Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

The seriousness of Peenemünde’s technological and organizational difficulties that winter is revealed by yet another furious memo, penned by Dornberger on February 5. This time his outburst was caused by an accident with the first flight vehicle, “Launch Aggregate 1” (later called “Test Model 1” or V1), while it was suspended for an engine firing on Test Stand I. After being fully tanked, the missile slipped out of its “corset,” fell 2 meters, smashed three fins, and came to rest on the rim of the engine nozzle. At fault was a design oversight that had all the hallmarks of inexperience: The corset was not able to bear the full weight of the fueled vehicle after the liquid oxygen’s temperature caused shrinkage of the fuselage. Dornberger was enraged that such an apparently stupid mistake had been made, delaying the first launch by a few more weeks. He reminded his subordinates about the absolute political necessity of showing some practical results. He also ranted against what he saw as their Raketenflugplatz mentality, “i.e., the propagandistic exploitation of an idea only to receive money and priorities, while not even building a usable test device practicable for eventual mass production.” It was hardly a fair charge; of the thousands of engineers and craftsmen at Peenemünde, only about a dozen came from the old rocket groups. 49

Most interesting, however, is his discussion of the problems with the A-4 design and testing process, made even more fascinating by the responses of Thiel, who neatly scribbled pungent marginal comments on his copy. First, Dornberger was annoyed by the interminable stay of missiles on the test stands, which he felt revealed a deeper problem:

The whole design has apparently been done as if hundreds of people had the time to spend weeks going all over the rocket on the test stand, installing valves, doing assembly work, moving cables, and generally fumbling around. Cooperation between the Test group and the TB [“Papa” Riedel’s design bureau] is lacking…

He accused the engineers of forgetting the demands of simplicity and ease of access that would be necessary for mass production and field use; instead the missile was a “flying laboratory.” 50

Thiel’s marginalia confirm that he indeed had serious conflicts with Riedel. His comment on the above quote was: “The TB fights tooth and nail against any influence from Tr [Propulsion] or Vers [Test].” On an earlier page, Thiel asked why the test stands should take the blame for the “garbage” produced by the design bureau and the shops. But the propulsion chief also noted that there was a contradiction between Dornberger’s demands for results in the shortest possible time and his demands for a well-planned, fully developed vehicle. 51

A Thiel comment on the last page of Dornberger’s memorandum reveals another serious difficulty: No complete “assembly drawings” for the first flight vehicle existed. The design bureau was responsible for producing blueprints of all parts of the A-4, except for the guidance and electrical equipment (only Steinhoff’s division had the requisite knowledge for those). Yet a complete set of drawings had not yet appeared, and indeed two years later still had not, in spite of innumerable promises by the Peenemünde leadership. The question is: What blame does Riedel deserve for this mess? Decades after the fact, this is difficult to determine, but the old hand from Heylandt and Kummersdorf was stubborn and, as an engineer with only a two-year technical-school education, was in over his head with the A-4 project. He resented criticism from the increasingly dominant diploma and doctor engineers at Peenemünde. Riedel’s difficult personality, combined with the drawings fiasco, would lead to his being shunted into another job by the end of the summer. Yet there is little doubt that the endless changes on the test stands, which were often done without any formal documentation, made “Papa” Riedel’s job extremely difficult, and the confusion imposed by the elimination of scarce materials only exacerbated matters further. In addition, the entire organization was dominated by development engineers with little or no manufacturing experience. For all his real shortcomings, Riedel ultimately was the scapegoat for the difficulties experienced in trying to transfer an exotic technology into production on a very short time scale. 52

A final revealing insight is provided by Dornberger’s angry memorandum about the Launch Aggregate 1 accident. Apparently von Braun had asked him the day before (February 4) to close down the Pilot Production Plant and transfer its personnel to the Development Works, if priority problems imposed any new personnel cutbacks. Dornberger’s response was only to go into a rather silly harangue about how it was not the number of bodies that counted for a successful design, but rather the “deliberations of a single superior mind.” Thiel’s marginal comment was: “The VW [the Pilot Production Plant] will once again be the death of us. It eats up people and produces nothing!” Ironically, it was the factory that had suffered most, since skilled workers were constantly being taken away to other projects, such as finishing Test Stand VII. But, in the sense that the plant was an ill-conceived, unproductive project, Thiel and von Braun were right. By June 1943 relations deteriorated to the point that Schubert complained to Dornberger about “the hitherto existing rivalry” between the two sides of the Army center and about the factory’s alleged role as the “milch cow for the EW [the Development Works].” 53

Clearly, the situation at Peenemünde in the winter of 1942 was tense, nor was it eased by the fate of the first flight vehicle. After repairs, the now renamed A-4/V1 was returned to Test Stand VII. On March 18 Thiel drew up the organization of the launch crew for an attempt in the next five to ten days. The vehicle would have a unique trajectory: it would have a pitch program of only 10 degrees plus half-full propellant tanks, so that it could be recovered by parachute, presumably to salvage recording instruments. But fifteen minutes before midnight that evening, while Thiel was observing the first burn test with the guidance system running, a reddish flame exploded from the side of the missile just over the engine. The steam generator and many lines were wrecked, and the engine shut itself off automatically. The propulsion chief soon concluded that leaks in the fuel and oxidizer lines, caused by vibration and structural stress, allowed an explosive mixture to build up over the head of the motor. Fortunately the test stand was undamaged, because the tanks did not rupture, but this time the vehicle was junked for spare parts. The first launch of an A-4 would have to be put off a couple of months longer. 54

No new outburst from Dornberger is to be found in the records; perhaps he accepted that this accident was unavoidable. In any case, planning continued for a very optimistic launch schedule. One document from April 20 predicted A-4/V2 on May 12, A-4/V3 on June 9, A-4/V7 on July 4, and four more by September 29. The out-of-sequence launch of the seventh flight vehicle was a specific request of Dornberger, who wanted the earliest possible attempt with a missile light enough to reach the promised range of 270 kilometers. (The V2 to V6 vehicles could go only 180–190 km because of excessive weight.) The manipulation of the schedule, von Braun admitted in July, was done “for propagandistic reasons.” 55

Notwithstanding the best hopes of the rocket group, endless problems plagued the second flight vehicle too. In late April A-4/V2’s fuselage was damaged while it was being erected on Test Stand VII because of a mismatch in the dimensions of the rocket and its Meillerwagen transporter-trailer. Further weeks were lost, and the vehicle was not finally ready for launch until June 13. 56