It's early morning on 13th June ,1944, at an anti-aircraft battery in the district of Woolwich, London.
The men pass their time by the water tanker, telling stories trying to keep awake.
It’s been two weeks since the last air raid, and a week since the last time the sirens had screamed their dreadful warning,
coinciding with the allied landings on Normandy.
But they weren’t foolish enough to rest easy, they’ve been warned by their superiors
that the Germans plan to get revenge with new and novel weapons.
Suddenly the air raid sirens come to life, pulling the men out of their discussion.
They run for their posts and man a 40mm Bofors anti-air gun.
Before their eyes there’s a strange sight, not the sweeping searchlights illuminating
the clouds for a swarm of bombers, but instead all focused on a single fast-approaching spot in the sky.
The gunner prepares his aim and opens fire.
The rhythmic bangs of the gun come to life as the mysterious enemy dashes overhead at astonishing speeds,
sweeping the landscape with a deep and deafening buzz.
The gunner turns the weapon as fast as he can but the strange machine outruns him and he scores no hits.
The men watch astonished as it flies away, the light of its fire-spitting engine obvious to see.
One of the soldiers exclaims “They hit him! It’s on fire!”
But he was wrong.
The machine continues on its path towards central London, untouched by the harassment from the Anti-air weapons.
Then, the engine cuts and the land is shrouded in chilling silence.
Moments later an explosion is heard in the distance.
The machine struck on Grove Road just 2km from the tower of London.
It's a weapon unlike anything seen before.
Flying to its target with no pilot at the controls, carrying a deadly warhead,
and launched from the safety of enemy territory hundreds of kilometers away.
It's the world's first-ever cruise missile.
The V1 flying bomb.
the nature of the attack left them stumped.
Its high speed, small size, and low altitude completely throws off a defensive strategy perfected to fight big, slow, and high-flying bombers.
On the night of the 16th of June the first mass V1 attack commenced.
German forces launched 244 missiles across the channel.
The 3.7 inch anti-aircraft weapons were completely out of their element,
they were too slow to turn and their fire-control systems couldn’t calculate a firing solution before the target was already long gone,
smaller anti-aircraft weapons had better luck in striking down 21 Doodlebugs as they became known with great effort,
but they were nowhere near effective enough.
Meanwhile in the air, pilots were having a frustrating time.
Radar stations struggled to provide location information quickly enough, leaving the pilots little time to act before the missile reached London.
Even those who did acquire targets found them hard to engage.
The Merlin powered Spitfires were too slow to keep up with the missiles,
and the few pilots that did shoot down a target were being surprised with the V1 detonating violently in the air, endangering the pilots.
As news of this threat circulated in the radio pilots were forced to fire from further away, making the shot even harder,
and the window of opportunity even smaller.
By the dawn of the 17th of june fighters had shot down 12 flying bombs.
Meanwhile, over 100 explosions rocked British soil, with 73 striking London.
Immediately the Royal Air Force got to work. This could not happen again.
The entire strategy was reworked and multiple new inventions were greenlit.
Retrofits to AA guns for faster traverse, new rules of engagement, better communication channels for radar, barrage balloons and much more.
They were all tested and deployed in record time.
But the most important piece of the puzzle was the fighters.
Fighters capable of keeping up with the flying bombs in numbers large enough
to keep a constant presence in the sky, ready to repel any and all attacks.
Immediately several squadrons armed with the fastest fighters already in service
were summoned to the area between Pa de Calais and London, these forces included Mosquitos, Hawker Tempests, Hurricanes, and more.
Anything and everything that stood half a chance was brought forward.
But one aircraft in particular stood out.
The Griffon-powered Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIV.
It was a modification of the iconic aircraft that had the equally iconic Merlin engine swapped for a much more powerful and complex Griffon engine.
With a top speed of 718km/h and keeping the excellent maneuverability of the famous fighter, it promised to be exactly the weapon they needed.
Among the units assigned the task of interception, stationed to the squadron, is Australian national
Field Officer Kenneth Roy Collier equipped with the famous Spitfire Mk. XIV.
Collier is on a patrol of England’s south coast which he later described as “rather dull.”
He had already taken down a flying bomb earlier in the evening so his ammunition was running low.
He’s thinking about returning to base when he takes another look towards the coast and spots another V1 flying in over the shore.
He knows he’s got hardly any ammunition but with no other real option he turns his trusty Spit towards the incoming target.
He tracks the V1 carefully as he prepares to attack, he’s only going to have one shot at this.
He takes a deep breath, and dives.
His Spitfire rapidly picks up speed as he comes in fast from above, the cigar-shaped bomb drifting into his crosshairs.
Collier pulls the trigger. It’s a short burst as the target grows in his sights but he witnesses all of his bullets fall short.
Rapidly getting too close for comfort he readjusts and fires again.
His cannons unleash the last of the ammunition reserves in a desperate last shot, the bullets
fly true and on target and they strike the bomb’s metal fuselage.
But… nothing happens.
Collier can’t believe his eyes as the flying bomb continues on its path, undisturbed.
His voices has disappointment into the void as he pulls up alongside the V1.
With no ammunition he can do nothing but watch as the bomb trundles onward, steady and unobstructed.
He would later state “It gave me a feeling of powerlessness to sit there watching it travel on and not be able to stop it.”
He keeps watching it for a while, observing every detail.
He attempts to read the German writings on the body but he can’t understand it.
The tail section of the bomb catches his eye as he spots the elevators and rudder wiggling non-stop,
the gyro constantly adjusting to keep the machine on target.
It’s then when he gets an idea.
Carefully he maneuvers his Spitfire’s wing underneath the wing of the bomb, moving slowly but surely.
His laser focused on the distance separating them,
being exceptionally careful as a midair collision would likely leave nothing of him and the plane.
But then he realizes the bomb’s wing is shining red! Instinctively he pulls away from the strange side,
part of his mind fearing the bomb might be red hot.
But almost immediately afterwards he realizes the red shine had come from a navigation light on the tip of his own wing.
Calming down and feeling a little foolish he once again maneuvers his Spitfire until the V1’s wing gently comes into contact with his own.
Collier’s heart skips a beat halfway expecting it to detonate upon contact, but nothing happens.
Gently he tilts up his wing, twisting the bomb in the air until it slides right off,
but to Collier’s disappointment the V1 immediately straightens itself out and continues on its flight.
But Collier isn’t ready to give up. He knows gyroscopes, he knows that if he can get it deviated enough the gyro will fail.
He only needs to do it harder.
Once again he expertly maneuvers his machine into position and lifts up the V1’s wing, but as it begins to slide off like last time,
Collier flicks his stick and throws the V1’s wing upwards.
The flying bomb rolls over in the air and its gyro becomes overwhelmed, it falls earthbound as it spins wildly out of control.
Collier looks at it go until it impacts in an empty field and detonates with a breathtaking shockwave sweeping the landscape.
He would later state; “I felt absolutely jubilant and a bit staggered, I think I said to myself ‘Gee, it CAN be done that way’.”
Collier’s exploits would gain local fame as the madman who “tipped” a bomb.
After Collier, multiple pilots discovered that they could maneuver their wing under the V1’s and flip them over in the air, throwing off the gyro.
The news spread across the force and many repeated the feat when facing weapon failures and depleted ammunition.
The V-1 defense campaign also saw the introduction of the first allied jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor.
They were still prototypes so their pilots struggled with unreliability, but they still performed the first jet versus jet victory in history,
when Flying Officer “Dixie” Dean tipped a flying bomb with his wing after his 20mm cannons jammed.
Just two months after the introduction of the V1, the launch sites in Pa de Calais were systematically captured by the advancing allied forces,
greatly reducing the frequency of V1 attacks towards London.
But that wouldn’t be the end of the German’s terror bombing.
While V1 strikes waned, a new, more sinister weapon lay in store.
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