Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANKLIN BANKER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By August 1944, the British had suffered more than four years of bombardment by the German Luftwaffe. The Battle of Britain had begun in June 1940, right after France surrendered to Hitler. Soon, up to 1,000 German planes per day were raining destruction upon British cities and military targets. The then-outnumbered Royal Air Force fought back valiantly, taking a slowly increasing toll on the enemy bombers that would kill more than 23,000 British civilians by the end of 1940.
The Luftwaffe pounded away at targets in southern England and supplemented conventional bombing techniques with new missiles. The first missile sighted in the evening sky over long-harassed London was the V-1 pilotless flying bomb, designed like a small jet airplane, about 26 feet long with a range a little short of 150 miles. Its single wing was 16 feet long. It carried about 1,800 pounds of explosives - enough to reduce an entire city block to rubble.
The V-1 was launched from catapults on the continent. The British also called it ``the doodlebug,'' because of its small size, and ``the buzz bomb,'' because of the sound of its jet engine. The sound became a warning to city dwellers awaiting its 2,500-foot dive to earth at 400 m.p.h. When the engine cut out because of fuel exhaustion, and the afterglow ceased, Londoners knew to be prepared to dive into a bomb shelter. There was a chance to escape the doodlebug if you were fast and lucky.
Not so with the larger and more deadly V-2 rocket, with a range of 200 miles and delivering a one-ton warhead. It was wingless, sleek and fast. The V-2, 45 feet long, gave no warning.
Many Londoners -men, women and children -survived bombing attacks by carrying their mattresses into a subway station for a night's sleep there. For almost five years, until Germany's surrender in May 1945, this was a common sight in the world's largest city. But the London Underground was clean and well-ventilated.
What else went on in London in the days and nights when hell fell from the skies? Survivors dug out, babies were born, weddings took place, and the Allies devised a plan to destroy the missile-launching sites on the continent.
The U.S. Navy's answer was to load a PB4Y Liberator ``drone'' with 10 tons of explosives and drop it on the thick concrete launching ramps constructed by the Luftwaffe. The Navy project was conceived as the final mission for bombing planes that already had completed long tours of duty.
The Harvard-educated young Kennedy was assigned a four-engine bomber. The goal of Kennedy and his co-pilot, Lt. Wilford J. Willy, of Fort Worth, Texas, was to get the drone Liberator into the air over England. Once this was accomplished, the so-called ``flying bomb'' would be radio-controlled by two twin-engine Ventura bombers as control planes. The Venturas were to guide the drone to the German launch site and crash-dive it onto the target. When the Liberator was airborne, the two pilots were to bail out and return to base, while the drone headed over the English Channel.
But on Aug. 12, the plans went awry. Soon after takeoff, the explosives went off prematurely in a tremendous blast that shook the English countryside for miles around. No trace of the officers was found. In releasing details of the secret project five months after the end of the war in Europe, the Navy mentioned that both pilots volunteered for the mission. They were awarded the Navy Cross posthumously.
Franklin Banker of Bedford was an Associated Press correspondent during World War II, covering the bomber bases in England and the 8th Air Force after D-Day. He was in London during some of that city's air raids. Today he teaches homebound students in Bedford County.
by CNB