3000-Mile V2 Rockets In Reach

Northern Advocate, 14 June 1945, Page 5

3000-Mile V2 Rockets In Reach

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, June 13. American ordnance and intelligence experts disclosed that the mass production of V 2 rockets capable of pin-pcint accuracy at a range of 3000 miles was within reach of German scientists when the war in Europe ended, says the Associated. Press correspondent at Supreme Headquarters. The Germans, in less than six months, would have been able to produce rockets on a scale which, they believed, was large enough to neutralise the disadvantage resulting from aerial inferiority. An American major who directed the assembly of 100 pi’ojectiles for transfer to America, said the latest models carried numerous gadgets and improvements designed to give the rocket a much greater range and accuracy. Intelligence, officers based their findings on a month-long survey of a huge rocket assembly plant in the heart of the mountains near Nordhausen arid on conversations with German scientists. The Nordhausen plant is burrowed into the side of a limestone mountain 800 feet below * the surface and is completely bombproof. A network of small tunnels is separated by two large tunnels through which ran a 25-mile railway forming an assembly line capable and turning out 900 V2s monthly. The Germans believed that in two years they would be able to develop rockets capable of travelling 15,000 miles. The R.A.F. raids on Peenemunde set back the German scientists as least six months. The Nordhausen plant never reached full production.