The Revenge Weapons
Above: A V1 leaves its launchpad in northern France
Above: A Typhoon tries to bring down a V1 by flipping it over
Above: A V1 rocket on the ground
Sixty four years ago at 00.45hrs on Tuesday 13 June 1944, the coastal town of Folkestone was subjected to a shell attack from the German long-range guns sited along the Pas-de-Calais on the French coast.
One hour later, Maidstone received the first of several shells which damaged property in the centre of the town. While these attacks were not unusual, the ferocity was.
Down on the Kent coast in a rather remote and bleak corner of Dymchurch, two members of the Observer Corps were perched high on a Martello Tower. Known as Mike 2, it was one of the many reporting posts of the Corps who were contributing to the early warning defence of the country.
Manned by A M Wraight and E E Woodland, the evening of 12 June had passed relatively quiet until the early hours of the 13th, when both men heard a very unusual sounding engine. Raising their binoculars, they saw what appeared to be a ‘fiery object’ approaching the Kent coast.
Having been forewarned of a new weapon, they instantly realised that what they were looking at was the long-expected ‘revenge weapon’, the V1 or ‘Doodlebug’ as it soon became known. The ferocity of the shell attacks had just been a prelude to what was to come.
Raising their binoculars, they saw what appeared to be a ‘fiery object’ approaching the Kent coast
Plotting it crossing inland, they called ‘Diver, Diver’ into their breast microphones, a code warning to their headquarters in Maidstone that the long-awaited rocket campaign had begun. The V1 continued its journey over the county until the engine cut-out from lack of fuel and it crashed at Swanscombe near Gravesend. The first of thousands of ‘Vergeltungswaffe 1’s’ or ‘Revenge Weapons’ had arrived over the UK.
Over the next few months the countryside was to become littered with wrecks of the robots as many fell short of their initial aiming point, the Tower of London. Many had fallen foul of the patrolling fighters over the sea or the big guns sited along the Kent and Sussex coast. Most just ran out of fuel and dropped from the sky.
While these attacks were carried out by pilotless V1’s, consideration had been given to the possible use of piloted versions for precision attacks on such high-profile targets as Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.
Designs were put forward to fit a cockpit to a V1 with the work being carried out by the German Gliding Research Institute. During the testing process, two crashed, killing the pilots and it was not until test flying was carried out by Hanna Reitsch and Heinz Kensche that it was deemed to be successful and capable of operations.
Known as the ‘Fieseler Fi 103R-4 Reichenberg’, 175 were manufactured before production ceased in October 1944 owing to a shortage of fuel for training and also differences within the German High Command.
Many were blown up by the Germans as the end of the war approached, but one particular Fi 103R-4 was captured at the Danneburg V1 factory and returned to the UK in 1945, where it went on display at the German Aircraft Exhibition at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. It then passed through a number of army disposal units until discovered by a Kent aviation museum in very poor condition.
Originally an Advanced Landing Ground and used in the run-up to D.Day, the present Headcorn airfield was then known by the name of Lashenden. First used by 127 Wing of the Royal Canadian Air Force, it was taken over in April 1944 by the American 100th Fighter Wing flying P-51B Mustangs.
At the end of the war, the airfield was closed and handed back to the owners of Shenley Farm. With the resurgence of interest in civil aviation in the 1950’s, Headcorn airfield was again activated for private flyers. It also became the home of the Lashenden Air Warfare Museum.
The museum collection was started by members of the Maidstone branch of the Royal Air Forces Association in the late 1960’s. The owner of Shenley Farm, Chris Freeman, offered the collection a home on Headcorn airfield and the museum officially opened in early 1970.
The first exhibit to arrive was the very rare Fieseler Fi 103R-4 Reichenberg V1. Tracing its history it was found that this one had indeed been flown by Hanna Reitsch, a staunch Nazi and close friend of Hitler. The museum carried out temporary repairs and did a cosmetic paint job until funds became available for complete restoration. For many years, the V1 remained in this condition until 2007 when, although nowhere near the required amount of money was forthcoming, the Reichenberg V1 was moved to Geisenhausen near Munich in November for a full restoration before its return to the Lashenden Museum in two years time. It will then be complete with correct cockpit instrumentation to become the only complete version in the world of this revenge weapon.
The pilotless V1 campaign lasted until the end of August 1944
The pilotless V1 campaign lasted until the end of August 1944 and with the launching sites on the continent being rapidly overrun by the advancing allies, it was the piloted version that the enemy was to place his faith in with the hope of turning the war around. With the many failures of the test flying, however, the manned V1 never did become operational.
Had it done so, a very different scenario may well have altered the ending of the war in 1945 and Kent would once again have received the brunt of the V1 ‘Kamikaze’ campaign.