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The doodlebugs: The story of the flying-bombs
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March 25, 2011I am an American living in Europe, and as I commented to a friend while reading this book, it’s so weird to think of what it must have been like for Western Europe to be at war. It’s like Massachusetts slinging a load of guided missiles at Pennsylvania.
This is a whopping 500-some pages long but after the first few technical chapters becomes a very readable account of these “retaliation weapons” launched by Germany at Britain during the summer of 1944 (the bombardment began a week after D-Day). It’s a hugely comprehensive study of the hunt for the launching sites, the public reaction, involvement of press and pilots, with a bit of behind-the-scenes-in-Germany (not much from the factory floor manned by the enslaved prisoners who built the things, but I suppose that information is harder to come by).
The bulk of the book, and the bit that makes it so interesting and accessible, is about the reaction and endurance of the Londoners who were targeted in the attacks. I’m reading it for research and I’m not sure I’d have been so diligent about digesting the WHOLE THING if I was reading it for “fun,” but it certainly kept me riveted.
I don’t think I can possibly do justice to the myriad individual accounts which the author has so seamlessly drawn together, but here are a few samples I liked:
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By now the timorous had gone and those still in London were not going to allow the flying-bombs to interfere with their weekly -- or sometimes twice- or thrice-weekly -- addiction [cinema going]. ‘We’d rather have died watching our favourite film stars than stay at home,’ remembers one woman then aged fourteen and living in Wood Green. ‘They used to put up a notice to say that the siren had gone but nobody ever left.’ ‘I used to slide down a bit in my seat, put my hands over my ears and wait for the engine to cut out,’ remembers a former fifteen-year-old from Greenwich. ‘Then would come the explosion and I would carry on watching the film.’
People’s private thoughts on such occasions varied. ‘I remember wondering whether Gary Cooper would be so tough if he was sitting where I was,’ admits one wartime schoolboy from Croydon, as the V-1s passed over during For Whom the Bell Tolls.
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When ‘the [trolley] suddenly stopped halfway between the recognized stops with one accord all the passengers, myself included, dropped to the floor and wriggled under the seats. We felt rather abashed when the conductor… called out “You can all get up. It is only the trolley arm come off!”’
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An anti-aircraft gunner remembers a particularly inspiring occasion:
We were listening to one of Bach’s unaccompanied partitas for violin. During this we heard the sound of an approaching V-1. As it came nearer, the audience became tense but the violinist kept on playing, quite unmoved…. There was a terrific contrast -- the throb of the V-1 engine above us, with its deep menacing notes, and against this the thin beautiful melody of the violin …. The audience was held absolutely still and silent …. As the sound of the V-1 died away, the violin seemed to be playing away triumphantly. I have never heard Bach’s music sound so powerful. I turned over two themes in my mind: the battle between good and evil, with the former triumphant; the opposition of great German music of the past to the sound of the contemporary evil regime we were fighting.
This is a whopping 500-some pages long but after the first few technical chapters becomes a very readable account of these “retaliation weapons” launched by Germany at Britain during the summer of 1944 (the bombardment began a week after D-Day). It’s a hugely comprehensive study of the hunt for the launching sites, the public reaction, involvement of press and pilots, with a bit of behind-the-scenes-in-Germany (not much from the factory floor manned by the enslaved prisoners who built the things, but I suppose that information is harder to come by).
The bulk of the book, and the bit that makes it so interesting and accessible, is about the reaction and endurance of the Londoners who were targeted in the attacks. I’m reading it for research and I’m not sure I’d have been so diligent about digesting the WHOLE THING if I was reading it for “fun,” but it certainly kept me riveted.
I don’t think I can possibly do justice to the myriad individual accounts which the author has so seamlessly drawn together, but here are a few samples I liked:
---------------------------------
By now the timorous had gone and those still in London were not going to allow the flying-bombs to interfere with their weekly -- or sometimes twice- or thrice-weekly -- addiction [cinema going]. ‘We’d rather have died watching our favourite film stars than stay at home,’ remembers one woman then aged fourteen and living in Wood Green. ‘They used to put up a notice to say that the siren had gone but nobody ever left.’ ‘I used to slide down a bit in my seat, put my hands over my ears and wait for the engine to cut out,’ remembers a former fifteen-year-old from Greenwich. ‘Then would come the explosion and I would carry on watching the film.’
People’s private thoughts on such occasions varied. ‘I remember wondering whether Gary Cooper would be so tough if he was sitting where I was,’ admits one wartime schoolboy from Croydon, as the V-1s passed over during For Whom the Bell Tolls.
---------------------------
When ‘the [trolley] suddenly stopped halfway between the recognized stops with one accord all the passengers, myself included, dropped to the floor and wriggled under the seats. We felt rather abashed when the conductor… called out “You can all get up. It is only the trolley arm come off!”’
-----------------------------
An anti-aircraft gunner remembers a particularly inspiring occasion:
We were listening to one of Bach’s unaccompanied partitas for violin. During this we heard the sound of an approaching V-1. As it came nearer, the audience became tense but the violinist kept on playing, quite unmoved…. There was a terrific contrast -- the throb of the V-1 engine above us, with its deep menacing notes, and against this the thin beautiful melody of the violin …. The audience was held absolutely still and silent …. As the sound of the V-1 died away, the violin seemed to be playing away triumphantly. I have never heard Bach’s music sound so powerful. I turned over two themes in my mind: the battle between good and evil, with the former triumphant; the opposition of great German music of the past to the sound of the contemporary evil regime we were fighting.
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