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Satanic Tomatoes and Other Weird Details Not Taught in History Class

Khalid Elhassan July 4, 2020 33 min

South Lawn - Goat — Wilson's sheep. Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum

18. Raining Death Down Upon the Big Apple

The Nazis planned to use Type XXI U-boats to tow three Prufstand XIIs, 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.

Flooding the container’s ballast tanks would bring the Prufstand and the V-2 within to a vertical position. The rocket’s guidance system would then be set, and aimed at the Big Apple. When all was ready, the V-2 would be remotely launched from within the U-boat. Leaving its container, the rocket would soar to the edge of space, before plunging down upon NYC with a ton of high explosives contained within its nose-mounted warhead.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.