AS WE approach the 70th commemoration of the Normandy D-Day landings, Sully author and Second World War veteran Eileen Younghusband will be giving an illustrated talk on the hunt for Hitler’s V2 rockets during the last year of the war in Barry Library on Monday evening, March 10.
The V2 rocket was one of Hitler’s ‘vengeance’ weapons, being a ballistic rocket against which there was no defence once it was fired.
Based in north France and Belgium, thousands of these weapons were fired against London and south-east England following the D-Day landings in June 1944.
Just like during the first Gulf War, when Coalition troops sent teams beyond the front line looking for Iraqi Scud missiles, so too did a hunt take place for Hitler’s V2 rockets.
A former WAAF officer, Eileen was one of a team who located the firing sites of the rockets using nothing more complicated than a slide rule. They only had a short time to do this, before the rocket launchers moved to a new site, just like Saddam’s Scud missiles many decades later.
Once a site had been located RAF Mosquito bombers were called in to deal with the rocket launcher and its crew.
Eileen will be giving her illustrated talk at Barry Library from 6.30pm to 7.30pm on Monday.
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