Free Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) by Winston S. Churchill Page B

sixteen seconds later. About thirteen hundred 7 were fired against England in the seven months before our armies could liberate The Hague, whence most rockets were launched. Many fell short, but about five hundred hit London. The total casualties caused by the V2
    in England were 2724 killed and 6467 seriously injured. On the average each rocket caused about twice as many casualties as a flying bomb. Although the warheads were of much the same size, the strident engine of the flying bomb warned people to take cover. The rocket approached in silence.
    Many counter-measures were tried, and still more explored.
    The raid on Peenemünde over a year before did more than everything else to alleviate the threat. The V2 attack would otherwise have started at least as early as the VI attack, and it would have been from a shorter range, and therefore more accurate in June than it was in September and after.
    The United States Air Force continued to bomb Triumph and Tragedy
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    Peenemünde in July and August, and both they and Bomber Command attacked factories making rocket components. We owe it to our armies that they had pushed the rocket back to the limit of its range before the Germans were at last ready to open fire. Our fighters and tactical bombers continually worried the launching points near The Hague. We made ready to jam the radio control of the rockets, should the Germans use it, and we even considered attempting to burst the rockets in the air by gunfire as they fell.
    Our counter-measures confined the attack to four or five hundred rockets a month, shared between London and the Continent, compared with an intended rate of nine hundred.
    Thus, although we could do little against the rocket once it was launched, we postponed and substantially reduced the weight of the onslaught. About two hundred rockets a month were aimed against London, most of the rest against Antwerp, and a few against other Continental targets. The enemy made no mention of his new missiles until November 8, and I did not feel the need for a public statement until November 10. I was then able to assure the House that the scale and effects of the attack had not hitherto been serious. This fortunately continued to be true throughout the remaining months of the war.
    Despite the great technical achievements, Speer, the highly competent German Minister of Munitions, deplored the effort that had been put into making rockets. He asserted that each one took as long to produce as six or seven fighters, which would have been far more useful, and that twenty flying bombs could have been made for the cost of one rocket. This post-war information confirms the views Lord Cherwell had so often expressed before the event.

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    It was fortunate that the Germans spent so much effort on rockets instead of on bombers. Even our Mosquitoes, each of which was probably no dearer than a rocket, dropped on the average 125 tons of bombs per aircraft within one mile of the target during their life, whereas the rocket dropped one ton only, and that with an average error of fifteen miles.
    Hitler had hoped to have yet another “V” weapon. This was to have been a multi-barrel long-range gun installation dug into the ground near the village of Mimoyecques, in the Pas de Calais. Each of the fifty smooth-bore barrels was about four hundred feet long, and it was to fire a shell about six inches in diameter and stabilised, not by spin, but by fins like a dart. Explosive charges were placed in side-tubes at frequent intervals up the barrel, and were ignited in succession as the projectile accelerated. The shell was intended to emerge from the barrel with a speed of at least five thousand feet per second, and with so many barrels the designers hoped to fire a shell at London every few minutes. This time however Hitler’s hopes were completely disappointed: all the trial projectiles “toppled” in flight and range and accuracy were therefore very poor. A hundred