V-2 Rockets

Be A Tourist In Your Own Town!


I remember back when I lived in Alberta, Canada that the provincial tourist association had these ad campaigns urging people to "Be a Tourist in your own Town". I was never really sure what that was all about. I mean, I lived in Medicine Hat, after all. What was I supposed to do? Go visit the World's Tallest Teepee? Visit "Historic Downtown Medicine Hat"? Was this just a way of telling the people of Medicine Hat that it was ok that they rarely ventured out of the city into the real world (except occasionally to take trip to Calgary or Lethbridge... ooooh!) because they could be tourists in their own town and forget about the rest of the planet?

Even nowadays, after many years of living here in The Hague, I am still surprised at how many busloads of camera-toting tourists pull up to the Peace Palace every day. Yah, sure, it's a nice building, but they didn't come all the way here to see THAT, did they?!?

But looking back I think the point of the whole "Be a Tourist in your own Town" was to remember that you don't always have to go out on some fancy or elaborate trip to have a vacation. Remember that there are people in the world who actually come to YOUR home town as tourists (yes, even to Medicine Hat, Alberta) and that they come to do things that you yourself might never have even thought about doing, or that you just didn't get around to doing.

And so, with the Alberta Tourist Association's "Be a Tourist in your own Town" in mind I set off this weekend to do exactly that.


When I go on vacation I am always more interested in seeing historical type things than I am in doing things like lying around on the beach. For me a relaxing trip includes kilometres of walking and barely one single moment of what people generally consider relaxation. (After my recent grueling trip to Auschwitz I came back refreshed, as though I'd spent the three days in the spa instead of on night trains and hiking endlessly.)

But what does any of this have to do with pictures of dogs in the back seat of a car?

Not much, except that we're currently en route to the first stop of the day and I wanted to share with everyone the cute puppy car safety belts that the dogs are wearing. These belts keep the dogs from fly around the car and out the windshield in the event of an accident. They also keep Homer from trying to come into the front seat.


Flat Eric is very sad to be in the back seat, however. He is a very snuggly dog and likes to be close to people, preferably in physical contact with them. This is cute, of course, but when you're trying to write Email and he needs to lie on the desk in front of you between your arms it can be a bit much.

Then again, he's not needy in the sense of needing attention constantly. Oh sure, he likes to be scratched on the tummy just as much as the next dog and is demanding in that respect, but in terms of just being close to you he doesn't need you to actually pay attention to him. He just prefers to sit or sleep somewhere close to people. Homer, by comparison, never demands tummy rubbing and is a fairly independent dog. But this is hardly a good thing since "independent" for him means "try to find food everywhere, always". He will "independently" make a thorough search and destroy mission through the entire house for food - emphasis on "destroy".


Which brings us to Wassenaar.

Winding through the peaceful country lanes of this small town takes us past some of the most expensive homes in Holland. But where exactly could we be going?!? Everyone knows of my fondness for World War II history, right? Could there possibly be something from that era here among these quiet estates?


In fact there IS a so-called "Nazi site" located here in Wassenaar, and a not-insignificant one at that. It was right here, on 08 September 1944 (at 18h37 to be exact), that the first V-2 rocket was launched at London. This launch was the first of two nearly simultaneous launches that took place that day with the second rocket being fired from a short distance down the road.

But what exactly IS a V-2 Rocket? (You ask)

Well, I am glad that you asked.

"I didn't ask anything." thinks Susan.

The V-1 Flying Bomb


Here we see a V-1 Flying Bomb. It's not a V-2 Rocket, obviously, but the story of the V-2 is probably best told by first exploring exactly what a V-1 was.

You see, both of these were what the Nazis referred to "Vergeltungswaffe" or "Revenge Weapons". By the middle of the Second World War everyone was pretty much bombing everyone else's cities and inflicting civilian casualties all over the place. The Brits were mad because the Germans were bombing London, the Germans mad because the Allies were bombing their cities, and so on. As revenge for this Hitler ordered the development of several weapons that he hoped would rain terror down upon the enemy and force them to capitulate. The first of these "Vergeltungswaffe" weapons was the V-1 Flying Bomb (hence the designation of V-1).


Unlike a rocket, however, the V-1s were not launched vertically. Instead they were usually flung into the skies with a steam catupult set along a long inclined track that was pointed in the direction of London (similar to how planes on aircraft carriers are launched nowadays).

As far as advanced technology was concerned these V-1s were pretty good by the standards of World War II (which is to say that they were pretty high-tech considering that technology wasn't quite that far along yet). For example: At a time when aircraft were exclusively propeller-driven (and jet aircraft were yet to be seen in the skies, most notably the wondrous German ME-262 which would appear in the last days of the war) the V-1 was powered by a fairly advanced pulse jet engine (not a turbine jet engine). It was the sound of this "pulse jet" engine that gave the V-1 its English nickname - the Buzz Bomb.

The concept of a pulse jet is fairly simple. It consists of a long tube where air flows in the front and enters a chamber where vaporised fuel is added and detonated, thus causing a little explosion that is then channelled out of the back to provide thrust. Hundreds of times a minute these explosive "pulses" pushed the V-1 through the skies and the result was a characteristic buzzing sound that made the people of London very nervous.


Although using fairly impressive engines and (Siemens) guidance systems the V-1 combined this advanced technology with simple-but-effective concepts as well. For example: On the nose of the Flying Bomb was set a small propeller connected to a device that counted the number of revolutions the propeller made. By calculating how many times the propeller should turn between the launch site and the target the engineers could set the Flying Bomb to cut its engines once it was in the sky above London. (These were the days before computers and radar-mapping that today's modern cruise missiles employ to find their targets.)

In the summer of 1944 the people of London and southern England froze in their tracks at the sound of a Buzz Bomb approaching. If the buzzing passed overheard you could breath easy again but the most frightening sound was actually when the buzzing stopped before passing over because then you knew that the little propeller had told the V-1 to cut the engines and that it and it's one ton warhead would soon fall to Earth somewhere nearby.


Have a listen to this soundfile of a V-1 approaching and its engines shutting down at the very end.


Once the engines cut out the V-1 went into a nose-dive and plunged to the ground. All told more than 10.000 of these deadly Flying Bombs were launched at targets in England between June 1944 and April 1945, killing more than five thousand people and injuring three times as many more.

But not all of the V-1s launched at England actually made it to their targets. With dozens falling on England every day the Allies had to find different ways to counter the threat. The V-1 was fast, but no so fast that a fast intercepter plane in a dive couldn't catch up. The problem was that shooting it might hit the warhead and kill you along with it. Another means of defeating the V-1 was the seemingly insane method of flying alongside it to use the wing of your plane to tip the Flying Bomb over into a premature nose dive.

However it was done the Allies did manage to reduce the number of V-1s raining down on London by 20% and saved countless lives. They would have considerably less success intercepting the next of Hitler's "Revenge Weapons" - the V-2 Rocket.

The V-2 Rocket


Which brings us back to Wassenaar and the site of the first V-2 launch on London.


A simple plaque reminds us that it was right here, sixty years ago, that an age of modern warfare was initiated. Less than a year later atomic bombs would be dropped on Japan and it was only a matter of time before two and two were put together and nuclear missiles became a kind of currency in the long Cold War.


Imagine those two rockets screaming into the skies on that September day, leaving trails of condensation in their wakes.


The V-2 was an entirely different kind of weapon than the V-1 Flying Bomb was. It's appearance signalled a new age as the nuclear missile arms race and the space age were simultaneously ushered in. The same German scientists who designed and built the V-2 would go on to build nuclear missiles and rockets for space exploration for both the Americans and the Russians.


Unlike the V-1 Flying Bomb the V-2 was just too fast to possibly be intercepted by the aircraft of the time. As a result when one was launched it was more or less guaranteed to reach its target barring some unforeseen technical disaster. Fortunately rocket science was not only new but was also a highly technically complicated enterprise so disaster was a not uncommon occurance. The rockets were also expensive and difficult to produce so their numbers were never as great as those of the V-1.


The V-2s also had another unforeseen disadvantage over the V-1 - they were so fast (faster than the speed of sound) that they struck virtually without warning and didn't strike as much fear into the hearts of the British as Hitler had hoped. The V-1 Buzz Bombs, with their relatively slow approach and frightening sound, were far more effective in creating panic and fear than was the infinitely more advanced V-2.


In this and the previous photo we see a before and after view of a V-2 strike in London. First the rocket caught amazingly on film on it's plunge to the Earth and then the resulting explosion.

Which raises another of the unforeseen drawbacks of the V-2 rocket - the fact that they were so fast that they more or less buried themselves into the ground before detonating their warhead. This resulted in significantly reducing the impact of the explosion and reducing damage.


Check out this extensive video of launches and what-not from www.v2rocket.com. The website kindly reminds visitors to "Look but not steal" from the site, but unless the guy who runs it is a 90-year-old German rocket scientist who was on hand to actually film all of this stuff himself then, well, I guess he must have stole it himself from somewhere too.

(Don't you just love it when people put copyright type notices on things that they don't own the rights to? Like putting a copyright notice on an MP3 that they ripped off a CD or on a photo that they didn't take?)

At any rate, it's a good website. I could have just stolen the present day photos that the website owner took of these V-2 sites around The Hague, but I did not because THOSE he has the rights to. Pictures from the Second World War taken by unknown photographers working for the Nazi rocket program, however, he does not. Sorry dude. (Look but don't steal... give me a break. What a hypocrite.)


Leaving my ranting behind us now.... Who would have thought that all this - nuclear missiles, the space race - would have began at the corner of Koekoekslaan and Lijsterlaan?!?


One last look back at this innocuous litte intersection of history before we climb into the car and continue on our journey.


Strapping the dogs back in with their special dog seatbelts we're ready to go.


There are some nice homes out here in Wassenaar. This one has the flag at half mast because of the recent death of Prince Bernard.


The homes are nice but some are tacky. Is that a plastic dolphin fountain?!??


The next stop on our tour is the Haagsche Bosjes in the centre of The Hague.


These woods aren't just a fun place for dogs to run around. They were also a prime location for hiding and launching V-2 rockets during the Second World War.


The trees provided cover from the air for the rocket crews and their stores of enormous rockets.


Not only are there trees for cover, but also a good system of roads for moving the rockets around. Here we see a stretch of road called Leidsestraatweg that still exists to this day.


Check out this aerial reconnaisance photo of the Haagsche Bosjes from during the Second World War. Circled at the bottom left are five V-2 rockets lying on transport wagons. Just above that and running from left to right across the photo is Leidsestraatweg.

(Hey dude! I "stole" another photo from your site! Unless, of course, you were actually in the Lancaster bomber in 1944 and took this photo in which case please feel free to sue me.)

As a result of photos like this one the British would eventually mount several bombing raids against the V-2 launch sites in the Haasche Bosjes. One such raid in early March 1945 came to a disastrous end when targeting error resulted in the bombs being dropped on homes in the nearby Bezuidenhout Kwartier. Five hundred Dutch civilians lost their lives in this raid and the V-2 rockets continued to fly for almost another month until the Allied ground forces arrived to liberate the city.




Compare the previous photo with a map stolen from MapQuest.com. Notice the pattern of the streets at the top of each to orient yourself.


There's more to the Haagsche Bosjes than death by rockets, however. Here we see some people feeding a heron.


And hey! Another heron way up along the path. And is that my friend Kent?!?? It is! What the hell is he doing here?!?


Yet another heron. I wonder how close I can get to him.


Not that close, I guess. He's half my size and has a big beak and claws. What exactly is he scared of?


A local artist has made some funny sculptures out of trees out here in the woods.


This table and chairs would be good for a picnic. I think the dogs think it's good for something else, however.


Apparently the artist's name is Duncan Buckingham. Or... hmmmm.... it's tough to read, isn't it?


A funny boat-looking thing by Duncan Buckingham.


A funny tree throne thing by Duncan Buckingham.


Ok. Leaving the woods behind us we continue along on our little journey. We're now in Scheveningen driving past the prison that Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav war criminals currently call home.


Here at the foot of Zwolsestraat you can see the infamous ICTY Barracks looming in the distance. Not only is this the location of the ugly, long, and suprisingly popular apartment building inhabited by employees of the Internation Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia but it is also from here that V-2 rockets were unloaded from trains for deployment and launch from sites in The Hague.

(Ironically this ugly building is just down the street from the prison where the war criminals live. I am not sure which is worse.)


Sinterklaas and his sidekick Zwarte Piet roaming the neighbourhood reminds us that tomorrow is 05 December - the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas.


I don't think that Flat Eric is all that interested in these V-2 rocket sites. When we picked him up he thought we were going to the beach, I am sure.


Those of us at the Tribunal don't realise it but we are surrounded by V-2 launching sites on all sides. Just down the street from the Tribunal and the Bel Air hotel is another site from which V-2s were launched on London as well as Antwerp.


Which brings us to our final stop of the day. The dogs are tired and the light is fading when we arrive at another V-2 launch site just down the street from the Tribunal.

This is Statenplein - the place where Statenlaan and Willem de Zwijgerlaan meet - home to Trams 17 and 10. I ride past here every day on my way to work completely oblivious of the fact that almost sixty years ago this was one of the sites from which the Nazis launched their V-2 rockets. Not only launched them but sometimes failed to launch them as well. On 02 February 1945 a planned launch ended in explosive failure and rained debris down onto the surrounding buildings.

Just imagine what the local residents much have thought to see the German soldiers setting up their rockets in the square below before a window-rattling roar sent them hurtling skyward.

And so ends my attempt to be a Tourist in my own Town. It's amazing what history one can find almost literally in their own backyards, isn't it? I'll never look at Statenplein in quite the same way ever again.

And with that I shall now put my home computer to better used and return to playing computer games. Ah! But not just any computer games... computer games where I do my bit for the Allied war effort in the winter of 1944-45 and help to shut down a V-2 rocket facility. (Pictures follow)




Until next time...