Fieseler Fi.103 - V1

Antwerp, 13 October 1944.

On this beautiful late summers day, there was an exuberant atmosphere in the city. A few weeks earlier Antwerp had been liberated from the hated Germans and the population resumed the carefree life of before the war.

A loud bang at noon and the city shook to its foundations. A hitting bomb? But there was no plane to be seen...

It eventually turned out that a V2 flying bomb had struck near the Museum of Fine Arts in the Schildersstraat.

The newspapers had already mentioned the new weapons V1 and V2 with which the Germans sowed death and destruction in London, but in Antwerp? A new era of terror had begun....

The first V1 (Vergeltungswaffe Eins), the "secret weapon" long heralded by Hitler, was fired on London on June 13, 1944.

The first V1 fell in Schoten on July 8, 1944, but this was a stray one that was intended for London.

The launch took place from France for targets in Great Britain and from the Netherlands targetting the port of Antwerp.

Aircraft were initially used against the V1: either they were shot out of the air - not without danger - or they were unbalanced with a wing tip, causing them to crash.

To defend Antwerp, additional anti-aircraft defences were set up around the city: 600 guns and 22.000 men under the command of General Armstrong were responsible for this. They fired 968.183 shells.

The defence against the V2 was a different story. This rocket flew faster than sound, so they could not be heard or seen coming. It was therefore decided to use bombers to destroy the launch bases near The Hague. A failed attempt left 520 civilian deaths and 10.000 people were left homeless. One of the last rockets fired fell on Mortsel.

The deadliest attack on Antwerp happened on December 16, 1944 when a bomb fell on the Rex cinema, killing 567, including 296 soldiers.

In a first reaction, all cinemas and theatres were closed.

The last V1 fell on Antwerp on March 30, 1945.

There were 2.448 V1 and 1.261 V2 hits, of which 515 on the city and 302 in the harbour, resulting in 4,500 casualties.

The V1 bombs were fired from a metal launch pad. The rig, whose trajectory and range were pre-arranged, was catapulted by a piston that slid into a shaft pressurized by gasses produced by a chemical reaction. At the end of the 50m long platform, the bomb reached a speed of almost 400 km/h; the piston came loose and the flying bomb continued its flight powered by a pulsejet engine. At the height of the action, the Luftwaffe units fired 2 bombs per hour and per launch unit.

Once above the set target, the fuel supply was cut off and the V1 went into a dive and then... boom.