9. The Nazi Scheme to Bombard NYC With Rockets
During WWII, German scientists invented the V-1 Flying Bomb, the world’s first cruise missile, and the V-2, the first ballistic missile. They terrorized and killed thousands of Londoners, and if the Nazis had their way, they would have done the same to New Yorkers. The missiles had relatively short ranges: a few dozen miles from launch sites on land in German-controlled territory. In 1941, brothers Friedrich Steinhoff, commander of U-511, a Type IXC U-boat, and his brother, Dr. Erich Steinhoff, of the secret rocket research program at Peenemunde, thought up a scheme. Why not bring more enemy territory within reach of Nazi rockets, by marrying rockets to U-boats? U-boats equipped with rockets would become mobile launch platforms. With the high seas as their highways, they could launch missiles at targets anywhere in the world that lay within a few dozen miles of a sea coast.
In 1942, the Steinhoff brothers began to test their scheme, and a rack for 30 cm rocket launchers was mounted on the U-511‘s upper deck. Testing was successful, and the U-511 launched rockets both from the surface, and when submerged up to a depth of 40 feet. However, the German navy envisioned the rockets as anti-ship weapons. In that capacity, they were useless because they lacked an accurate guidance system. The idea was revived in 1943, with the advent of the V-1 Flying Bomb. A V-1 launched from a U-boat could to strike targets far beyond the Flying Bomb’s 150 mile radius from land-based sites. Inter-service rivalry sank the proposal, however: the V-1 was a Luftwaffe project, and Germany’s airmen were reluctant to share with the navy.
