8. The Marriage of Submarines and Rockets to Wreck the Big Apple
Lack of cooperation from the Luftwaffe delayed the marriage of U-boats and V-1s. However, consideration was also given to firing V-2 rockets from U-boats. In 1943, American bombers were starting to devastate German cities, so the Nazis desperately wanted to retaliate against American cities. However, the V-2 was too big to mount in U-boats then in service. So a submersible vessel to transport and launch the V-2 was designed. Known as the Prufstand XII (“Test Stand XII”), the submersible transport displaced about 500 tons. It would get towed by a U-boat – the forward motion keeping the container submerged – to within range of its target. Three Prufstands were ordered in December, 1944. The Nazis planned to use Type XXI U-boats to tow them, each carrying a V-2 rocket, across the Atlantic to within range of New York.
The submersible transports, which also carried a reserve of diesel fuel to supply the towing U-boat en route, would get set up upon arrival at the launch site. The container’s ballast tanks would get flooded, bringing the Prufstand and the V-2 within to a vertical position. The rocket’s guidance system would then be set, aimed at the Big Apple, and remotely launched from within the U-boat. Leaving its container, the rocket would soar to the edge of space, then plunge down upon NYC with a ton of high explosives contained within its nose-mounted warhead. In late 1944, Allied intelligence learned of the German scheme. So they prepared Operation Teardrop, a US Navy plan to sink U-boats approaching America’s Eastern Seaboard.
