Operation Crossbow - V-2 Countermeasures

V-2 Countermeasures

The Bodyline Scientific Committee (19 members, including Duncan Sandys, Edward Victor Appleton, John Cockcroft, Robert Watson-Watt) was formed in September 1943 regarding the suspected V-2 rocket, and after the 1944 crash of a test V-2 in Sweden, "transmitters to jam the guidance system of the rocket" were prepared. A British sound-ranging system provided "trajectory from which the general launching area could be determined," and the microphone(s) in East Kent reported the times of the first V-2 strikes on September 8, 1944: 18:40:52 and 18:41:08. On March 21, 1945, the plan for the "Engagement of Long Range Rockets with AA Gunfire" which called for anti-aircraft units to fire into a radar-predicted airspace to intercept the V-2 was ready, but the plan was not used due to the danger of shells falling on Greater London. Happenstance instances of Allied aircraft engaging launched V-2 rockets include the following:

• on February 14, 1945, a No. 602 Squadron RAF Spitfire wingman fired at a V-2 just after launch
• on October 29, 1944, Lieutenants Donald A. Schultz and Charles M. Crane in a P-38 Lightning attempted to photograph a launched V-2 above the trees near the River Rhine,
• on January 1, 1945, a 4th Fighter Group pilot aloft over the northern flightpath for attacking elements of five German fighter wings on Unternehmen Bodenplatte that day, observed a Big Ben "act up for firing near Lochem ... the rocket was immediately tilted from 85 deg. to 30 deg",
• a B-24 Liberator of the 34th Bombardment Group over the Low Countries at ~10,000 feet saw a rocket climb through the formation like "a telephone pole with fire squirting from out of its tail. ...a left waist gunner in our squadron let fly a burst and down it went". The unit painted a V-2 on the B-24 such as one would mark a downed enemy aircraft.

After the last combat V-2 launch on March 27, 1945, the British discontinued their use of radar in the defence region to detect V-2 launches on April 13.