London Rockets

Back in January 1943, when German planes attacked London for the first time in 14 months, Londoners who had gone through the Great Blitz of 1940-41 were startled less by the raid itself than by the vast, thundering, metal-showering ack-ack barrage thrown up against the raiders.

Correspondents were allowed to refer vaguely to "comparatively new guns" which sent their shells screeching through the sky like broom-riding witches. But no details of the weapons could be given. Only last week did British authorities take them off the secret list, disclosing that the guns actually were rocket projectors. Some of them had been used as far back as 1941, had brought down an enemy bomber with their second salvo.

Technical information was still restricted, but Londoners reported that the rocket shells burst with a concussion more terrifying than a bomb explosion, and throw out a curtain of metal fragments which come down like hailstones.

Mainly responsible for development of the "U.P." (unrotative projectile) was Dr. Alwyn Douglas Crow, scientist in the Ministry of Supply. Dr. Crow, an infantryman in World War I, has been conducting rocket experiments since 1936; early work was carried out in a secret laboratory deep in the English countryside, firing trials in Jamaica, B.W.I.

Dr. Crow's loud and lethal gadgets went into action again last week when some 100 German planes whisked over London sowing incendiary bombs, the worst of which landed in fashionable residential districts. Two famous squares were well scorched, an embassy and a legation partly burned out. London's defenders shot down 13 of the attackers, speedily put the fires out.

The total bomb load, estimated at 195 tons, was less than half of that dropped in the worst raids of the blitz, less than one-twelfth of a first-class R.A.F. delivery on Berlin. Even so, it was enough to send several hundred people to their graves.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.