This fascinating captured German silent film — originally released by the Ordnance Department of the U.S. Army and then subsequently released for the home market by World in Color Productions — shows launches and launch failures of the German V-2 rocket, also known as the A-4. Some of the scenes include shots of Heinrich Himmler seen visiting the V-2 launch site at the (:30) mark. At (:50), a V-2 sits on a launch pad surrounded by support equipment with cables leading to a portable blockhouse or control van (1:00). At (1:30) the rocket is readied for launch and successfully leaves the pad. Two other successful launches are shown. At (2:52), a series of launch failures are shown. At (3:08) a launch takes place that ends due to a guidance failure. The crater the rocket made is seen at the 3:20 mark. A group of German officers survey the wreckage of a Heinkel aircraft that was destroyed in the accident. At (3:55) another successful launch is seen. At (4:30) another launch takes place that ends due to a guidance failure. At (4:53) another impact crater is studied. Wernher von Braun can be seen in the center of the image (5:25), he is the man dressed in a suit. At (5:46),
another launch failure is seen, with the rocket going out of control and crashing spectacularly very close to the launch facility. The huge crater it leaves is shown at (6:35). A little bit closer and America might not have ever had the chance to capture von Braun or use his considerable intellect and knowledge to get to the moon… At (6:50), a V-2 explodes on the launch pad in a catastrophic failure. Firefighters bring the conflagration under control, and the warhead (seen at 7:27) did not detonate.
The V-2 (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, “Retribution Weapon 2”), technical name Aggregat-4 (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile with a liquid-propellant rocket engine was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a “vengeance weapon”, designed to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket also became the first artificial object to cross the boundary of space with the vertical launch of V-177 on 20 June 1944.
Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, first London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a 2011 BBC documentary, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons.
As Germany collapsed, teams from the Allied forces—the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union—raced to capture key German manufacturing sites, guided missiles, rockets and jet powered aircraft. Wernher von Braun and over 100 key V-2 personnel surrendered to the Americans. Through a lengthy sequence of events, a significant portion of the original V-2 team ended up working for the US Army at the Redstone Arsenal. The US also captured enough V-2 hardware to build approximately 80 of the missiles. The Soviets gained possession of the V-2 manufacturing facilities after the war and proceeded to re-establish V-2 production and move it to the Soviet Union.
The Redstone team, led by von Braun, was transferred to NASA on its formation in October 1958. For NASA, this new Marshall Spaceflight Center (MSFC) helped design a series of rockets in the Saturn family.
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
