Deny a nation its right to development, and it will do it covertly. Limit the size of its army, and it will raise the quality of each soldier to the highest level. Place constraints upon the size of its warships, and it will develop the most efficient, lightweight, state-of-the-art vessels in history. Tell it to eschew airships, and — who knows? — it might even opt to develop space rockets instead. A victorious nation should always seek to dignify the population of a defeated state, for they have often suffered greatly during the conflict imposed upon them by their leaders; humiliating them will never augur well for the future. In considering secret weapons in the context of World War II, we can see that their origins lay long before the outbreak of war.
For today’s citizen, the secret weapons of World War II should be seen as a mainstream matter, not a specialist subject; for they reveal how rapidly science and technology can advance. Projects that meandered indifferently for decades acquired a dramatic momentum and developed faster than ever before in history. Given a similar sense of urgency, could we not introduce ways to sequestrate carbon dioxide, capture geothermal power, produce superabundant food without despoiling the landscape and conquer diseases like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis? Rapid results provided the key to the secret development of weapons of World War II, and we have not yet learnt how to generate the same sense of urgency in peacetime.
The one exception I could cite would be the vision of a man on the moon, which President John F. Kennedy put to the American nation on 12 September 1962. He promised America that their great nation would have a man walking on the lunar surface within a decade — and the speech fired up the nation in a frenzy of support. He found, uniquely in peacetime, a common cause to bring energies together, and the rate of progress until the moon was reached paralleled the efforts made during World War II. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon on 21 July 1969; the whole project had been successfully telescoped into less than seven years. So — it can be done. Before, however, we reach the conclusion that it’s easy to fire up innovation and the speed of progress in peacetime, we should reflect on one crucial matter: the race to the moon was performed by teams led by the German rocket engineers who invented the world’s first space rocket, the V-2. The impetus we saw in the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) was a continuation of the culture of wartime Germany, harnessed this time for the purposes of peace. Even here, it was secret weapons that pointed the way ahead.
The essential lesson of history is that people never learn from the lessons of history. The secret science of World War II, and its legacy in the wars we wage today, arose from that unchangeable fact.
CHAPTER 2
FLYING WEAPONS: SECRET AIRCRAFT
Aircraft of every conceivable size and shape appeared during World War II. Throughout the war, and in the years immediately preceding it, both Allied and Axis forces produced novel aircraft of increasingly sophisticated design and increasingly impressive specifications, as well as incredible new missiles that paved the way to the future, as we shall see in the next chapter. Mustangs, Messerschmitts, the Zero and the legendary Spitfire are all remarkable aircraft and between them they altered the course of the war. Many planes that had been developed in peacetime were converted from civilian to military use. Thus, for example, the Douglas DC-3 airliner was modified to become the legendary Douglas C-47 Dakota, the military transport Skytrain. Over 10,000 of them were produced in California at Long Beach and Santa Monica, and also at Oklahoma City. Similarly, in Seattle, Boeing had launched their B-247, the world’s first all-metal airliner, in 1933. They moved on to commence design of the larger B-322 in 1934, and in 1940 were given a contract to convert the aircraft for military use. It became the B-29 Superfortress bomber.
Although all these aircraft played a crucial role in World War II, not one of them was a secret. Only the Germany military establishment produced an astonishing range of top-secret flying devices, some of which defy the imagination, and many of which led to future technology.
But in the years leading up to the war, it wasn’t aircraft that dominated the airways, but huge dirigible airships. Some were still in use throughout World War II — but where did they begin? A dirigible is a lighter-than-air balloon which can be driven forward and steered. Those that don’t have an internal skeleton to support the shape of the balloon are known as blimps; a true airship has a framework that provides its shape with fins and motors to drive it forward and steer it. They began with a French enthusiast, Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier, who flew across the English Channel in 1785, in a balloon fitted with moveable wings (for propulsion) and a fan-tail (with which to steer). A design for a steam-powered dirigible featured in the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, and in the following year Henri Giffard flew 12 miles (20km) from Paris to Trappes in a steam-driven airship. By 1884, the French were flying an airship 170ft (52m) long and lifted with 66,000ft3 (1,900m3) of hydrogen. It was powered by an electric motor running from a battery weighing 960lb (413kg). In 1896 an engineer from Croatia, David Schwarz, designed a metal-covered airship which was first flown at Tempelhof airfield, Berlin, shortly after he had died that year. His widow, Melanie Schwarz, was paid 15,000 Marks (almost $100,000 today) for the details of Schwarz’s research by a retired military enthusiast who was fascinated by the idea of building a huge airship of his own.
The person who bought the plans was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Although several versions were at work at the dawn of the twentieth century, including those of the French and Italians, it was the Zeppelin airships that came to dominate. Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ-1 was first flown in 1900, with the LZ-2 following in 1906. The Zeppelin airships had a frame made of light alloy girders that contained separate gas cells and were covered with fabric. They captured the public imagination, and in 1908 H. G. Wells published The War in the Air which described how airships could attack and obliterate entire cities. In 1912, an Italian airship was sent on reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines and this was the first military use of an airship. The German airships continued to be a success; by the start of World War I they had already carried 37,250 passengers on 1,600 flights lasting 3,200 flying hours and covering 90,000 miles (144,840km) without an accident. Airships would play a crucial role during this first global conflict but the technology behind them would also influence technological developments in World War II and beyond.