Air-Launched Doodlebugs by Peter Smith

Author:Peter Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783468898
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Air Marshal Roderic Hill, ably assisted by General Sir Frederic Pile, was the chief architect of the defeat of the flying bomb. His summary of the campaign, published as a supplement to the London Gazette on 19 October 1948, is a masterly piece of historical record. (Imperial War Museum)

The arrival of the first, ramp-launched, flying bombs on the night of 12/13 June 1944, only a week after the D-Day landings was shortly followed by launchings on a much heavier scale. A prompt move was made to deploy all available barrage balloons into a concentrated filter, some 2,000 strong, stretching from Cobham to Limpsfield. This move was accompanied by a redeployment of AA guns into an area south and east of the balloon filter.

The AA gunners were unable to perform to best effect here and a new concept, credited to Air Commodore Ambler, a senior staff officer, was adopted. This involved the redeployment of the AA guns into a belt along the coast from St Margarets Bay to Beachy Head, 15,000 yards deep, extending for one-third of that distance inland and two-thirds over the sea. The obvious advantages of shooting down flying bombs into the sea rather than over populated areas were reinforced by the fact that the guns were now operating with new gun-laying radar sets, the SCR 584 type, which gave better readings when freed from ground contour-interference.

Additionally new variable time (VT) shell fuses were then coming into use which could be employed more effectively and safely over the sea without concern for those shells which missed the target.

The first air-launched missiles to fly in up the Thames Estuary outflanked the gun belt, but the estuary was already defended by Maunsell forts sited well offshore. These steel fortifications were well placed to give warning of the arrival of V1 robots approaching by this route. A ‘gun box’ was established, incorporating the seven Maunsell forts. This placed guns north and south of the Thames in an area bounded by Clacton and Chelmsford to the north and Wouldham and Whitstable to the south. It incorporated other AA facilities which were already in place and was armed with heavy, mainly 3.7 in guns and also lighter-calibre weapons, mainly 40 mm and 20 mm. The Americans too were able to offer some guns from the total of twenty AA batteries of 90 mm guns they contributed to the overall diver defence.

As we have seen, to provide the necessary guns for the belt and box there was an almost total withdrawal of AA units from a line drawn across the country from north of the Humber to west of the Solent. The risk to the areas thus denuded of AA guns was considered acceptable in view of the limited range of the V1 as then understood, and the fact that the conventional German bomber force was largely spent in the west. Yet more guns were found for the south-east by selectively thinning out other defences.

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