INSIDE THE RACE TO DESTROY THE WORLD'S FIRST BALLISTIC MISSILE

ON THE DAMP and dreary evening of September 8, 1944, Sapper Bernard Browning hurried through western London toward the Chiswick train station.

- BY JOHN BROICH

The young soldier, on military leave, was eager to see his girlfriend. The city hummed with cautious optimism—Allied forces had nearly driven the Germans from France, Soviet armies were advancing from the east, and the Americans and British had just liberated Brussels. The war seemed to be winding down. Checking his watch, Browning quickened his pace.

At 6:40 p.m., without warning—no air raid siren, no engine noise—an explosion tore through Staveley Road in Chiswick. The blast carved a 20-foot-wide crater, completely destroying 11 houses and damaging 27 more, shattering windows all around. Three-year-old Rosemary Clarke suffocated in her cot. Ada Harrison managed to crawl out of the rubble. Robert Stubbs, who had been blown 20 feet by the blast, was now staggering toward the ruins to help her; the 60-something-year-old woman died in his arms. Twenty-two other people were injured.

Browning never reached the train.

Bombing raids were a constant threat for locals, but this made no sense—there were no bombers in the air. In fact, with Luftwaffe planes no longer threatening Britain, Londoners had been sharing rumors that the blackout restrictions, which had darkened the city to prevent bomber targeting for years, might soon be lifted.

Arriving shortly after the incident, government officials declared it was likely a gas main explosion. Yet Londoners who had survived the Blitz, the fierce German bombing campaign of 1940-'41, exchanged skeptical glances; they knew the difference between utility accidents and weapons of war. This was something else entirely, something new.

As the search for survivors continued into the dark, officials maintained their story. But in secure government rooms across London, grim-faced intelligence staff knew the truth. The thing that struck Chiswick without warning was something they'd long feared.