Hitler's Terror Weapons, Brooks, Geoffrey [cat reading book .txt] 📗

the Norwegian Industrial Workers’ Museum. In correspondence the curator, Frode Saeland, referred to construction work begun by the Germans on the 5,700-feet Gaustad mountain peak about 50 miles from Oslo which he thought might be worth investigating. The Norwegian Government in exile had concluded at the time that it was a station for forecasting air activity over southern Norway, working in parallel with a similar station on a mountain top at Skavlen near Sauda.

Extracts from Norwegian books published in 1946 and 1980 respectively164 described the Gaustad installation as “the biggest and most expensive radio installation built by the Germans in Norway”, while Skavlen was a radar base. The construction work on Gaustad peak began in early October 1944, probably in the same week the SS took over at Ohrdruf in the Harz. The mountain and surrounding district were sealed off and huge quantities of sand, cement and building materials were taken to the 5,700-foot peak by caravans of mules. A telephone line was laid from Gausta to the valley of West Fjord. Day and night German reconnaissance aircraft circled above the activity while from below machinery could be heard working at all hours. The German regional commander was once overheard to use the expression “V-centre Gaustad Mountain Top”. The work progressed with such urgency that small platforms, large aerial masts and small huts could soon be made out. For the eventuality of air attack the Germans had brought in enormous flak resources on the other side of the valley. The area around the cable car terminus was an absolute confusion of gun emplacements, ammunition dumps and barracks.

The information from Frode Saeland ties in very precisely with a report by the Stockholm Special Correspondent of the English newspaper The Daily Mail, Ralph Hewins, who in his article appearing in the 9 December 1944 edition Nazis Will Run V-War From Norway spoke of reports from the Norwegian resistance that the Germans were rushing to complete new V-bases in Norway to make up for their lost sites in the west. The main bases were on the peaks of southern Norway’s highest mountains, the 5,700-foot Gaustad, 50 miles west of Oslo, two 5,200-foot heights north of Bergen, and various other high points as far north as Trondheim. There was thought to be an important base on the wild, high and windswept Hardanger Plateau. Contrary to policy on the European continent where a slave labour force was used for large-scale construction work, Organization Todt was using only German labourers at Gaustad. Up to a hundred square miles of the terrain was cordoned off and patrolled by battalions of mountain troops and SS. Building materials were being brought up not only manually but by light railway and cable-car systems slung across valleys and chasms.

Mr Hevins then described the “firing positions”, which consisted of huge concrete halls embedded deep in rock, each with a semi-circular roof of reinforced concrete. At firing, the launching platform was extended through the hangar entrance along a runway.

The very salient point puzzling all experts, however, was why the bases were being built on the highest and most inaccessible peaks: neither the V-1 nor V-2 required height for a successful launch. Additionally one might add that neither was manufactured in Norway. These enormous rockets and flying bombs would have had to be transported in batches from Germany to Oslo by sea – a dangerous undertaking by 1944 – then shipped overland to Gaustad and brought up the 5700-foot mountain by mule or cable-car. This enables us to rule out the V-1, V-2 and anything series-produced, remote-controlled or otherwise. Obviously, the monumental radio and radar system and the ‘firing’ halls were all meant for a super-secret ‘aircraft’ which operated from V-Centre Gaustad.

That the neutral Swedes were highly indignant at German infringements of their airspace by what they alleged were remote-controlled flying bombs is evident from the following newspaper cuttings of the time. On 14 October 1944 Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snallposten of Malmö under a heading Boomerang-Bomb from the Hardanger High Plateau? said that heavy construction work of a secret nature being carried out by the Germans on the sealed-off Hardanger Plateau north of Rjukan had reached such a stage as to lead one to suspect that it had to do with a secret weapon project and “it is not impossible that they are launch ramps for robot-bombs and that the flying bombs which crossed southern Sweden today were fired from there”.

In a separate article Robot Aircraft over Skane the same newspaper said that “a foreign robot aircraft – probably a flying bomb” crossed over Sweden that afternoon, flying from west to east or north-east at great velocity. The aircraft was at so high an altitude that it could not be seen even using binoculars. However, it left a very long white condensation trail which could be seen clearly. The engine made a noise reminiscent of a four-engined bomber. The speed of the aircraft exceeded the velocity of the newest fighter aircraft. From all this we deduce that the aircraft was a multi-engined, possibly remote-controlled, compressed-air-launched missile resembling a boomerang which brings to mind various Horten brothers’ designs, including the cresent-shaped Parabola.

The Svenska Dagbladet for 14 October 1944 reported another infringement of Sweden’s airspace by a flying bomb the previous morning. On 28 October the London Daily Telegraph carried a report of an announcement of the Swedish Military Staff that a “small number of robot or rocket bombs were seen flying high over southern Sweden this afternoon”. It is not clear from this article if the objects were in formation or overflew singly. On 15 January 1945 the London Daily Express reported an infringement of Swedish airspace by flying bombs the previous day. The objects came from the north-west and were believed to have originated from the Hardanger Plateau. On 20 January 1945 Ralph Hewins of the Daily Mail reported that Swedish military authorities were compiling a dossier of infringements of their airspace by German flying bombs for a diplomatic protest to Berlin. Quoting an expert