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What Is Peenemünde?
over Usedom on their return from bombing runs on Berlin. The island’s air
defense was given strict orders not to open fire and not to send fighters into the
air so as not to attract the enemy’s attention to the top-secret island.This continued
until 17 August 1943.
On the eve of the Peenemünde attack, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir
Arthur Travers Harris summoned the officers responsible for the upcoming operation
and warned them about the particular responsibility of the crews and the
extraordinary importance of destroying this target.“If the attack is not successful,
it will be repeated the following night. In that case, however, it will not be possible
to avoid great losses.”
The first waves of bombers flew over Usedom in the late evening of 17
August 1943 without dropping a single bomb. The Germans below did not
even sound the air-raid alarm. Suddenly flares lit up over the northern end of
the island.This was the beginning of the first and most powerful bombing strike
of the entire history of Peenemünde. Five hundred and ninety-seven fourengined
bombers rained down thousands of high-explosive and incendiary
bombs on the prohibited area and nearby settlement. One wave of bombers
followed another, carpet-bombing the production buildings, test-rig facilities,
and laboratory buildings.A total of 1.5 million kilograms of high-explosive and
incendiary bombs were dropped. The local air defense proved powerless but
night fighter aircraft urgently called in from Berlin shot down 47 American
B-25 Flying Fortresses.
Seven hundred and thirty-five Peenemünde residents were killed—among them
were many leading specialists, including chief engine designer Dr. Walter Thiel.
After hearing of the scale of the attack, Luftwaffe Deputy Commander Colonel
General Jeschonnek, who was directly responsible for the air defense system of that
area, committed suicide. But Dornberger and von Braun did not lose heart.They
assured the chief of Himmler’s security service, SS Obergruppenführer Ernst
Kaltenbrunner, that the Peenemünde survivors would be able to overcome the
aftermath of the catastrophe. Operations were slowed down but not halted.The air
war against Peenemünde confirmed again that it was quite impossible to stop
experimental weapons development operations using conventional aviation
bombers, even such powerful ones.
This example of the Peenemünde team’s tenacity was one more piece of
evidence against Douhet’s celebrated doctrine which counted on the use
of conventional means of air attack.
As a result of the Peenemünde bombing in August 1943, the Wehrmacht decided
to create a backup research test range in Poland to continue the optimization of
the A-4 and to bring it to the point of reliability for combat.
At the same time, the military was tasked with intensifying the training of troop
formations to service combat launchers. To accomplish this, Himmler proposed
using the SS Heidelager test range in Poland, which was located in the Debica area
between the Vistula, Wisloka, and San Rivers. The test range’s line of fire went
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