V2

“The first rocket will take five minutes to hit London. You have six minutes to stop the second.”

416 pages

Tearless

Here again is the brilliant Robert Harris and again at his best, or almost so. Almost? Yes, because his historical research, as always, is meticulous but in this book, which he himself emphasises is a novel, he has had to abandon real people, like Dreyfus and his tormentors; like Asquith and his mistress; and to create his own. Consequently, alas, they sometimes seem to lack credibility.

The heroine, a 20s-something English WAAF Photographic Intelligence officer, seems to have a lustful appetite, first for her married boss, some 15 years older, and then, on arrival in liberated Belgium, for the lad in her Digs, who turns out to be a Nazi-sympathiser. And the hero, a mid-30s German scientist, colleague of Werner von Braun, seems to have a minimal sexual appetite but spills the beans to a young Dutch Resistance girl in a brothel.

There are of course many ‘real people’ to lend weight to the whole V-2 story; the brilliance of the pre-War German research, development and (slave labour) logistic support. And the intriguing hastily-assembled British counter-strategy.

But the fascination and dynamism of this almost un-put-down-able tale is its record of the times, in both Britain and Germany – and Belgium. In this, Harris paints a technicolour but drab war-weary picture. I had no idea that Antwerp, newly liberated by the Allies and the only major continental port in their hands, was also subjected to V-2 attack. And I had thought that the only launch-pad for V-2s was at Peenemunde on the north-east German coast. Wrong: V-2s were also launched from moveable sites, like some of the later doodle-bugs were from NW France, but later for the V-2s, from forests at Scheveningen, near The Hague, in Belgium.  And it is this latter site upon which the main thrust of this book focuses.

The German V-2 onslaught on London was more then impressive: For example, in successive early weeks, 12, 35, 27, and 40 V2s, all with a devastating death toll. No wonder there was a second exodus of children from London, evacuated to safety in the countryside. My wife was one of them.

And do our disparate heroine and hero ever meet? Why ever should they?

A cracking good read; and some interesting history providing much scope for future thought.