Operation Hydra — Airstrike on Peenemunde
“The article is being written to know and share about a historical event that is Operation Hydra which was initiated by the British on Nazi Germany during the World War 2 era.”
For a long time, Hitler was very skeptical about rocket research taking place at Kummersdorf and later on at Peenemunde. The things had changed on the 8th of July in 1943 when he was shown a film of a starting rocket and the launch of the monstrous V2, which turned him into a believer as he realized the true potential of this new weapon.
Production of V2 became a priority as Hitler started to believe that those rockets could change the course of the war as the Nazis were busy constructing production line in Peenemunde, the British were preparing to strike the heart of German rocket development site program. The British were gathering intelligence from the start of the war and the first crucial information was sent to them anonymously. The author of the Oslo Report was Hans Ferdinand Mayer, a physicist with a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg and director in the Siemens Company. He was very concerned with the Nazi threat, and after the invasion of Poland, he decided to act. He mailed the initial report to London and shortly afterwards the full report. Mayer himself was reported as listening to BBC where the answer from London was meant to be given. Arrested and sent to the concentration camp, he spent all war in the concentration camp but the Nazis never knew about his treason.
The British dismissed all the data as a work of fiction and planned operation to confuse the allies, but the only person believed in all the information from the Oslo Report. He was a young physicist, RV Jones and for the following months, Verner Von Braun and Walter Dornberger were achieving the big successes with their rockets. In the summer of 1942, another test launch were made. The two first ones, 13th of June and 16th of August were not successful but the A4 rocket launched on 3rd of October had reached an altitude of 80 KM and travelled almost 200 KM. That was astonishing and the birth of the V1, the reprisal weapon. As the Nazis already had the cruise missiles, the V1, this new weapon was designated as V2.
The breakthrough for the British about what was happening at Peenemunde came from an overheard conversation between two Germans prisoners, General Von Toma and Lieutenant General Cruel. They were put in the bugged room and all information learned through there conversation were put in the Air Scientific Intelligence Interim Report finally compiled on the 26th of June 1943. For years the British was stating that the information about the Peenemunde came from the air of reconnaissance. The claims they made, did not receive any information from the Polish resistance, which was a lie. As the Polish intelligence reported in 1941 that the German scientists working on a secret weapon in Peenemunde. In 1942 and 1943 the Polish had even provided the maps and clearly stated in their intelligence report that the Nazis worked on rockets.
In the meantime, another report started to arrive and it was decided to send a reconnaissance flight over Peenemunde. It grew apparent that the rockets produced by Nazis will model a threat to Great Britain and eventually a decision was been made to bomb Peenemunde. The code name of this operation was, “HYDRA.” The British immediately commenced practice runs. The bombing of Peenemunde was intended to be carried from roughly 3,000 meters or 9,000 feet, half of the conventional bombing raids height. The crews were never told the exact nature of their mission, but rather, they were instructed that they were going to bomb a dissimilar radar site. The second covert operation by the name of whitebait was also established. It was a decoy raid of mosquito aircraft being sent to bomb Berlin. The British hoped that this raid just before the Peenemunde attack will divert fighters’ attention, and other squadrons were also dispatched to attack surrounding German airfields to prevent Luftwaffe night fighters to take off.
The main attack took place at midnight of 17th of August 1942. The night sky was quite clear, and it was a full moon night. The first wave of bombers targeted the V2 scientists. When the aircraft got over Pennemunde, there were clouds over the site and the first bombs missed their target. The AAA Guns opened fire, and even ships offshore flak opened fire, but still, there were no fighters to be seen.
The following second wave of Lancaster Bombers directed at the factory workshops, and the third and ultimate wave struck at 48 minutes past midnight striking experimental workshops. The crews of the Lancaster’s and Halifax’s had made an error and dropped bombs with a delay of 30 seconds which might not seem a lot, but that 30 seconds were notably important as their bombs landed in the nearby concentration camp. By that time German Knight Fighters started to appear but it was too late. This night attack brutally showed Nazis that ally knew about their rocket research program.
Instantly it was described to fool the British that they have done irreversible damage to prevent any further raids. The Germans painted dark lines across the roofs to pretend to be fire-blackened beams, and they even dug false bomb crates. Some British bombs had delayed fuses installed, and they were exploding randomly for further several days.
Major General Dr Walter Dornberger later claimed that allies missed two very important installations which consequently minimized the delay in further research. Among the victims were Dr Thiele and Chief Engineer Walter as well as a hundred civilians in the nearby concentration camps. Overall that British Night Raid caused the delay of approximately two months, but the Germans were able to restart the research almost straight away. And all the main scientists were unharmed. Although this attack surprised Nazis in the long-term gains perspective and was rather ineffective. The British aimed at killing as much personnel as they could and destroying as much research and documentation as possible. They have failed in both cases.
