In "Missiles from Hell" (aka, "Battle of the V-1"), several Polish men are being sent to German work camps. It's October 1942, and the Polish underground suspects that they will be going to work at the German Army weapons center in Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast. Stefan (played by Michael Rennie) will spy and pass on what he finds out. He enlists the help of a friend, Tadek (played by David Knight).
After a short time at Peenemunde, they volunteer at a call for anyone with higher education or training. One of the long-time laborers tells them that the Nazis put them to work cleaning latrines, scrubbing floors and other cleaning. It's the Nazi way of mocking them. But, it gets Stefan and Tadek into the research plants where they soon see a V-1 bomb through the doors of a plant. They don't know what it is, but they can guess what it might be. Stefan uses a code sentence in the next letter to his wife. Soon, they make contact with others in the underground to pass information.
When the Allies bomb Peenemunde and the nearby camps, Stefan and Tadek escape. They reach the underground and then intercept a German transport at night to take photos of a V-1. Back in London, the experts say they need more than photos – any parts of the V-1. So, the underground wait for the opportunity to get some parts after a V-1 test bomb has hit the ground and exploded.
They luck out when one of the test V-1 bombs flies into a farm field and doesn't explode. The farmers hide the V-1 in a pond. When the German tracker vehicle arrives, they tell them that something had flown over their field into the distance and then exploded. After the Germans leave, they defuse the bomb and notify London. The British send a cargo plane to pick up the entire V-1, and they get it loaded and sent off before the Germans arrive on the scene.
Unfortunately, the quality of this film is not very good. It seems to have been made on the cheap. The plot seems choppy in places. The actors are just fair, but wooden at times. The camera work is poor, and the direction and editing seem lacking. It's an independent film made in England.
This movie is based on a 1955 book by British author Bernard Newman (1897-1968), "They Saved London." Newman wrote 100 fiction and nonfiction books. He also was a historian and expert on espionage. The non-fiction of this film is obvious. Peenemunde was the German Army Research Center on the Baltic Coast of northern Germany. There, the Nazis developed the V-1 jet-propelled buzz bomb, and were working on the V-2 long-range rocket bomb. The rest of the details and characters of this film likely are fictitious. But, there's no doubt the Poles did have spies in the underground who helped get information about Peenemunde.
The opening of the film has a statement about the varied sources of intelligence that the Allies had about the German efforts for new weapons. The Polish underground was one source. Also, in May 1943, Allied air photos identified 11 large sites in northern France for launching the V-2 rocket bombs. Then, in November air reconnaissance discovered 96 V-1 ski launches. The British and Americans in 1943 devised Operation Crossbow (as it later became known). Its purpose, throughout the war, was to destroy or delay all German efforts to develop long-range weapons.
The British bombing of Peenemunde was called Operation Hydra. It took place on the night of Aug. 17-18, 1943. It was the largest Allied bombing offensive of the war to that time. It committed the entire RAF bomber force – so critically important did the Allies think it was to knock out Peenemunde. It was a costly raid in which the RAF lost 40 bombers and 215 crew members. Nearly 600 bombers dropped about 1,800 tons of bombs. Hundreds of civilians were killed in a nearby concentration camp. Two of the V-2 scientists were killed and the V-2 test launches were set back just two months. The Germans relocated the plant for the continued research.
The first V-1 "buzz bomb" wasn't launched at London until one week after the June 6, 1944, Allied landings at Normandy on D-Day. The Germans launched 9,521 of the flying bombs on London until October when the last of their launch sites was overrun by the Allies. After that, from other sites the Germans launched 2,448 V-1 bombs at targets in Belgium. That ended only when the last launch site in the lowlands was overrun on March 29, 1945 – just one month before the end of the war.
The German scientist who headed the V-2 project was Wernher von Braun. After the war, he came to the U.S. where he designed the Saturn V rocket and the super booster that sent the Apollo spacecraft to the moon in 1969. Von Braun directed the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. I met Wehner von Braun in the early 1970s in Washington, D.C. where he gave a talk about the future of space exploration and travel.
Peenemunde comes up in a few other war movies, but only one other was wholly about the German V-weapons program. "Operation Crossbow" of 1965 was a highly fictionalized account of infiltration of the Nazi rocket research site. That ostensibly was Mittelwerk, which replaced Peenemunde after it was bombed. West German television on Aug. 12, 1970, ran a TV movie in two parts. Very little information is available on it, but it sure would be interesting to see. It was called, "Peenemunde – Das Wunder findet nicht staff (The Miracle does not take place)." The first part was subtitled, "Die Wunderwaffen (The miracle weapons)."
Although the quality of this film is lacking, war history buffs should find it of interest.
After a short time at Peenemunde, they volunteer at a call for anyone with higher education or training. One of the long-time laborers tells them that the Nazis put them to work cleaning latrines, scrubbing floors and other cleaning. It's the Nazi way of mocking them. But, it gets Stefan and Tadek into the research plants where they soon see a V-1 bomb through the doors of a plant. They don't know what it is, but they can guess what it might be. Stefan uses a code sentence in the next letter to his wife. Soon, they make contact with others in the underground to pass information.
When the Allies bomb Peenemunde and the nearby camps, Stefan and Tadek escape. They reach the underground and then intercept a German transport at night to take photos of a V-1. Back in London, the experts say they need more than photos – any parts of the V-1. So, the underground wait for the opportunity to get some parts after a V-1 test bomb has hit the ground and exploded.
They luck out when one of the test V-1 bombs flies into a farm field and doesn't explode. The farmers hide the V-1 in a pond. When the German tracker vehicle arrives, they tell them that something had flown over their field into the distance and then exploded. After the Germans leave, they defuse the bomb and notify London. The British send a cargo plane to pick up the entire V-1, and they get it loaded and sent off before the Germans arrive on the scene.
Unfortunately, the quality of this film is not very good. It seems to have been made on the cheap. The plot seems choppy in places. The actors are just fair, but wooden at times. The camera work is poor, and the direction and editing seem lacking. It's an independent film made in England.
This movie is based on a 1955 book by British author Bernard Newman (1897-1968), "They Saved London." Newman wrote 100 fiction and nonfiction books. He also was a historian and expert on espionage. The non-fiction of this film is obvious. Peenemunde was the German Army Research Center on the Baltic Coast of northern Germany. There, the Nazis developed the V-1 jet-propelled buzz bomb, and were working on the V-2 long-range rocket bomb. The rest of the details and characters of this film likely are fictitious. But, there's no doubt the Poles did have spies in the underground who helped get information about Peenemunde.
The opening of the film has a statement about the varied sources of intelligence that the Allies had about the German efforts for new weapons. The Polish underground was one source. Also, in May 1943, Allied air photos identified 11 large sites in northern France for launching the V-2 rocket bombs. Then, in November air reconnaissance discovered 96 V-1 ski launches. The British and Americans in 1943 devised Operation Crossbow (as it later became known). Its purpose, throughout the war, was to destroy or delay all German efforts to develop long-range weapons.
The British bombing of Peenemunde was called Operation Hydra. It took place on the night of Aug. 17-18, 1943. It was the largest Allied bombing offensive of the war to that time. It committed the entire RAF bomber force – so critically important did the Allies think it was to knock out Peenemunde. It was a costly raid in which the RAF lost 40 bombers and 215 crew members. Nearly 600 bombers dropped about 1,800 tons of bombs. Hundreds of civilians were killed in a nearby concentration camp. Two of the V-2 scientists were killed and the V-2 test launches were set back just two months. The Germans relocated the plant for the continued research.
The first V-1 "buzz bomb" wasn't launched at London until one week after the June 6, 1944, Allied landings at Normandy on D-Day. The Germans launched 9,521 of the flying bombs on London until October when the last of their launch sites was overrun by the Allies. After that, from other sites the Germans launched 2,448 V-1 bombs at targets in Belgium. That ended only when the last launch site in the lowlands was overrun on March 29, 1945 – just one month before the end of the war.
The German scientist who headed the V-2 project was Wernher von Braun. After the war, he came to the U.S. where he designed the Saturn V rocket and the super booster that sent the Apollo spacecraft to the moon in 1969. Von Braun directed the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. I met Wehner von Braun in the early 1970s in Washington, D.C. where he gave a talk about the future of space exploration and travel.
Peenemunde comes up in a few other war movies, but only one other was wholly about the German V-weapons program. "Operation Crossbow" of 1965 was a highly fictionalized account of infiltration of the Nazi rocket research site. That ostensibly was Mittelwerk, which replaced Peenemunde after it was bombed. West German television on Aug. 12, 1970, ran a TV movie in two parts. Very little information is available on it, but it sure would be interesting to see. It was called, "Peenemunde – Das Wunder findet nicht staff (The Miracle does not take place)." The first part was subtitled, "Die Wunderwaffen (The miracle weapons)."
Although the quality of this film is lacking, war history buffs should find it of interest.
