by Fiona G. Holter, USAICoE Staff Historian
On 17-18 August 1943, the Eighth Army Air Force (AAF) partnered with the British Bomber Command in Operation HYDRA, the first phase of aerial attacks against Peenemünde, where Germany’s V weapons program was based. Between 1943 and 1945, various Army intelligence organizations supported not only the mission against the German long-range artillery research facility, but also in efforts that would inform later developments of U.S. missile and rocket technologies.
By April 1943, Allied intelligence confirmed that Germany was building Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons”—the V-1 and V-2 rockets. The Allied Central Interpretation Unit (ACIU) launched Operation CROSSBOW, a joint photographic interpretation effort, using specialists from the Eighth AAF’s 13th, 14th, and 22d photo reconnaissance squadrons, to locate the V weapons laboratories. While early efforts pushed the limits of 1940s aerial photographic technology, particularly the film grain and viewing optics, the units’ persistence paid off when the Allies confirmed the presence of rockets at Peenemünde and support facilities at Watten and two other nearby locations. [See This Week in MI History #37 19-25 April]
On 17-18 August 1943, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and Eighth AAF conducted their first of many aerial raids at Peenemünde. The RAF conducted a night mission using 596 aircraft, dropping approximately 1,800 tons of bombs on the site and allowing the Eighth AAF to follow with a daytime attack. The mission was mostly successful at destroying the German research facility and delaying their progress on developing their rockets, but the delay was only temporary.
Meanwhile, back at Fort Hunt, Virginia (also known as P.O. Box 1142), the Military Intelligence Service’s Strategic Interrogation Center (MIS-Y) began analyzing photos from Peenemünde and interrogating German prisoners about the facility. They learned that, in addition to the V-1 rocket, Germany was developing a V-2, a liquid-fueled ballistic missile unlike the V-1 pulsejet-power system, and that the main sites for this work were at Mittelwerk. The intelligence gained from the interrogations directly supported the Eighth AAF and RAF’s continued missions on Peenemünde and various sites across Germany.
In July 1945, interrogators from MIS-Y were also essential to Operation PAPERCLIP, a program that brought German scientists and technicians, including Wernher von Braun, the leading Nazi scientist from Germany’s V-rocket program, to the U.S. [See This Week in MI History #50 19-25 July] In support of this program, MIS-Y interrogators moved from P.O. Box 1142 to another secret facility known as P.O. Box 2276 at Fort Strong, an island in the Boston Harbor, to interview hundreds of Germans from Peenemünde.
In these interviews, von Braun showed no remorse for the V-1 or V-2 bombings because, for him, the success of the rockets was important to research for future space exploration. Ultimately, the German personnel and their intimate knowledge of rocket technology became essential to U.S. space programs. They were sent to places like Fort Bliss and Redstone Arsenal, where they supported the development of the Army’s Redstone and Jupiter ballistic missiles and U.S. satellites. Later, von Braun and other German scientists worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop the space rocketry program, eventually resulting in the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
Throughout the war, Army intelligence proved vital to thwarting German development of ballistic weaponry and preventing that technology falling into the hands of other adversaries. Despite initial challenges presented with imagery and photo technology, through the combined efforts of Allied intelligence, the U.S. gained vital research leading to several significant scientific developments of the twentieth century.
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Date Taken: | 08.16.2022 |
Date Posted: | 08.16.2022 13:44 |
Story ID: | 427348 |
Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
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