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FIRST MANNED
ROCKET LAUNCH
5 1
9
770306
154097
No. 151
£4.25
Number 151
NUMBER 151
© Copyright
After the Battle
2011
Editor: Karel Margry
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Published by
Battle of Britain International Ltd.,
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Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow,
Essex CM17 0NN, England
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The Truppenübungsplatz Heuberg training ground at Stetten am kalten Markt was first
established in 1910. During the First World War it was also used as a POW camp and by
1917 there were 5,000 soldiers undergoing training there alongside 15,000 prisoners of
war. After the war part became a children’s home and hospital, and for nine months in
1933 it was a concentration camp before being taken over the following year by the
Army. During the Second World War it was used as the mobilisation camp for army
units like the 4. Gebirgsjäger-Division in late 1940, and later in 1944-45 for units like the
Indische Freiwilligen-Legion, the Infanterie-Division ‘Italia’, and the Russian 650. Infan-
terie-Division. The French Army took over the base in 1945, being joined from 1957 by
units of the new Bundeswehr. The French presence ended in 1997 when the 3ème
Régiment de Dragons departed. In 1980 Hauptfeldwebel Manfred Hensel, the telecom-
munication officer at Heuberg, published
Chronik des Truppenübungsplatzes und der
Garnison Heuberg,
a thoroughly researched history of the camp and its garrisons.
KIRCHHEIM
CONTENTS
FIRST MANNED ROCKET LAUNCH
2
IT HAPPENED HERE
The Birchington Mine
22
PRESERVATION
The US ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Memorial 28
REMEMBRANCE
German War Graves in Britain
32
UNITED KINGDOM
HM Prison Pentonville during
World War II
37
READERS’ INVESTIGATION
The Empire Air Training Scheme in
Canada
40
Front Cover:
The major exhibit of the
Heuberg Military Museum at Stetten am
kalten Markt is this full-size replica of the
Natter prototype M23 ready for launch with
Lothar Sieber, the test pilot, and Erich
Bachem, the inventor of the rocket
interceptor.
Back Cover:
The German War Cemetery at
Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. (Gail Parker)
Acknowledgements:
For their invaluable
help with the Natter story, the Editor would
like to thank Manfred Hensel, Sonja
Gieschen and Hans Grimm. He also thanks
the Bundeswehr, Thorsten Bretschneider,
the late Thomas J. Dietz of the National Air
and
Space
Museum
(Smithsonian
Institution), Hans Holzer of the Deutsches
Museum, Frau Carmen Krug of Hymer AG,
Hans-Werner Neulen, Christian Payer,
Jürgen Sieber and Franz Straubinger.
Photo Credits:
ECPAD — Mediathèque de la
Défense, Fort d’Ivry; USNA — US National
Archives.
STETTEN
BAD WALDSEE
2
2
M. HENSEL
FIRST MANNED ROCKET LAUNCH
By Jean Paul Pallud
After Operation ‘Millennium’, the first
1,000-bomber raid by RAF Bomber Com-
mand which targeted Cologne on the night of
May 30/31, 1942, the Allied bombing offen-
sive on Germany grew in strength and effec-
tiveness. A five-month-long operation which
began in March 1943 against the Ruhr indus-
trial area was followed at the end of July by
Operation ‘Gomorrah’, a major offensive
against Hamburg, Germany’s second largest
city (see
After the Battle
No. 70). Hamburg
was attacked for eight days and seven nights,
huge firestorms killing 40,000-50,000 civil-
ians. Over 60 per cent of Hamburg’s living
accommodation was destroyed or made
uninhabitable and in the immediate wake
over two-thirds of the population fled the
city. These attacks by both the RAF and
USAAF struck a major blow at German
morale and severely shook the Nazi leader-
ship, leading Hitler to be concerned that sim-
ilar ‘terror’ raids on other cities could force
Germany out of the war.
Although Luftwaffe fighter squadrons
were doing their best to inflict casualties, and
on some raids caused serious losses, they
were still unable to counter the force of the
Allied offensive. Thus a radical solution was
desperately needed.
Back in September 1942, the Luftwaffe
Flak commander, Generalmajor Walther von
Axthelm, had already asked for anti-aircraft
missiles and his request had been developed
by several manufacturers for some months.
Both the Henschel Hs 117 ‘Schmetterling’ and
the Rheinmetall-Borsig ‘Rheintochter’ were
test-flown in 1943, and the EMW ‘Wasserfall’
and Messerschmitt ‘Enzian’ systems were also
On March 1, 1945, Lothar Sieber was the first man ever to take off vertically from the
ground under rocket power. Launched from the Heuberg military training area, proto-
type M23 of the Bachem Ba 349 ‘Natter’ crashed after 55 seconds, killing the pilot.
This scenario, depicting Sieber discussing final take-off instructions with Erich
Bachem, the inventor, just prior to the launch, has been recreated in full-size at the
Truppenübungsplatz Heuberg museum.
3
ATB
USNA
The Natter measured 6.06 metres long and had a wingspan of
3.65 metres, the take-off weight being 2,200 kilos (this data
referring to the A1 model). The wings were plain rectangular
wooden slabs without ailerons or flaps. The cruciform tail con-
sisted of four adjustable fins to control the pitch, yaw, and roll.
The armament in the nose comprised a battery of unguided
rockets (the alternative armament of 24 R4M rockets is shown
here). The two fuel tanks were aft of the rear cockpit bulkhead,
one above the wing spar accommodating 365 litres of T-Stoff,
the other below containing 165 litres of C-Stoff. The Walter
HWK 109-509 main engine generated a maximum thrust of
1,700 kilos but it could be throttled back to 300 kilos. Bolted to
the rear fuselage were four jettisonable Schmidding 109-533
rocket boosters, two per side, which provided a combined
thrust of 4,800 kilos for ten seconds. At lift-off, with all five
motors ignited, the thrust generated was 6,500 kilos and the
resulting acceleration about 2g. After ten seconds of vertical
flight, the exhausted boosters were released automatically and
fell away. At that point the interceptor had reached an altitude
of 1,200 metres and a speed of 880 km/h. The auto-pilot then
engaged to alter the flight path to an angle of 60 degrees
above the horizontal and the machine rocketed to an altitude
of 12,000 metres in a remarkable 60 seconds. Combat time at
this altitude with the motor throttled back to 300 kilos, would
have been less than two minutes. (This post-war sketch was
drawn by Theodor Lässig. Note the boosters are not shown.)
4
The Bachem-Werk’s identity card belonging to Hans Zübert,
the test pilot who flew prototype M8 of the Natter in February
1945. A Heinkel He 111 towed him to an altitude of 5,500
meters from where he tested the flying characteristics of the
machine in a free flight before baling out.
M. HENSEL
T. LÄSSIG
M. HENSEL
A graduate from the Technische Hoch-
schule of Stuttgart, from 1933 Dipl.Ing.
Erich Bachem was the Technical Director
at the Gerhard-Fieseler-Werke, and from
1938 Chief of the Development Depart-
ment. He left Fieseler in 1941 to establish
his own company at Waldsee, 40 kilome-
tres north of Lake Constance, his partner
and co-founder being Willy Fiedler, a
friend from their university days.
Right:
Bachem-Werk personnel in October 1944.
From L-R: Eugen Walter, Friedhelm Christ,
Gebhardt Zorell, Henri Frans Bethbeder,
Paul Wilbrett (standing), Fahrnbauer,
Erich Bachem, Hans Steybe, Willy Fiedler
and Fritz Blessing. Bethbeder was a
Dutchman who had also studied in
Stuttgart and was now head of the Natter
project at the Bachem-Werk. Fielder, who
from September 1942 was the leader of
the industrial testing of the V1, was to
join the Bachem-Werk full time early in
1945 to assume the position of Chief
Designer. In 1948, he moved to the US to
work at the Naval Missile Test Center in
California, and in 1956 joined Lockheed
Aircraft where he worked on the US
Navy’s Polaris ballistic missile.
H. GRIMM
Left:
The entrance to the Bachem-Werk factory as seen during
the war with the gatehouse in the centre and the main produc-
tion hall in background. Located at No. 98 Biberacher Strasse,
Waldsee, the signpost read ‘Bachem-Werk Ltd, Wood and
Metal Construction’. The company name ‘ERIBA’ was taken
soon to be tested. However, although the con-
cept appeared promising, it was clear that a
long development period would still be
required before the problems of missile guid-
ance and fusing were solved. (No efficient
guidance system of the anti-aircraft missiles
reached service application before the end of
the Second World War).
The idea of providing the missile with a
pilot who could control the weapon during
the final phase of the attack might be a short-
term solution and, though the steps that then
occurred within the Reichsluftfahrtminis-
terium (German Air Ministry or RLM) are
not precisely known, in the spring of 1944 the
ministry issued requirements for a rocket-
propelled, point-defence interceptor.
Four aircraft manufacturers, Messer-
schmitt, Junkers, Heinkel and Bachem, pro-
duced designs, all to be propelled by the
same engine: the Walter 109-509 liquid pro-
pellant rocket unit. Three of the competitors,
the Messerschmitt Me P 1104, the Junkers
EF 127 ‘Walli’ and Heinkel P 1077 ‘Julia’,
were somewhat conventional as they were
designed to land back on skids.
The fourth proposal by Dipl.Ing. Erich
Bachem was much more radical. His ‘Natter’
was to be a semi-expendable vertical take-off
interceptor launched from a ramp. Once it
reached the bomber stream, the pilot would
fire a salvo of rockets at one bomber before
gliding away. The machine would then seper-
ate in mid-air, the pilot and the rear part with
the rocket engine landing individually by
parachute. Another feature of the Natter was
its semi-expendability, low-grade, non-essen-
tial materials being used throughout, and
assembled by semi-skilled labour.
The idea was not entirely original in that
Dr Wernher von Braun had already pro-
posed the concept of a rocket-powered, ver-
tical take-off interceptor in 1939 but the
RLM had rejected it at the time as they con-
sidered it offered no tactical advantage. Von
Braun re-submitted the concept in May 1941
but the RLM again rejected it.
Also, the suggestion of a piloted ‘ram
rocket’ was mooted in September 1943 by Dr
Alexander Lippish. His proposal was for a
rocket-propelled aircraft that would take off
vertically and quickly climb to the altitude of
the bombers, reaching 10,000 metres in 40
seconds. The pilot would steer the intercep-
tor to impact with a bomber, its solid, sharp
ramming point slicing through the airframe,
breaking it apart. With its speed and trajec-
tory significantly unchanged by the impact,
the rocket would continue to climb away,
finally decelerating to zero velocity at the top
of its trajectory. The pilot would then release
a parachute which would recover the inter-
ceptor while the pilot would bale out seper-
ately at a lower altitude.
from Erich Bachem’s nickname in his student days, viz, ERIch
BAchem.
Right:
The old main production hall still stands beside
Biberacher Strasse and is now being used for storage by the
Hymer company, a well-known caravan and motorhome
manufacturer.
Aerial view of the Bachem-Werk during the war, with the main production hall in the
centre and gatehouse centre left. Biberacher Strasse can be seen top left.
Men of Waffen-SS Sonderkommando Waldsee on parade in front of the production
hall (out of the picture to the right). The entrance from Biberacher Strasse is in the
background. Under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Flessner, this special
detachment of Waffen-SS comprising unarmed technicians and skilled workers, had a
strength of about 120 men at Waldsee. According to the report compiled in July 1945
by Dr Clark B. Millikan, Bachem-Werk had some 600 employees at Waldsee just before
the arrival of Allied troops, of which about 300 were engaged on the Natter project
including 60 engineers. Dr Millikan was a member of the US Naval Technical Mission
in Europe tasked with investigating the Natter project. The team questioned six com-
pany personnel, including Bethbeder, who were under house arrest at Jerzens after
having been held for some weeks at Camp Haiming in Austria (see pages 18 and 19).
5
H. GRIMM
H. GRIMM
ATB

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