Hellmold, Wilhelm Die V1 - Eine Dokumentation

In ten years of work, Wilhelm Hellmold has collected all the facts that allow him to give a well-founded overall account of the V1 flying bomb, not only from a military point of view, but above all in terms of development and armament, as well as from the point of view of the Allied side. In addition to the relevant publications, the author's sources include war diaries of the military units involved, personal conversations with former members of the Wehrmacht and civilians in the V1 launching areas, with former senior engineers at the G. Fieseler aircraft factory and with the head of the American unit that later further developed the V1.

In addition, original documents were made available to the author by survivors of scientists and officers who were involved in the testing and deployment of the V1. This data is used to create a detailed description of the development, technology, testing and deployment as well as the American further development of the V1, underpinned by numerous drawings and diagrams that reflect the technical prerequisites and compare them with similar developments in the aircraft construction sector, in particular with the V2, which was a development of the Army, while the V1 was subordinate to the Luftwaffe.
Hellmold also focuses above all on the economic, organisational and political difficulties with which engineers and military personnel had to contend during the construction of the V1. Extensive evidence is given of the deployment over England and during the Battle of the Bulge, and the actions and reactions of the leading figures, Milch, Hitler, von Braun and others are also described.