Thread by @18airbornecorps

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Wonder Weapon

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In describing the reasons Market Garden was approved despite its obvious flaws, the V-2 rocket deserves attention. To that end, let’s travel back in time to 1926 Germany.

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That year, a 14-year-old German prodigy named Wernher von Braun received a copy of Hermann Oberth's book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space).

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Oberth’s book describes the basic equations of rocketry. Wernher was intrigued and began the development of a rocket-fueled weapons system.

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In 1932, at age 20, Wernher began developing liquid-fueled rockets for the German Army. The next year, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany and expedited Wernher’s program.

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In the late 1930s, Wernher, working in a secret lab in Peenemünde, an island off Germany’s Baltic coast, began developing the V-2 rocket -- a 46-foot-long liquid-fueled missile weighing 27,000 pounds.

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“V” is for Vergeltungswaffen (German: "retaliatory weapons").

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Powered by a rocket engine burning a mix of alcohol-water and liquid oxygen, the V2 blasts its way to the edge of space, before falling back to Earth at supersonic speed.

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This is a terrifying weapon. When used against a city, it is almost a weapon of mass destruction.

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The secret V-2 (and its prototype, V-1) are referred to by Nazi propaganda as “Wunderwaffe” (“Wonder weapon”). Inside Germany, it’s considered a revolutionary weapon.

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In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the V-2 (and V-1) were manufactured by slave labor. Tens of thousands of civilians from occupied Europe were subjected to a brutal regime of starvation, torture, and frequent executions while working for the Nazis.

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An estimated 20,000 died as a result of this treatment. (That’s Wernher in the black suit.)

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Today, Wernher von Braun is considered a hero of the US space program. His statue sits outside NASA’s US Space and Rocket Center despite the horror inflicted on so many to build a weapon he designed that was used against European cities.

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Wernher von Braun is now considered an American hero. The atrocities inflicted upon slave laborers to build a rocket used to terrorize European civilians are largely overlooked in any discussion of his life. Perhaps it shouldn’t be.

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Back to the story: Wernher successfully tested his rocket in Peenemünde in October of 1942.

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Hitler was impressed with the V-2, but at that moment he didn’t want to use it.

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The Wehrmacht ground forces were making progress and the German bombers were reaching their goal. As Hitler saw it, there was no real need for expensive, resource-guzzling experiments.

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However, by September 1944, the odds were stacked against them and the German troops were in retreat across Europe. Now, Hitler felt, the V-2 will show its real value.

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True to its nickname, the V-2 was to serve as retaliation for the Allied bombings that killed thousands of people in German cities, such as Lübeck and Hamburg.

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Within the Wehrmacht, some leaders thought the rocket would change the situation on the ground. Now was the time for the Wonder Weapon.

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September 8th, as the Allies were finalizing Operation Market Garden plans, the first German V-2 strike was fired from the area of Rotterdam and Amsterdam and it hit London.

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The strike filled London with horror. The rocket achieved the psychological effect Hitler hoped for.

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The sudden appearance of the V-2s provided Monty with an opportunity to mount another internal political campaign to have his way with ground strategy.

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You see, some within the Allied command, notably British Second Army commander General Sir Miles Dempsey, expressed grave doubts about Operation Market Garden. Eisenhower was undecided on its approval.

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But, the V-2 strike provided Monty with political momentum. His new argument: something had to be done before this new rocket destroyed major English cities.

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Operation Market Garden would rope off the coastal area contained by Antwerp-Utrecht-Rotterdam (the point of origin for the V-2 strike on London).

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As discussed earlier today, on September 10th, Monty went to see Eisenhower aboard his B-25 transport at Brussels airport (the Supreme Allied Commander had injured his knee and was practically immobile).

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In a meeting inside the converted bomber, the Brit urgently explained his new imperative. ‘I told him about the V-2 rockets and whence they came,’ he recalled in his memoirs. Ike relented.

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Monty’s aid noted that he emerged from the meeting with a smile.

Final:

September 8th, Monty wrote a single sentence in his diary:

“The operation will go forward as planned.”