Just one week after the Allies had landed in Normandy in Operation Overlord on 6th June 1944, Nazi Germany began its campaign of so called ‘Vengeance Weapon’ attacks. The first of these were the V1 pilotless aircraft, the forerunners of modern day cruise missiles.
Much has been written about these but I’ve been intrigued about the one that crashed in Cuckfield. As part of my research, I’ve drawn from Colin Dobinson’s exhaustive archaeological work and comprehensive ‘Operation Diver’ book published in 2019.
The Germans had initially planned to begin attacks late in 1943 but the Allies had eventually identified what was being created and tested in Peenemunde on the Baltic coast and the various launch sites that were being built in Northern France.
Production issues and Allied bombing delayed the launch operation until the early hours of Monday 13th June 1944. The Allies, and AA Command in particular, knew these weapons were coming and extensive preparations had been made to combat the threat. What they didn’t know was when they would be launched.
The V1 had a simplistic guidance system and were designed to fly in a straight line and at a steady altitude. With London the target and the launch sites in Northern France around the Pas de Calais area, the V1 that crashed between Sparks and Mizbrooks farms was massively off course.
As Dobinson recounts, the V1s were first spotted in the channel, then by the Coast Guard and Royal Observer Corp post Mike 2 at Dymchurch. The first was tracked inland by various AA units and crashed in a field near Swancombe, Kent, around 04:20am.
This is an approximate track.
The first V1 to cause serious damage and claim life crashed in Bethnal Green which was on a similar trajectory to the first one. There is still debate on whether this or the Cuckfield V1 was the second to crash but we don’t need to worry too much on exact timings as locations are more important.
This is the approximate straight line course the Cuckfield V1 would / should have theoretically taken, which as we can see is completely different, crossing over Hastings instead of nearer Folkstone.
However all three V1s were logged by Dymchurch ROC so the Cuckfield one appears to have malfunctioned somewhere over Kent.
The 27 AA Brigade War Diary contains this excerpt from Biggin Hill Sector searchlight battery BH08.
From this description it appears to have malfunctioned and veered massively off course, fortunately not causing any fatalities.
Further research is required to identify the locations of the various AA Command units but from the description it sounds like the men at the Cuckfield ROC post near Holy Trinity church, probably wouldn’t have seen it. Regrettably very few ROC records remain but Robert Leake, a quantity surveyor living in the High St, was the Head Observer and may well have been on post that morning.
There are two other local connections of note. Firstly former Warden Park teacher Jim Revell was very close to the scene that morning as his son Andy vividly recounts here - https://www.cuckfieldconnections.org.uk/post/1944-flying-bomb-lands-in-cuckfield-a-new-threat-to-england
The second was Major General R FE Whittaker who was the field commander for AA Command. He attended Ardingly College in 1909 and the Mid Sussex Times noted him on the School’s Roll of Honour in the First World War.
Commentaires