"Bob Hopes"

Londoners had a new name for the German rocket bombs: "Bob Hopes." The name was a contraction of "Bob down.

and hope for the best." It was a grim bit of humor. In November V-bombs had killed 716 civilians, had injured 1,511. Londoners did not have to compare November's toll with October's (172 killed, 416 injured) to realize that V-2 was now a threat to bring back the worst days of last summer,* before a defense had been found against V1.

Far from having found a defense against V2, Britain apparently still knew little more about the rocket bomb's makeup.

U.S. airmen had managed to photograph a V-2's red-streaked, zigzagged climb into the stratosphere. The pictures suggested that the first ten or 15 miles of the rocket's course are inside a "radio cage" set up by wave transmitters spaced in a two-mile circle around the launching site. On this theory, aiming the rocket was a matter of bouncing it from side to side of its cage until it was on course. It would be practically impossible to intercept.

One defense measure was practical: air bombing of roads, rails and bridges over which the Germans hauled their 45-foot long rockets on special trucks to launching sites in The Hague area of Holland. Last week the R.A.F. was systematically trying to isolate the area.

But by this week, as it marked up its 31st straight night of V-2 bombings, southern England's best hope was its original one: that the Allies could soon end the war in the west.

*August's toll: 1,103 killed.

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