It nonetheless took time to analyze the failure of the A-4/V2 and to modify the V3 for firing. The problem was soon traced to a roll-rate gyro malfunction, which occurred immediately after the June launch. Wind may have contributed to the problem by rolling the vehicle faster than the guidance system’s ability to compensate, just as in the case of the A-3s. Von Braun’s group decided that the best solution was to incorporate a version of Helmut Hoelzer’s electronic “mixing device” and to eliminate the rate gyros altogether, as had been planned for the later “test series” missiles. That change added two more weeks to the schedule. Also eating up time were other alterations to the A-4/V3 to increase the vehicle’s control over the roll axis.61
Finally, on August 16, 1942, the second launch attempt was made—this time for a more restricted audience. Shortly after noon, the missile lifted off in conditions of much better visibility. Once again, awesome rumbling filled the sky and hope skyrocketed with the V3’s flight. The black-and-white markings on the missile showed that it did not roll. For the first forty-five seconds, things appeared to go very well, but at a speed of 2,345 kilometers per hour (about Mach 2) the engine suddenly stopped. (Full burn time for an A-4 was about a minute.) As a result, the control system was no longer effective, since the jet vanes could not exert any force when the engine was off. At that point the atmosphere was still sufficiently dense to overpower the vehicle’s marginal stability. The rocket began to veer away from the direction of flight, its nose was ripped off by aerodynamic forces, and flames erupted from both ends. The fins came off, and what was left of the vehicle tumbled into the Baltic 8.7 kilometers from the launch site. Postflight analysis suggested that acceleration had slowed abnormally after thirty-seven seconds and then the engine had stopped altogether because of a failure of the steam generator or turbopump. Unfortunately, the new telemetry system for radioing data to the ground had quit only four seconds after launch, leaving ground-based movie film as the only evidence.62
That flight was an improvement over the first, but a new round of modifications to the next flight vehicle, the A-4/V4, was necessary, including strengthening the nose. (Dornberger’s plan to launch the V7 first had been dropped in the meantime as holding up the schedule yet further.) It was not until the end of September that the missile was ready to be launched. On the eve of the next attempt, the chief of Wa Prüf 11 sent a memorandum to Peenemünde summarizing in dramatic terms what was at stake:
After presentations to the Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions [Speer], the Chief of Army Armaments and the Commander of the Replacement Army [Fromm], and the Chief of Ordnance [Leeb], the situation for HAP [Peenemünde-East] is, at the moment, the following:
1) the Führer does not believe in the success of the guidance system and therefore in its ability to achieve the desired accuracy,
2) the Reich Minister… doubts our success. He is supported in his opinion by Hauptamtsleiter Sauer [Karl Otto Saur, Speer’s deputy] and Field Marshal Milch,
3) [General Fromm] has lost trust in our ability to meet our deadlines because, at the end of 1942, we still have not achieved a long-range shot, [and]
4) the Chief of Army Ordnance is beginning to doubt our word.
Dornberger went on to outline a number of specific measures for speeding up operations, with the overall goal of “launch, launch, launch.” He wanted all twenty first-priority missiles fired by December 31(!). As a means to that end, he asked the management and labor force of Peenemünde to work long hours, seven days a week, and to push all other projects into the background.63
Weather and other problems delayed the next launch a few more days. Finally, on October 3, at two minutes before four in the afternoon, the A-4/V4 lifted off and arced out over the Baltic on a perfect fall day. The rocket, which carried on its side a Woman in the Moon logo, continued straight on its course until all that was visible was a glowing dot at the end of a white exhaust contrail. When the shifting winds at high altitude turned the contrail into a zig-zag of “frozen lightning,” many thought that the missile had gone awry. Nonetheless, it continued unperturbed, and at fifty-eight seconds the engine made a normal, if slightly early, cutoff. On the roof of the guidance division’s Measurement House, Dornberger and Zanssen wept and hugged each other with joy. As the measurement tone whined over the loudspeakers in the background, conveying in audible form the Doppler tracking of the rocket’s velocity, the two rushed down to meet the launch crew celebrating at the Test Stand. Just before the five-minute mark, the tone suddenly stopped. A-4/V4 had smashed into the sea about 190 kilometers (120 miles) away, after brushing the edge of space at an altitude of nearly 80 kilometers (fifty miles). All world records for altitude and velocity had been obliterated. It was a marvelous achievement and—as subsequent failures would show—also a lucky one.64
That night, at the gala celebration in the Officers’ Club, Dornberger delivered a moving speech in which he stated that “the space ship is born.” In his A-4 rhetoric he was never modest in equating the rocket to the wheel, the steam engine, and the airplane as a fundamental new invention in transportation, nor did he shrink from saying that it opened the road to spaceflight. In assigning to the missile this elevated historical role, he was not far from the truth. But Dornberger probably also spoke of the A-4 as the weapon that might change the course of the war for the Third Reich. There is little doubt of his enthusiasm for Hitler and the system, nor can his exaggerated view of the missile’s military impact be denied. In any case, he did say one thing that was incontestable: Peenemünde’s troubles were not over—they were just beginning. It was not enough to have the key technologies in hand, or even to get them to work together once. The rocket group must “launch, launch, launch.” It also must secure Hitler’s approval and find a way to turn its “flying laboratory” into a mass production weapon. If it accomplished those latter objectives, however, the program would become an even more valuable political property. In the wings, the power brokers were gathering.65
Chapter 6
Speer, Himmler, and Slave Labor
Dornberger was not slow to exploit the October 3, 1942, success. Within a day or two, he and General Leeb were in Speer’s office reporting on the flight and requesting approval for mass production. On the eighth, the chief of Wa Prüf 11 put into circulation a propaganda document laying out the details of the launch and explaining the manufacturing plans for the A-4. Apparently he and Army Ordnance did not have the slightest hesitation about charging ahead before the V4’s feat could be duplicated. But experience would prove to be a bitter teacher. V5 would at least be a partial success, going 147 kilometers on October 21. The next four launches, from November to early January, would be complete and utter failures.1