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History > UK, British empire, England
Early 21st century, 20th century
Timeline in articles, pictures, podcasts
1944-1945 > V1 / V2 strikes on London
American soldier examining a V2 rocket under construction in an underground assembly plant.
Location: Nordhausen, Germany Date taken: April 29, 1945
Life Images
V2 strikes on London began on 8 September 1944
D-day, 6 June 1944, saw the allied forces advancing into German-occupied Europe.
The war looked almost over as the German army retreated and bombing raids on Britain declined.
Then on 8 September Hitler’s deadly secret weapon, the V2, hit Britain.
V2s were rockets which flew at 3,600mph – almost five times the speed of sound – loaded with a ton of explosives.
They could not be seen or heard so any warnings were impossible.
In all, 1,115 were to reach Britain, mainly around London and its suburbs as their range was about 215 miles and they were launched from Holland.
Once the rockets descended there was an ear-splitting noise ending with a double-bang explosion.
The impact was worse than any previous attacks.
One destroyed a Woolworths killing 160 people; another on a West Ham school slew 430 children and adults.
The blitz historian Juliet Gardiner explains that parts of the bombed capital looked like “a shanty town”.
The rockets put Britain under a threat the government had thought was over.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/08/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/08/
V2 / V1 rockets
Rescue workers helping pull victim from ruins of a building hit by a V2 rocket during WWII.
Location: London, United Kingdom Date taken: July 1944
Life Images
Anglonautes' note: check caption accuracy.
Buildings showing extensive damage from German V1 flying bomb attacks.
Location: London, United Kingdom Date taken: July 1944
Photographer: Ralph Morse
Life Images
The first V2s hit Paris, Antwerp and Chiswick, in west London, in early September 1944.
Just under 3,000 civilians were killed by V2s in southern England (and more than 6,000 by V1s) before the last V2 hit Orpington, in London, on 27 March 1945.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/63/a4901663.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/40/a2713240.shtml
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/08/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/mar/10/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/19/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/1945/jun/29/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/1944/sep/08/
Related > Anglonautes > History > 20th century
Timeline in articles, pictures, podcasts
Antisemitism, Adolf Hitler, Nazi era, WW2, Holocaust
Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia
Related > Anglonautes > Science > Scientists > Computing
Alan Mathison Turing UK 1912-1954
Related
Germany: National Socialism and World War II
https://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/
A lost heritage: Nazi pictures reveal full devastation wreaked by allied bombers
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/10/
https://www.uni-marburg.de/de/fotomarburg
enemy propaganda
National Archives publish wartime propaganda in online gallery - 13 June 2012
Hundreds of images of war art including posters and a portrait of the future queen are released online
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/13/
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