be a risky business, since the flying bomb was very heavy and could be lethally tricky to launch. 1,200 V-1s were launched in this fashion, with the loss of 77 bombers. Twelve bombers were lost on two missions alone simply due to the premature detonation of the V-1's warhead after the He-111 left the runway.

Air launch was abandoned in mid-January 1945, due to the high attrition and the advance of Allied forces. However, the Germans were not quite done with this game, having developed a new version of the V-1 with a range of 400 kilometers (250 miles) by reducing the size of the warhead and increasing the size of the fuel tank.

They launched about 275 of these long-range flying bombs against Britain from the Netherlands in March 1945. British defenses were able to adjust to these last-gasp attacks, and the looming defeat of the Reich ended the campaign for good at the end of March. V-2 rocket attacks against England, which had begun the previous September, also slowly fizzled out.

During this last phase of the flying-bomb battle, the German Wehrmacht also launched as many as 9,000 V-1s against continental European targets, particularly the Belgian port city of Antwerp and the neighbouring city of Liege, in hopes of interrupting the flow of Allied supplies to their advancing armies. These attacks faded out in March as well.

The Germans also considered launching V-1s from the back of the Arado Ar-234 jet bomber, using an odd rack that swiveled the missile up away from the aircraft at launch. This project does not seem to have gone past the paper stage.

One of the unusual side stories of the flying-bomb campaign was development of a piloted "suicide" V-1. The details of this weapon are obscure and the documentation contradictory.

In late 1943, the Germans had experimented with "manned missiles", in which pilots would point their aircraft at a ground target and bail out. Experiments along this line were performed with Focke-Wulf FW-190 and pulsejet-powered Messerschmitt Me-328 fighters, but proved unsuccessful.

In May 1944, SS Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny, Germany's brilliant and ruthless commando leader, proposed using the V-1 for this job. Within two weeks, prototypes of variants of the manned weapon, known as "Reichenberg", were built, with designations "R-I" through "R-IV".

The R-I and R-II were glider trainers and lacked engines. The R-I was a single-seat trainer, while the R-II was a two-seat trainer with dual cockpits. The R-III was a two-seat powered trainer, while the R-IV was the operational weapon. About 175 R-IVs were built, and a group of volunteers was organized to fly them. The piloted flying bombs were to be launched by bombers of "KG-200", the Luftwaffe special operations unit.

Selbstopfer (German for self-sacrifice) was a late-World War II German project to develop a "smart weapon" for attacking high-value targets such as bridges and command centers. First proposed by Otto Skorzeny, leader of the German commandos, and Hanna Reitsch, the famous test pilot, they suggested using converted V1 Flying Bombs with a tiny cockpit on top, with the "smarts" being provided by the pilot. About 100 pilots drawn from Skorzeny's KG 200 were trained, and about 175 of the modified V-1 (named Fieseler Fi 103 R Reichenberg) were built. Unlike the somewhat similar Japanese Kamikaze Ohka, pilots of the new Fi 103 R were intended to bail out just prior to impact, although in reality this would be difficult because of the cramped cockpit, the sharp angle of the final dive, and the fact that the cockpit was located just below the pulsejet intake.   Testing was carried out by KG 200 on several occasions, dropped from Heinkel He 111 bombers, with Reitsch herself piloting an unpowered version equipped with a wooden landing skid. Several stories claim operational use, but it appears highly unlikely that the weapon was ever used in combat.   Some other Nazi secret weapons projects involved near-suicide missions like the Bachem Ba 349 Natter.

In principle, the pilot was to aim the Reichenberg at a target and then bail out. In practice, the weapon lacked an ejection seat, and though provisions were made for escape, getting out of such an aircraft safely as it dived at high speed towards a target was problematic. The volunteer pilots who were to fly the bombs were known as "Selbstopfermänner", or "Suicide Men".

Unsurprisingly, many German officers did not like the scheme. In October 1944, a new commander named Werner Baumbach was appointed to KG-200, and he preferred Mistel to Reichenberg. The Germans had little enthusiasm for kamikaze missions. In fact, some sources say that the piloted V-1s were originally designed strictly as flight test machines, but it is difficult to fit that into the other parts of the story as they are recorded.

Along with the Reichenberg, another interesting dead-end adaptation of the V-1 was its use as an external fuel tank that could be towed behind an aircraft by a long pipe, with the pipe acting as both tow bar and fuel connection. The scheme was evaluated with an Ar-234 jet bomber, but never got beyond preliminary tests.

The effectiveness of the V-1 is debatable. Detractors point out that the V-1 was far too inaccurate to be considered a militarily effective weapon. It was a weapon of mass terror that struck almost at random.

It did prove undeniably destructive, inflicting almost 46,000 casualties, with over 5,000 people killed outright, destroying 130,000 homes, and damaging 750,000 more. However, it had no real effect on the outcome of the war, and absorbed resources that might have been better used in the defense of the Reich.

Others point out that the weapon was cheap to build and tied up a disproportionate amount of Allied resources. Though this was true, the Allies had the resources, and it is questionable that the V-1 prolonged the war by any significant length of time.

  USAAF JB-2 / JB-1

Despite the V-1's limitations, the US military was very interested in it. In contrast to the bumbling American efforts in radio-controlled flying bombs such as the BQ weapons, the German V-1 looked pretty good, and in July 1944 captured V-1 components were shipped to Wright-Patterson Field in Ohio for evaluation. Within three weeks, the USAAF and American industry had built their own V-1, which was designated the "Jet Bomb 2 (JB-2)".

In August, the USAAF placed an order for 1,000 JB-2s with improved guidance systems: Ford built the pulse-jet engine, designated "PJ-31"; Republic built the airframe; and other manufacturers built the control systems, launch rockets, launch frames, and remaining components.

The JB-2s were launched off a rail with a solid rocket booster, in contrast to the somewhat complicated steam catapult system used by the Germans. Two versions were built, one with a gyroscopic guidance system like that used with the V-1, and the other with a radio-radar guidance system. The USAAF then experimented with air-launching the JB-2. Most of the launches were from a B-17 bomber, though some were performed from B-24s and B-29s. 

History of German Rocketry in World War II

The Air Force was so enthusiastic with the results that they increased the order for JB-2s to 75,000 in January 1945. However, the end of the war in August dampened enthusiasm for the weapon, and the program was terminated in September of that year after 1,200 had been built.

The US Navy also experimented with their own V-1 variant, the "KUW-1" (later "LTV-N-2") "Loon". Two submarines, the USS Carbenero and the USS Cusk, and a surface vessel, the USS Norton Sound, were modified to launch the flying bombs. In February 1947, the Cusk successfully launched a Loon. The flying bomb was stored in a watertight hanger on the deck of the submarine, and assembled and launched by solid rocket boosters while the submarine was on the surface.

The Soviets are also believed to have built copies of the V-1, and the French operated a target drone based on the V-1 and designated the "Arsenal 5.501" well into the 1950s, though it differed from the original design in having twin tailfins and radio control. 

Boeing AGM-86A  based on the original design of the Fi 103

FLYING BOMBS     Before the war started, Adolf Hitler first mentioned the existence in Germany of a secret weapon during one of his hysterical broadcasts. Hitler's "secret weapon" made headlines in Britain and was dismissed as a German bluff,  although, the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) had evidence that suggested the matter should be considered seriously. As the weeks went by it became a national joke. But, it was no bluff at all. For many years, German scientists had been designing 2 novel weapons. One was a pilot-less, jet-propelled aircraft; the other was a long-range guided missile (that was later to become the V2 rocket in the final phases of the war in Europe). A more secure and secret site was needed for the development of these weapons and, in 1935, Wernher von Braun sought and obtained approval for the heavily wooded Peenemünde base on the Baltic coast. The cost of the site was shared between the Wehrmacht (army) and the Luftwaffe (air force). The Battle of Britain forced the Luftwaffe onto the defensive and so their inclusion in the Peenemünde operation was perfect for the development of their Vergeltungswaffe (their revenge weapon, or V-weapon). So, the airfield to the west of Peenemünde became the centre for the Luftwaffe to test-fly new aircraft and pilotless flying bombs. Security was so tight that few of the vast army of people that were working there knew what was being made at Peenemünde.   At the end of May 1942, the Luftwaffe's deputy C-in-C, Erhard Milch presented the plan for an Argus-tube-propelled pilotless missile to be made by Fieseler Flugzeugbau, the makers of the Storch aircraft. Each machine would be economical to make and run (thin steel plate, low-grade petrol, 550 man-hours) and be controlled by an auto-pilot. It would carry a 100 kg warhead and be designated Fieseler Fi 103 (later changed to F2G 76). The project was designated "Cherrystone". Development would begin immediately, with production starting toward the end of 1943.   The first V1 missile launching look place on Christmas Eve 1942. There were early failures to fix and modifications to make; the latter were suggested after a cramped manned flight by Flugkapitän Hanna Reitsch. By May 1943 sustained flights were achieved and the project pronounced as "very hopeful".   The devastating series of raids on Hamburg, called "Operation Gomorrah", began on July 24th 1943 and Hitler screamed for retaliation. By then 68 Fi 103's had been test-launched and 28 had been entirely successful, 0ne had flown 243 km and another had reached 600 kph.   The Flak Regiment was established and given responsibility for the actual launchings in France. In France, preparations were under way for the erection of concrete bunkers and ramps for sending large numbers of flying bombs to south-east England. Christmas, 1943 was the date nominated for the first assault.   Allied Intelligence was totally ignorant of what was happening at Peenemünde. It took them six years before they realised what was going on. In November 1939 the "Oslo Report" spoke of the rockets, but this was regarded as a German "plant" and was ignored. Peenemünde was not heard of again for 3 years. Finally, in June 1943 (following reports from agents), air-reconnaissance photos showed the rockets: the RAF bombed Peenemünde and declared it "obliterated'.   But, the airfield where the V1s were being tested was untouched and the British were unaware of this weapon.   A few weeks after the Peenemünde raid, on November 9th 1943, a "suspicious erection" was noticed on a set of reconnaissance photos at Bois Carr, near Yvrench in France. This was the first V1 launching site to be analysed. It shows the long, low building of heavy concrete (christened a "ski site"), which was used for the storage of flying bomb components. Within a few weeks, similar constructions were identified on photographs between Dieppe and Calais. The sites were ordered to be destroyed without knowing their purpose. Thousands of pictures of north-west France were taken and examined. By the end of November 1943, Flight Officer Constance Babington Smith had spotted a tiny cruciform shape at the lower end of inclined rails. She had made the first British sighting of a flying bomb. The cross-channel threat was established beyond doubt as the Flying Bomb. It was estimated that the each of the 100 "ski sites" could house 20 missiles, so some 2,000 bombs could be launched a day! Attempts to destroy the "ski sites" by Allied bombing were paltry. By the end of December 1943 only 7 sites had been destroyed and the Germans were completing new sites faster than the Allies could destroy them; the loss of Allied aircraft and crews was appalling. The bombing was wildly inaccurate. The Germans' favourite site was a small wood (of 5 to 10 acres) close to a hard road, where trees in both summer and winter gave them perfect cover. They built hundreds of such sites and supply depots. But they also chose more domestic sites.   Orchards of apples and pears were used, and they even used back gardens of French peasants in remote villages. On at least one occasion they built an entire launching site in a village street!   The New Year proved more successful, but defences were strong and losses heavy. By the end of May 1944, 82 sites were believed to have been neutralised, but the Allies had lost 154 aircraft and 771 aircrew were dead or missing. Further reconnaissance over Picardy, Normandy and Artois showed that the majority of the sites had now been abandoned. The British War Office believed that a simplified launching system for the flying bombs had been devised.   The Flakregiment 155(W), which was responsible for deploying and dispatching the V1s, was now almost mobile. It was building "modified sites" of minimal construction with a ramp, concrete roads and a few essential buildings. Each site took about 6 days to erect and could be abandoned when discovered by the Allied bombers.   On the 16th May 1944, Field Marshal Keitel (on Hitler's orders) issued the order for "the long range bombardment of England to begin in the middle of June."   Soon after midnight on the night of June 12/13th, the Nazis' cross-Channel batteries started firing. In Folkstone, more than a 1,000 homes were damaged and 10 civilians injured; Maidstone was also hit.   The first V1 ("a fighter on fire") was spotted from Observer Post Mike 3, high on the Kent Downs at Lyminge. Message was passed to the Royal Observer Corps and the Observer Post Mike 2 in a Martello Tower at Dymchurch took up the track of a noise like "a model-T-Ford going up a hill". The code message "Diver, Diver, Diver" was passed rapidly up the command line, finally reaching the Mandarins and Gods in Whitehall and Washington. The missile flew steadily across Kent, eventually diving to earth and exploding on open farmland at Swanscombe. Meanwhile, in France, Colonel Max Wachtel (in charge of Flakregiment 155(W)) was experiencing great difficulty in meeting the Führer's demands of 500 flying bombs a day. He had already withdrawn his men from the ski sites where they had been filling in craters after heavy Allied bombing. He was hoping that the first modified launching sites in the Pas de Calais would be ready by the evening of June 12th, but the invasion of Normandy had seriously affected his progress. The French railway system was in total disarray. Trains had been held up and many catapults had failed to arrive. By 11.15 pm on June 12th, when the opening salvo was due to be fired, only 18 of 64 sites in the Pas de Calais were operational and even on these essential equipment was missing. The attack was delayed until 3.30 am when battery commanders were told to open fire.   At 4.20am, the second flying bomb landed in a field behind Mizbrooks Farm, Cuckfield in Sussex. The blast blew open the door of a pig-sty in a nearby smallholding and pigs were running everywhere. The third clattered on towards London and the fourth flying bomb came down at Platt, near Borough Green. It crashed in the back garden of a very large house and "made a terrible mess of two rows of greenhouses".   It was the third bomb which caused the first V1 fatalities. It landed at 4.25 am on the railway bridge over Grove Road in Bethnal Green. This was the main railway line from Liverpool Street to the north-east of England, via Chelmsford. Two tracks were torn up, the parapet partly collapsed, two houses were demolished and several others badly damaged. The blast injured 30 people and 6 were killed.   After many delays and frustrations caused by the Allied advance through Normandy, the Luftwaffe units responsible for launching the next wave of flying bombs finally got their act together and, in the 24 hours from midday on Thursday June 15th, more than 200 missiles were fired. The men on the anti-aircraft batteries in Kent and Greater London could hardly believe their luck as wave after wave of enticing targets came rattling over, all flying a straight course and all trailing a flaring exhaust. The gunners greeted the monsters with more enthusiasm than accuracy and aimed wildly into the air, cheering madly when the sudden cut-out by the engine seemed to indicate yet another score. "Look", shouted one man, "they're shooting the bastards down like flies."   It did not take long for the people of Kent and the men on the suburban batteries to realise that they were now under attack from the first of Hitler's "secret weapons".   The comments and writings of those who lived through this period of the war reveal that the dominant memory is the sound of the V1. Londoners would hear the noise of the engine, followed by that terrifying moment when it stopped. The 15-second silence was the hardest to bear. Then came the explosion and the mushroom of rubble and dust thrown high in the air. Hitler's secret weapon, for so long a music hall joke, was no longer amusing.   At 4pm on Saturday afternoon, June 17th, rescue parties were rushed to St. John's Hill, Battersea where a V1 had landed in the road, damaging the Surrey Hounds public house, two passing trolley buses and a row of shops. The death toll was 24.   By Sunday night, 6 days after the first firing, Flakregiment 155(W) had fired its 500th missile - enough to make the people in southern England think the blitz and the "battle for Britain" had started all over again!   The guns of London were withdrawn because, as General Sir Frederick Pile, the head of Anti-Aircraft Command, says in his book Ack-Ack: ... the mere act of hitting ... the Flying Bomb... was of very little use, for all they succeeded in doing was to bring the missile down on to the very target at which it was aimed.   An important aspect of using a "revenge weapon" is to tell everybody about its use. The Germans conducted a widespread propaganda and psychological campaign using leaflets and newsletters. Aerial propaganda material has been disseminated by a host of systems. The most common is the aeroplane: other methods include balloons, artillery, mortars, grenades, and small rockets. During WW2 all the combatants fired leaflets at each other mostly by artillery. But the German Board of Ordinance (under General Domberger at Peenemünde) designed and developed small solid fuel rockets that could carry propaganda leaflets about 10 km. The rockets had a container tightly packed with leaflets that were fired against front-line Allied troops in Italy.   In the "Diary of a German Soldier", Wilhelm Pruller says: We got a new gun today with a barrel made of cardboard ... the bullets are propaganda bombs which comprise more than 100 leaflets.   Many of these leaflets were about the V1 bombings in England, and how "you boys" would have no home to go back to. Similar V1 material was distributed to Allied troops in Europe as well as delivering the stuff to civilians in England using long-range guns firing the canisters from the French coast. But, they also used the V1s to deliver propaganda "messages". They were placed in a small canister, which ejected automatically from a hole near the wing as soon as the engine turned off, thus scattering the leaflets in the area of the explosion. Examples of the leaflets vary from insults to American Generals, through graphic drawings and pictures (overprinted with large red V1 characters) to cause fear and dismay; to imaginative disinformation about the Allied "atrocity" bombing of German cities; to letters purporting to come from British POWs in Germany. Desperate measures were used by the Germans to keep up the bombardment. One of these measures was to attach the missile under the fuselage of a Heinkel III and to launch it from the air. By this means, and by flying from Belgium, the Germans were able to bring the industrial centres in the British midlands within range of the V1.   The last phase of the V1 offensive began on March 3rd 1945 when Flakregiment 155(W) launched a few doodlebugs from ground ramps at 3 sites in Holland. Fighter bombers attacked the two of the sites and put them out of action, but the RAF never discovered the Delft site and from here came the closing shots.   On March 28th 1945, during the night, 21 V1s were launched but only one managed to evade the guns and fighters and dived to earth in a sewage farm near Hatfield. The last V1 Doodlebug to reach England was launched in the early hours of March 29th from Delft - it was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and exploded in open country near Sittingborne, close to the A2 road.   Back in June 1944, Colonel Wachtel had told his men that their hard work was soon to be rewarded: the V1 was a weapon with which they could win the war for the Fatherland. The fact that they failed was due to all those people who stopped the V1s from reaching London - the bomber crews who attacked the factories, the depots and the launching sites - the fighter pilots and the men and women of Anti-Aircraft Command who destroyed the bomb in flight.   Colonel Wachtel was driven from his last launch sites in Holland. He retreated to Lunenburg in NW Germany and reformed his troops into infantry to fight the advancing British on the ground. On May 4th 1945, along with other German forces, he surrendered to unconditionally to Field Marshal Montgomery. The men of Flakregiment 155(W) were not tried as war criminals and Colonel Wachtel, at the end of hostilities, secured a post in a different kind of aviation as the manager of Hamburg airport. Between June 13 1944 and March 29 1945 a total of 9,251 flying bombs were plotted. Of these 2,419 reached London. The total number destroyed was 4,261 - 1,971 by anti-aircraft fire, 1,979 by the Royal Air Force, 278 by balloons and 33 by the Royal Navy. Aerial propaganda leaflets have been disseminated by a host of weapon systems and other means. The most common is the airplane; other popular methods include balloons, artillery, mortars, grenades, and small rockets. . German General Walter Dornberger  in a letter  said his department of the Board of Ordinance, Rocket Development (WaPrüf II) designed and developed small solid-fuel rockets that could carry propaganda leaflets about 6-7 miles. The rockets had a container tightly packed with propaganda leaflets that were fired against front-line Allied troops in Italy. Dr, Max Kronstein, writing in The Falling Leaf of June 1962, adds: "These small rockets were called Flugblattgeschosse." In the Diary of a German Soldier Wilhelm Pruller says: We got a new gun today with a barrel made of cardboard. And it shoots too, as far as two kilometers. The bullets are propaganda bombs which comprise more that 100 leaflets.   During World War Two, Germany distributed leaflets over the Allies in Great Britain, Belgium, and Holland using their vaunted "Vengeance weapon," the V1 rocket. These are among the most extraordinary leaflets of the war and on the rare occasion when a genuine V1 leaflet is auctioned for sale, the price can be as high as $400 dollars. Because of the tremendous losses to the Luftwaffe during the "Battle of Britain" Germany was looking for a way to terror-bomb London without the loss of valuable pilots and aircraft. In June 1944, the German army began the use of what would called the V1. The 'V' stood for Vergeltungswaffe which meant "vengeance weapon." The V1 was designed by Argus Motorenwerke and the Fieseler Flugzeugbau companies. They developed this small, unmanned aircraft that could carry a one-ton warhead, and powered it with a new pulse-jet engine design. The pulse-jet engine had just one moving part, a shutter assembly in the front air intake. The flying bomb could reach more than 400 mph. The range of the flight was predetermined and set inside the bomb before it was launched. A tiny propeller on the nose of the bomb was attached to a counter. Every 30 rotations of the propeller would count down one number on the counter. When the pre-set counter reached zero, the air hose from the servo to the rear elevator was automatically cut, a spring mechanism would snap down the elevators, and the V1 would dive to the ground. The V-1 was manufactured at various sites in the Reich, but the main production facility was the notorious underground SS slave-labor complex known as "Mittelwerk" at Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains. An estimated total of 24,000 V-1s were built in 1944, with as many as 10,000 built in 1945, though quantities tend to vary from source to source. How were the leaflets distributed? They were placed in a small canister, which ejected automatically from a hole near the wing as soon as the engine turned off. The V1 was equipped with a revolution counter, which shut down the engine after a pre-arranged number of turns. The bomb then went into a steep vertical dive and impact was almost instantaneous.   Greg Goebel discusses the various forms of the V1 in an article entitled "The V1 Flying Bomb." He says: Some of the V-1s were fitted with a radio transmitter and a trailing antenna wire so that their flight could be monitored. In some cases, the bombs were "shadowed" by fast aircraft like the Messerschmitt 410 to observe their flight. A few were also fitted with a cage to accommodate 23 one-kilogram incendiary bombs, or a paper carton full of propaganda leaflets, with the contents scattered by the force of the blast.   Pro-German propaganda designed to sap the will of the reader to fight on included: "Some Tips for House-to-house Fighting." Not really tips, the text explains that the Germans have learned from the partisans they fought and the fighting will be horrific. There is a prophecy from a Swedish psychic, "Biggest-Ever Allied Defeats in 1944 – says Swedish Prophet." Curiously, because the British believed that Hitler and many top Nazi leaders believed in prophecy and astrology, they were also producing black literature where various psychics claimed that the predictions of Nostradamus foretold Nazi doom. A third article explains how the German night-fighter pilots take Noctan B, a marvelous wonder-drug that allows them to see in the dark. A final article depicts a German fighter pilot and says "He has shot down more than 300 Soviet planes." All of these subjects are interesting and difficult to ignore.   William Joyce, the notorious British pro-Nazi collaborator called "Lord Haw-Haw" stated in his 24 June 1944 radio program Germany Calling:   London and southern England have now been under bombardment for more than a week. For nine days, with very little interruption, the V-1 projectiles have been descending on the British capital. May I remind you, the name V-1 has been given to them officially. ‘V’ is the capital letter of the German word ‘Vergeltung,’ which means ‘retaliation,’ and its use to denote the concept of victory must be familiar to nearly all of my listeners. The very term V-1 implies, of course, that Germany has other new weapons which have not as yet been employed against the enemy. That is a fact, and is a fact which even the British Government is beginning to realize.   The emergence of V-1 has provided a surprise for Germany's enemies and I believe they will have several other surprises ‘before the autumn leaves fall,’ if I may borrow a phrase which Mr. Churchill used on a certain occasion. Germany's military policy in this war is based not on slogging and on squandering but upon a scientific economy and application of energy, but this is the kind of policy the details of which must never be disclosed before the right time. It can reasonably be assumed that the battle in the East against the Bolshevik foes of civilization will be hard and fierce and there is every reason to believe that the battle in the West against the capitalist agents of Jewish international finance will attain a climax of violence possibly without precedence. But in the closing rounds of this war it will be seen that Germany has conserved her strength to a degree that will confound her enemies.   Joyce and his family had originally fled to Berlin from Great Britain on 26 August 1939. Two weeks after the outbreak of war he was appointed Editor and speaker for the German transmitters for Europe at Berlin's Charlottenburg. During his heyday Joyce had almost as many listeners as the BBC. Although Joyce was born in the USA, brought up in Ireland and took German nationality, he was charged with treason at the end of the war and sentenced to death. Joyce was executed on 3 January 1946. He was an unrepentant Nazi to the very end. His last public message reported by the BBC was "In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war, and I defy the powers of darkness they represent."    Sefton Delmer, Director of Britain's "black" radio operation during WWII broadcast several stories about the inability of the new German wonder-weapon to win the war. Some of this story is told in Black Boomerang, The Viking Press, NY, 1962:   We had discovered from prisoners that the German Army nickname for the V-1 was strangely similar to the name the Londoners had given it. London called it the "Doodle-bug"; the German soldiers called it "Der Dödel."  We therefore also called it Der Dödel when the Corporal (code-name for the broadcaster) launched into our first attack on the new morale-booster.   His attack took the form of three questions: What has the weapon achieved in its first attack?" What can one realistically expect of it? Does the new weapon provide a solution for our most urgent military problems?   To the first he answered: "We don't know, and we cannot know because our reconnaissance aircraft are unable to reach England. Or if they do reach England they cannot get back." On the second, his comment was that whether the Dödel hit an object that was militarily worthwhile was purely a matter of luck, because owing to the lack of any observation it was impossible to correct the range and direction of this missile, which in any case had a high factor of deviation. And then he got to his third point. "Can the Dödel solve out most urgent military problem? Can it stop the Anglo-American supplies from being delivered across the Channel? The Navy and the Luftwaffe have been unable to do so. Can the Dödel do it?" And again his answer, delivered in the style of a staff officer frankly assessing the military situation was, "No. it cannot."   Later Delmer mentions that he went even further and attacked the V1 as a waste of manpower and fuel. He reminded the Germans that precious fuel was needed by the Luftwaffe and the German armored divisions to drive the invaders into the sea and to protect the homeland. He invented a phrase and recommended that every time a German saw a V1 overhead he should think 'Da fliegt der Sprit!' ("There goes our fuel!"). Delmer invented a story that Albert Speer, the armaments chief had complained that the men and material used on the V1 project were urgently needed to produce fighters and tanks. He was amazed to find out after the war that Speer claimed to have had the very same thoughts.