The V1-Rockets were used by
Germany to fight and get revenge on their enemies during WWII.
It wanted revenge for what had happened to it during WWI.
On the night of June 12th and 13th, 1944, the
Germans fired 10 V1's from ramps directed towards London, England. There were
reports that five crashed soon after launch and one went missing.
The other 4 rockets remaining did hit their mark; one landed in the
eastern section of London and killed six people and the others caused no
casualties. One of the rockets,
however (the one that had been missing) had landed in Maidstone in Kent, was
collected and sent to Farnborough by the Allied troops. The Allies were able to
reassemble the wreckages of the rocket and this was then tested.
From these tests, it was determined the rocket's range and
performance. Later, on June 15th
the Germans launched over 200 V1-Rockets against the South-Eastern England.
The Allies tried to figure out if these
rockets could be shot down but the speed of the weapon was greater then the
airplanes used by England’s Air Force (the Spitfires and Tempests).
Royal Air Force staff tried every possible trick to add extra speed to
their aircraft- equipment was removed, fuselages polished and engines tuned up.
The problem was eventually solved by stripping down a Gloster Meteor (another
type of aircraft). In one occasion
(on the 4th of August, 1944), a Meteor pilot, whose guns had jammed,
was able to destroy a V1-Rocket by flying beside it and tipping it over by
inserting his wing under the rockets wing.
Along with several other measures, the British had won the V1 Battle. The attacks from ground-launched weapons tended to phase out towards the end of August 1944 but periodic attacks with air-launched rockets continued till early Spring 1945 against England's East Coast counties. Of the 9,250 V1s launched towards England, only some 2,400 of these got through to crash in London and 4,261 were destroyed: 1,971 by Anti-Aircraft guns, 1,979 by the Royal Air Force, 278 by balloons and 33 by the Royal Navy.
