V-1 Rocket Found in Polish Desert

The remains of a World War II German V-1 rocket were found in the Błędow Desert in Poland by members of the Pasjonaci Historii Polonia Minor (History Enthusiasts of Lesser Poland) group.

In researching the history of the desert, one of the group’s members came across old film footage of German V-1 tests. He began searching the area and its periphery for any traces of the weapon.You can read more about this discovery in this TVP World article.

I’m sure that many of you, like me, didn’t know that Poland has a desert! The Błędow Desert is located northeast of Kraków. Occupying a relatively small area of about 12 square miles (32 sq. km), it’s Central Europe’s largest accumulation of loose sand in an area away from any sea. The desert has been used as a military proving ground since the beginning of the 20th century.

After Germany invaded and occupied Poland in 1939, German forces established a weapons testing ground in the Błędow Desert. They also used the desert as a training ground for troops and equipment — it was here that the German Afrika Korps trained before deployment in North Africa.

In 1944, intelligence reports from the Polish Underground disclosed that the Germans had been testing five-ton missiles in the Błędow Desert. These, it turned out, were V-1 rockets, also known as a ‘wunderwaffe’ (wonder weapon) to the Germans.

To the British, they were “buzz bombs” or “doodlebugs,” as V-1s began bombarding England on June 13, 1944, exactly one week after the D-Day Allied landings in Normandy. The world’s first operational cruise missile, the V-1’s pulsejet engine, based on rapid, intermittent combustion, produced a very loud buzzing sound.

Approximately 10,000 were fired at England before the end of the war, with about 2,400 reaching London and resulting in more than 20,000 deaths and injuries.

In his book On Wings of War, Polish 303 Squadron fighter ace Jan Zumbach describes how the fighter squadrons went after the V-1s:

“Almost simultaneously [with D-Day] the spluttering growl of the ‘doodlebugs’ — the V1s — started sounding in the skies over London. We had to find an immediate answer to these flying bombs, or pilotless planes, which were raining down on England….

“It was an absorbing game — a kind of aerial shooting gallery — but dangerous, as several of my pilots learned to their cost. To start with, they were approaching too close before opening fire, and getting caught in the blast. After a couple of days we found that the safe range was 200 yards. Later we invented a more entertaining answer, which involved flying cheek to cheek with a V1, then flipping it over with a wing-tip. This sent it off course, and it would veer away with its engine still roaring, to come down harmlessly in the Channel.

“The Germans soon caught on to this trick, and came up with the ingenious device of fitting small explosive charges to the underside of the V1’s wings. Two of my pilots were blown to pieces when they made contact, and we had to revert to the original technique of shooting them down at a distance.” (pp. 85–86)