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Range of v2 rocket11/22/2023 It had been developed at the Peenemunde research establishment on the Baltic coast line of Germany. A V-2 rocket on display in the Science Museum’s Making the Modern World gallery. It was a rocket that dropped from the sky at twice the speed of sound: one explosion was the warhead detonating the other the sonic boom of the rocket’s arrival. The new weapon gave no such warning: its exploding signalled that it had already arrived. Both could be detected on the way to their targets and warnings issued for the populace to seek shelter. The bombs dropped during the blitz had been carried by manned aircraft more recent attacks came from pilotless planes nicknamed doodlebugs or buzz bombs (on account of their leisurely flight across the sky and the staccato drone they made). But what they had noticed was the second bang following immediately after the first: a double detonation.įor over a year Jones, as Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science) at the Air Ministry, and his team had been assembling evidence for the existence of a new type of German weapon – one quite unlike anything developed before. London had experienced four years of explosions from Luftwaffe bombs so this latest blast was hardly remarkable. On 8 September 1944 Professor Jones and his colleague turned suddenly to each other in their Whitehall office and in unison said, ‘That’s the first one’. Curator Doug Millard looks back on the rocket that help start the space age. This week (8 September 2014) marks 70 years since the first V-2 rocket attack on London.
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