HITLER’S SECRET ROCKET BUNKERS
The man entrusted with carrying out Hitler’s command was an undistinguished 63-year-old artillery officer – Generalleutnant Erich Heinemann, and his Luftwaffe subordinate, Oberst (Colonel) Max Wachtel.
On the night of 13 June 1944 it began, as one eyewitness remembered: “The air raid sirens sounded in Woolwich just before the first light of dawn …. a strange sounding ‘plane’ was over Blackheath Park less than two miles from us, flying low … with its tail ablaze and leaving a short trail of brilliant flame.” Then it fell to earth and exploded next to the railway bridge on Grove Rd in Mile End, killing a number of civilians. This was the first FZG.76 missile to hit London – nicknamed ‘doodlebugs’ or ‘buzz-bombs’ by the British, they were christened ‘V 1’s’ or ‘Vergeltungswaffen-1’ (‘Revenge weapon-1’s’) by the German journalist Hans Schwarz van Berkl. Londoners soon learned to dread them: “…the trauma of hearing the approaching sound, hearing it close overhead, then the abrupt cease of the deafening pulsation, followed by those dreadful seconds of silence until the ear shattering explosion came.”
In reality, the V 1 offensive was a marked failure. Of the 8,617 fired at Britain that summer, over a thousand crashed shortly after taking off, and an additional 3,852 were brought down by Allied
