Hitler's kamikaze doodlebug set to go on display in Britain - Telegraph
Hitler's kamikaze doodlebug set to go on display in Britain
A rare kamikaze-style rocket capable of launching a direct hit on Buckingham Palace will go on display in Britain almost 70 years after Hitler had it made in the hope it would help destroy London.
This manned version of the fearsome V1 was developed because the aim of the 5,000 original rockets was so poor.
Fitted with small cockpits, 150 were built so they could be flown accurately into targets.
However, none of the rockets ever flew in anger, largely because flying them was effectively a suicide mission with pilots expected to parachute out into an airspeed of 550mph moments before a target was hit.
The Fieseler Fi103R Reichenberg rocket, one of only six left today, was found by the Allies at the end of the second world war.
Poppycock. ‘Capable’ is not the same as ‘intended to’. A great story about the restoration of an evolutionary development in air power; it’s a pity the journalistic narrative was wrong. There is no evidence from surviving archives that Buckingham Palace was a target, furthermore the V1 was not particularly inaccurate. Moreover, I understood that the manned V1s were test and evaluation platforms – perhaps I’m wrong. Through the success of the Double X effort to turn all German agents in Britain, and Operation Longbow to defeat the V1, Nazi targeteers were convinced they were aiming for Charing Cross or Tower Bridge, whereas the MPI was in Croydon. Even when telemetry monitored V1 were shown to be landing ‘short’ the Luftwaffe were convinced that there were technical problems and slavishly believed their intelligence sources, all of which were run by Frank Foley et al from the back of the chapel in St James’ Palace.