AGD             The wartime V1s (Doodlebugs)                        17 Nov 2006

Although they were deadly, the residents of London seemed to have cosy affinity for these little beasts.  I was about 17 when they started to arrive.  To someone who doesn't remember the war, this must seen like a lunatic obsession.  But I feel I was as sane as the rest of the population.  Germany was an inventive country, and the V1s were clever.  They were launched from strips in France, Belgium and Holland.  But it was the motor that was the most inventive part of the flying bomb.  It was what is called a "ramjet".  The engine requires to be moving through the air for it to work effectively.  I believe the device was launched by an auxiliary method to gain airspeed, and when it was airborne, the motor took over and propelled the machine forward at a high speed with a very crude engine  It was just about possible for aeroplanes like the Spitfire to match the V1, but as the speed was at just about the fighter's limit, it was difficult to shoot the beast down.

There was about a ton of high explosive on board, and it did a lot of damage where it landed.  There was a house in Hounslow that I passed on my way to work at Greenford.  I really didn't notice the house until I returned home in the evening when the building was just a pile of bricks with pieces of wood mixed up with the debris.  A doodle-bug had landed on the house during the day.  I don't know if anyone was injured or killed, it was just a scene I passed on my pushbike as I rode home from Greenford to Hampton.

I believe I saw the very first doodlebug crossing the skyline when I was working at a gunsite in Richmond Park.  As an apprentice electrician, I worked for a Teddington company who had a contract with the MoD to do electrical work in gunsite control rooms.  The actual gunsite had  four 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns. As soon as action stations was declared we were kicked out of the half-submerged building.  We had nowhere to go other than stand outside and watch whatever was going on.  I saw a tiny plane somewhere to our east that was being fired at by another gunsite.  We could see the airbursts all around the plane.  Our little group suddenly exclaimed "They've got him" as the plane dived towards the ground.  We weren't aware of the doodlebugs at that time, and thought that this plane had been hit by the ack ack fire.  It wasn't until about a week later that we learned of the nature of this new type of weapon.  It had probably dived towards the ground as part of its pre-programmed plan.

As time went on we learned more about the beasts.  There were two compressed air bottles on board.  One to control the engine in some way, the other to control the flight surfaces.  Depending on which bottle ran out first depended the mode of descent.  If the engine bottle ran out first, the engine would cut out and the plane could coast for many miles.  However if the aerofoils were not controlled, the plane suddenly took a powered nosedive.  This was what probably happened to the one that I witnessed.

The doodle-bugs got their name from the doodling noise that the engine made.  It was highly distinctive, even when it was at a very low level compared to the background noise. And at that time traffic was very light.  The doodling sound was audible from many miles away.  You could be indoors doing something, and suddenly be aware of the doodle.  Because the weather was mainly good during this period of the war, we would dash outside and look towards the south to see if we could spot the beast.  If you saw it, you knew what to do.  If it was close, you hurriedly returned to the house and got into the cupboard under the stairs. This was the safest place to be if the building collapsed.  You would wait until you were rescued, with the stairs and other timber holding up the debris above you.  If the doodlebug was far away, you watched to see where it was going.  It might be well over to your right or left.  "Some poor bugger's going to get it".  You waited until you either saw the plane take a dive or until you heard the bang.  With little public transport about, the background noise was quite low.

The RAF pilots managed to divert a number of doodle bugs by flying alongside them and getting one wing under the enemy's wing and flipping it upwards. The fighter pilot could regain control of his plane, but the doodle-bug didn't have the ability to recover from this sort of  assault.  There were a lot of holes in Kentish fields about that time where a  ton of explosive had landed.  But the fighter pilot had to have an early warning to be able to intercept the doodle-bug as it was not possible to catch up with the device as its speed was at about the limit of the fighter's speed.

I was working in the control room at another ack ack site in Richmond Park when I heard an immense bang outside.  The sparks and I were told later that  a Bofors gun had been depressed to minus five degrees for cleaning, and a round up the spout had been fired.  The shell had ricocheted off the ground and passed between two Nissan huts where two ATS girls were standing.  The round went through a thin fence and exploded on hitting a brick wall.  The 40mm (1 1/2")diameter  shell was not up to the 4.7 " shell, but would have been deadly if it had exploded close to a person.  I never heard whether anyone got disciplined over the fact that a round was in the gun when the barrel was depressed to clean it.  If no-one  split on the rest, the crime may well have been covered up.  It was claimed that a Bofors shell would explode if it hit a sparrow in the air.  I suspect that this was "just a story"

On another occasion, I was on a gunsite when a doodle-sound attracted my attention.  I looked up to the south the see this bug coming towards me from about a mile away.  Suddenly the sound disappeared and the plane coasted silently towards me.  I wasted no time ad got down on my face behind a Nissan hut and waited.  And I waited, and waited, and eventually got back on my feet only to see the plane a long way to the north disappearing into the haze.  I eventually heard a faint bang in the distance.  But I was covered in tar.  I didn't examine the ground before I got on my face behind the hut.  I didn't know whether to be annoyed or pleased.  Mum wasn't pleased when I got home with tar all down the front of me.  Was it good news or bad news?