WWII'S FORGOTTEN V-2 HEIST

In the summer of 1944, a daring mission was launched to retrieve an intact German rocket, recovered by the Polish Home Army, to analyse and counter Hitler’s devastating vengeance weapon

- MAREK SOBIERALSKI

From 13 June 1944, London was enduring deadly V-2 missile attacks, and there was an urgent need for as much intelligence on these new and terrifying weapons as possible. England had already experienced sustained terror bombing by the earlier V-1 rockets. Approximately 10,000 of these were fired towards the country, of which 2,419 reached London, killing over 6,000 people and injuring nearly 18,000. The British developed countermeasures to the V-1, utilising antiaircraft guns, barrage balloons and fighter plane interceptors. But the V-2 was different: it couldn’t be intercepted or shot down because it arrived at its designated target so fast that no warning could be given.

Meanwhile, the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) had managed to recover an unexploded V-2 rocket, and sent it to Warsaw for analysis. There, it was decided that the rocket and vital information should be delivered to the Allies in London. An ambitious and daring plan was quickly developed, but it would run into a number of unexpected difficulties. Operation Most III (British cryptonym, Wildhorn III) was the most famous of a series of missions organised by the VI (Special) Department of the Polish Commander-inChief’s Staff in co-operation with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). These involved flights to and from occupied Poland, bringing intelligence, agents, equipment and Home Army field commanders to London for meetings with the Polish Government in Exile.