Cherry Stones & Busy Lizzies
Since August 28, 1943 prisoners arrive in a secluded valley of the Harz region near Nordhausen. At first a camp is set up at the Kohnstein. Since 1917 Anhydrite and plaster is mined in the Kohnstein. Since 1936, under great secrecy, two parallel driving galleries are being drilled into the mountain and connected by seventeen crossways galleries. Gigantic fuel dumps are installed in the mountain between 1937 and 1940. Stockpiling rooms for war gas are also completed. The third stage of construction was then ended on August 28, 1943. Three production lines are scheduled in the Kohnstein: A 4 (V 2) and Fi 103 (V 1) production, production for “Taifun” anti-aircraft rockets and Junkers jet engine construction.
The SS starts looking for particularly technically qualified prisoners and send them to the new KZ (concentration camp) Mittelbau Dora. Already at the end of October 1943, way over 6 000 people vegetate in this concentration camp. They must extend the plant further under terrible conditions. Most of the prisoners are not entitled to leave the mine and never see daylight again. In some cases corpses are poured directly into the foundations on which the machine tools are set up. When in the 1990s floor work is carried out in hall 40, the remains of almost 70 prisoners are found. Between 1943 and 1945, more than 60 000 people from 21 countries are driven together at the KZ Mittelbau and at Mittelbau itself. 20 000 of them lose their life.
In the meantime a bitter fight rages between the Luftwaffe (Fi 103 (V 1) and Army A 4 (V 2) about the resources required so badly. Primarily the V 1 is suffering. Because of the bombing of Peenemünde, cell design problems, allocation problems with machine tools and chemicals, the production start-up is delayed by weeks. In these autumn weeks the construction work also begins for the about one hundred launching facilities which the new Head-Of-Operations, Colonel Wachtel, sets up in France.
The autumn 1943 is dominated by the bunker construction also in the Pas de Calais. Watten, also called Eperleque in some sources, is bombed by the U.S. Air Force on August 27 however, the damages to the northern part are not serious. "Kraftwerk Nord-West" (power station North West) the code name of the bunker shall get four Heyland compressors. Four stories high his plant can produce 65 tons of liquid oxygen daily. The building goes on with the help of a revolutionary hydraulic press which forms a bombproof canopy.
In October 1943, a second mega bunker is getting started in not too far distance in Wizernes. Again, revolutionary civil engineering is at its best.. This time the construction begins with a gigantic bombproof concrete dome. Under this the real complex is then dug up. The dome has a diameter of 71 m, was 5 m strong and weighs approximately 55 000 tons. "La Coupole" call it the French. Under this, on the edge of a limestone quarry, an octagonal hall is built as well as workshops, quarters, petrol depot and more. In the octagon hall the rockets shall be put up, refueled and driven through either gate "Gretchen" or "Gustav" into the open to the launch pad. It is planned to launch 100 rockets at London and other targets daily. Not far from these two gigantic buildings two more are erected. Another two, not quite so monstrous buildings, are built not far away from Watten and Wizernes in Siracourt and Lottinghem.
In the same month the photographic reconnaissance office of the Royal Air Force discovers another, completely unknown bunker installation in Mimoyecques. Here the high pressure pumpalias "Fleißiges Lieschen (Busy Lizzy) alias V 3 is supposed to be taken in active service by spring 1944. The high pressure pump is a long-range gun whose shell is driven by further propellant charges in side chambers on even higher speeds. The high pressure pump is a project whose roots go back to 1855. At that time the principle of a weapon is developed with lateral magazines in the USA. Even a serviceable specimen, the 20.3 cm Lyman-Haskell cannon, was built. The invention then falls into oblivion. The French pick up the idea again in 1918. A corresponding paper is discovered at the sighting of captured weapon documents in 1940.
The company Röchling develops one winged shell which, however, never meets the expectations of its own. The problems are so numerous that one considers stopping the project during a meeting on May 4, 1944. Only at the end of May the problem is solved. Meanwhile the work goes on in Mimoyecques, eight km from the channel coast and 60 km from London remote. Two batteries with 25 gun barrels each, all 134 long, are installed at an angle in the hill. Nothing can be seen actually from the air, with the exception of two concrete edgings with 25 barrel leavings each. But despite camouflage by false barns they are recognized by the English. What they do not know is the dimension of the installation.
30 metres under the hill runs a railway tunnel from which sting tunnels divert to workshops, barracks and magazines. The galleries 80 m more deeply are laid out for the lower chambers of the 25 barrels again. 5,000 skilled workers of Krupp, Gute-Hoffnungs-Hütte and Mannesmann as well as 430 pitmen from the Ruhr district have completed a major part by the spring 1944. Ammunition lifts, loading up machines and other equipment has already been delivered. A power supply which would have sufficed to provide a small town is put into place.
At the beginning of 1944 the English realize the threat by the V 3. The air reconnaissance has a definite proof that launching pads are built with the exact London angle along the French coast. "Skis position" the British call them. These are being bombed and destroyed by February/March 1944. But rather soon it is clear that the German have created divisible ramps which replace the loss of the "skis positions" fast.
On June 12, 1944 Colonel Wachtel shall launch operation "Rumpelkammer" (junk-room) from his command post in Saleux, the first solid strike with the V 1 from 55 mobile launch pads. Although Wachtel warns of a premature action Hitler insists on the given date. He wants a powerful answer to the invasion in the Normandy on June 6th. But Colonel Wachtel was right, the action is a catastrophe. Only ten flying bombs leave the launch pads. Only in the evening of June 15 all ramps are fit for use. This night in hazy weather dozens of flying bombs roar with their distinctive noise towards London. Up to the noon of June 16 already 244 Fi 103 have started. Of these 45 do crash soon after, one hits a French village and kills ten inhabitants. Hitler personally comes to a secret meeting with his generals in Margival on June 17. There he speaks there contently about the V 1operation. Wachtels regiment launches the 500. flying bomb on June 18. That day one falls on the Wellington barracks only some one hundred metres off the Buckingham palace killing 121 people, among them 63 officers and crew.
The English now start to fight the new dangers in earnest. Besides the permanent bombing of the V 1 ramps, the large-scale construction site sat the Pas de Calais is attacked again, this time with the Tallboy, the "earthquake bomb”. On July 4 and 7 the V 1 storage place in the mushroom caves of Saint Lion is attacked. On July 6 follow attacks on the construction sites in Watten, Siracourt and Esserent. In Siracourt a Tallboy hit leads to the collapse of the building and Watten is abandoned after. Mimoyecques also is on the list of the air force. But the attacks do not lead to the desired success here. The damages can be removed. At the beginning of August the U.S. Air Force tries to strike with a special weapon at the unbelievably small barrel leavings on the Mimoyecques hill. B 24 bombers are modified into flying bombs. These aircraft loaded with TNT and Torpex are flown by two pilots into the proximity of the hill. They then parachute and accompanying escort-fighters then steer the bomber via remote control into the target. Among the pilots who carry out this desperate order is also Second Lieutenant Joseph Kennedy, the brother of the later U.S. President.. But his Liberator bomber already explodes for no reason in mid air. The trauma V 3 is ended only by the end of August when allied troops occupy the area.
The advance of the English and Americans, forces the Germans to transfer their V 1 launching devices further and further to the east. In the afternoon of September 1 the last of the flying bombs leaves French soil. The English think on September 7 the V 1 threat would be over since all of France has been freed. Evacuation plans for London are lifted. But it shall come differently. On September 8 the first rocket, officially known as V 2, takes off from a launch pad in Holland, it is the first of a thousand to come.
