80 years ago, soldiers of the National Army captured an unexploded German V-2 missile. The bullet was found in the swamps close Sarnaki village on Bug. The rocket was examined by Polish engineers after being taken apart. The most crucial elements of the device and its plans were transferred by Poles to the UK in July 1944 as part of Operation Most III.
V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe-2, Retaliation weapon No 2) was the first always successful ballistic rocket missile design. Germany has been working on it since the 1930s. The investigation was carried out by a squad of designers led by Wernher von Braun. The first successful launch and flight of the rocket took place on October 3, 1942, and shortly thereafter its mass production began. “The scope of the 13-ton rocket was 380 km, but it had low accuracy and could not be controlled,” says Marcin Lewicki, historian of planet War II. He adds that for this reason, the weapon was to be utilized to terrorize the opponents of the 3rd Reich alternatively than to accurately fire targets.
The work on V-2 was conducted by Germany at a secret investigation facility in Peenemünde on the island of Uznam close Świnoujście. In 1943 this place discovered an interview National Army and thanks to information from the arks on the night of 17-18 August 1943 the complex was bombed by British aviation. “The Germans decided to decision the work on the rocket into the occupied Polish lands, outside the scope of Allied bombers, which slowed down the work on the missile,” says the historian.
Polish war correspondent watches the remains of the V-2 rocket. photograph by NAC
The weapon trials have since been carried out at the camp in Blizna between Rzeszów and Mielec. The first rocket was launched there on November 5, 1943. “Getting more detailed information about the rocket was crucial for the Western Allies to effectively defend themselves from it, but the Germans carefully collected all the debris scattered in the field of experimental missiles,” Lewicki explains.
Happiness smiled on Poles in May 1944. close the village of Sarnaki close Biała Podlaska, 320 km from Scar, 1 of the V-2 rockets settled in the swamps over Bug. By the time Germany arrived there, it was masked by locals precisely so that the occupiers could not find it. On May 20, National Army guerrillas intercepted the V-2 explosion.
V2 remains recovered by AK from Bug. photograph Wikipedia
The rocket was stripped into pieces and transported in fragments to Warsaw. There, experts from Warsaw University of Technology working with the AK, specified as Prof. Janusz Groszkowski, Prof. Marceli Struszyński and Eng. Antoni Kocjan, took part in the analysis of the project. They drew up an exact plan and description of the construction of the weapon. The results of the survey and key fragments of the rocket were decided to transport by plane to the UK. Lieutenant Jerzy Chmielewski "Rafal", an AK intelligence officer, took them to London on 25 July 1944 aboard Dakota C47 as part of the Most III action.
– Delivering the construction to the British helped improve the defence of the bombing of London, and the capture of the V-2 rocket and Operation Bridge III are among the most bravado AK actions," the historian emphasises. This success Polish Underground State It commemorates a monument erected in 1995 in Sarnaki in the form of a V-2 mock-up.
