• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    There was also the V-1 flying bomb.

    My father grew up in London during the Blitz. I remember being told by my grandmother that if you heard an engine and looked up and saw a V-1, you just started saying to yourself, “keep going… keep going…” because if you heard the engine stop, you knew you were dead.

    And then my father told me you wouldn’t even know if the V-2 was coming because it flew faster than sound.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      9 months ago

      Pretty intereting to hear about the V-1 and V-2 from the civilian side. My great grandfather helped reverse engineer the damned things furing ww2 and was always annoyed that the germans used them as terror weapons. He thought they would have been of better use as specialized rocket artillery for armored collumns.

      He also worked on the Stuka air break system, which apparently was a pain in his ass since the aircraft he was given was mildly defective which caused him much annoyance.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        They told me about that when I was maybe 10 years old. I’m 46 and I still think about how scary that must have been…