V2/Robert Harris
Popular historical fiction writer Robert Harris spent the lockdown researching this novel about the V2 rocket.
There are two strands to the narrative. The novel begins with a V2 rocket hitting Warwick Court in London where Kay, a reconnaissance analyst for the RAF, is having an affaire with one of the RAF top brass Mike Templeton.
Then it switches to German rocket scientist Graf working on the V2 project to the north of The Hague.
To eliminate the V2 Kay is despatched to Mechelen in Belgium after the Normandy landings. It is hoped she can use trigonometry to assess the direction of the rocket.
The SS want to accelerate production and attack in the hope it can swing the war back to the Nazis. It’s a page-turner though the Graf section is slightly confusing as the time line goes back and forth.
The V2 rocket accounted for 5,000 English lives and 20,000 slave labour in the production factories. The rockets did scare Londoners but did not reverse the war.
Their targeting was random not strategic. The London fire fighters were especially brave in excavating victims from the rubble and extinguishing the fires. Like the Battle of the Bulge it was a last ineffectual Nazi roll of the dice.
The more I read of Second World War the more I’m impressed by Britain and unimpressed by the Nazis.
Hitler made a huge error in declaring war on neutral United States where joining the war was an emotive issue.
He also had a paranoia about the Wehrmacht, establishing the SS as a parallel force.
Particularly in the Africa campaign advances were made ahead of supply routes.
By 1942 Britain had the measure of the Nazis and the rapid American war industrialisation programme made German defeat inevitable.
The V2 rocket, like the U-boat attacks on convoys, was one more failed initiative that did not change the direction of war
The final irony was the mastermind of the V1 and V2 project – Werner von Braun – was taken by the Americans and far from standing trial was fundamental to their own rocket programme.
