My mother was on a train hit by by a V1 Doodlebug on the London to
Canterbury line during the latter stages of WW2 - pure fluke it hit a moving
train, she escaped with my grandmother with thankfully only minor injuries
though I believe there were serious casualties. The incident is quite well
documented and pictures of the train are held in the IWM photo library and
have been in several books.
At the Bomb Disposal Training School at Chattendene, here in the UK, is a
massive museum of ordnance not open to the public - as well as at least one
V1 there is a V2 on display with pictures of captured V2's loaded onto
trailers being pulled by M26 Pacifics and Diamond T 980s' when as we were
told on a guest tour "the US govt secreted probably as many as 1500 back to
the USA to aid the long term rocket projects" The V2 is a seriously
awaesome rocket and looks very cumbersome by todays standards.
We were taken on a tour during 1997 (as part of an "ordnance awareness
course"...or dont touch it if you dont know what it is!) when we were
working on the recovery of the prototype bouncing bombs the Dambusters used,
on the North Kent Coast - a fascinating place, hopefully one day it will be
open to the public - though i suspect only bits of it would be made public
as some of the material is still perhaps sensitive. There is a vast
reference library which is called on from all over the world to help bomb
disposal and mine clearing teams, 24 hours a day.
Impressive was the 40' deep mud pit where divers learn to work on UXB's in
zero visibility in very cold sludgy water.
http://www.macksites.com/light2.htm offers quite an interesting insight into
the V1/V2 assault on London.
Regards, NIGE
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Greville" <dgrev@ruralnet.net.au>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 4:29 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] More on V-1's
> Geoff
>
> > Richard, isn't the V-3 that intercontinental missle
>
> I think you mean what has been called the V-4, although Germany never
> used that term.
>
> > which ALMOST made it to New
> > York, but ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean just offshore, a few
dozen
> > miles south? I heard it was covered up to the extreme... :-)
>
> All news to me, sounds interesting, do tell?
>
> Anyway, you're way off mate. Its a sodding huge underground complex
> to the south of Calais which 617 Squadron (Dambusters) wrecked with a
> Tallboy.
> Consisted of a multi-barreled cannon set up with sequential charges
> to boost a 6" but several feet long projectile at London, rate of fire
> was quite high. The British government even wanted to nuke the whole
> site post-war just to be sure nobody ever got any funny ideas.
> Wouldn't that have got the French excited!
>
> Otherwise known as "The London Gun" its at a place called Mimoyeques,
> been there and seen it, most impressive. If you
> have a look at the article "D-day to Beltring, a military tourism
> holiday" on my website you will see it. But being a good friend you
> have already done so haven't you, must have slipped your mind? :-)
>
> Regards
> Doug
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Armoured Vehicles Collector
> _______
> _/_(_o_)_\_ ____
> _/|___|_|___|\_ /____\
> / [___] [___] \ Douglas Greville _/[o]___\_
> /\_ [o] [o] _/\ Broken Hill __/=_|____|_=\__
> |w||___________||w| N.S.W. /__\__________/__\
> |w|\u u/|w| Australia |w| \ / |w|
> |w| \_________/ |w| |w|$ \______/ $|w|
> [w] [w] [w] [w]
> M8 Ferret
>
> dgrev@ruralnet.net.au
>
> Web Armour site at:
>
> http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/lsm/dhmg/index.html (UK mirror site)
>
> and
>
> http://members.nbci.com/dgrev/index.html (US mirror site)
>
>
> ===Mil-Veh is a member-supported mailing list===
> To unsubscribe, send e-mail to: <mil-veh-off@mil-veh.org>
> To switch to the DIGEST mode, send e-mail to <mil-veh-digest@mil-veh.org>
> To reach a human, contact <ack@mil-veh.org>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 23:18:31 PDT