The V-2, the world’s first ballistic missile, plunged from the fringes of space at supersonic speed

IN THE DYING DAYS of the Second World War, British intelligence analyst R.V. Jones was a worried man. Reports of strange activity at Peenemünde, off the coast of Germany, and fragments of crashed vehicles which bore traces of ethanol and oxygen – rocket fuel? – convinced him that Hitler was developing something unique. His fears were dismissed by his superiors as fantasy, but the smiles soon faded as the V-1s and V-2s began falling on London. The V-1 flying bombs – doodlebugs in cockney parlance – could be shot down or tipped off course. The V-2, the world’s first ballistic missile, could not be destroyed in flight, as it plunged from the fringes of space at supersonic speed. London urgently needed more information.

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