As the Allies moved across Europe in 1944 and early 1945, valuable intelligence was gleaned from Prisoners of War. Andy Saunders looks in the archives at details revealed by a Luftwaffe officer involved operationally with the V1 campaign.
On the morning of 12 June 1944, the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence), Air Vice-Marshal F F Inglis, warned the Chiefs of Staff at a meeting in London as to indications that the Germans were making energetic preparations to bring the ‘pilotless aircraft locations’ (V1 launch sites) into operation at an early date. The Deputy Chiefs of Staff, observing that these sites might be capable of delivering 400 tons of high explosive during their first ten hours of operation, contemplated asking for immediate air attacks on some of the suspected supply sites. However, and notwithstanding the air attacks on the launch sites which had been ongoing for many months, events were about to overtake the deliberations in London that day.
While the Deputy Chiefs of Staff and others were considering the implications of the disclosure made by Air Vice-Marshal Inglis, across on the other side of the Channel General Erich Heinemann, Oberst Max Wachtel and their respective staffs were making final preparations for an offensive due to begin that very evening--almost exactly two years after the allotment of high priority to the Vergeltungswaffen (Reprisal Weapon) project by Feldmarschal Milch.
The day before, Heinemann’s Chief of Staff, Oberst Eugen Walter, had discussed the outlook with Wachtel and his principal advisers who had all been summoned to the HQ of LXV Armee Korps near Paris.
During the conference, Wachtel drew attention to the difficulty he had found in getting up supplies, and especially a lack of dummy missiles needed for proving his hastily completed launch sites; but, under pressure from Walter, he assented to the order to start active operations on 12 June. Deep down, Wachtel thought it to be a bad mistake. On the other hand, he knew that he was not able to seriously challenge such an order.
For his part, Walter claimed to have placed responsibility for a good start to the offensive squarely on Wachtel’s shoulders by affirming his own chief’s willingness to postpone the opening date if Wachtel was not satisfied that his troops had all they needed to ensure success. The weapon, as he claimed to have pointed out, was novel. And it was about to be used in conditions very different fro
