The Battle of the V Weapons 1944-45

New York: William Morrow & Company, 1965. Presumed First U. S. Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. 191, [1] pages. Occasional footnotes. Illustrations. Maps. Diagrams. DJ has some wear, tears and soiling and is in a plastic sleeve. Chronological Summary. Appendix: V.1 and V.2. Bibliography and Sources. Index. Basil Collier (1908-1983), full name John Basil Collier, was a British author of books of military history, particularly military aviation, World War II and military and political strategy. Collier became a full-time professional writer in 1932. Before the war he was a novelist, travel writer, critic and broadcaster. He was in the Royal Air Force from 1940 to 1948, as a staff officer in Fighter Command to 1944. He worked in the Fighter Command HQ underground operations room and handled secret Ultra material from Bletchley Park. He assembled information about German long-range weapons, going to France and Belgium in late 1944, to investigate captured sites. He wrote that he was ...the member of the intelligence staff of ADGB responsible for keeping the Chief Intelligence Officer, Vorley Harris and the Air Officer Commanding Sir Roderic Hill, informed about the threat from the rocket." From 1944 to 1945 he was at SHAEF headquarters in Versailles. At the end of the war in Europe he was appointed Air Historical Officer, Fighter Command. After leaving the RAF in 1948, he went to the Cabinet Office as a historian and wrote the official history volume The Defence of the United Kingdom; giving his address in the preface as Falmer, Sussex. Since 1957 he had been a free-lance writer on military topics. V-weapons, known in original German as Vergeltungswaffen, were a particular set of long-range artillery weapons designed for strategic bombing during World War II, particularly Strategic bombing and/or aerial bombing of cities. They comprised the V-1, a pulsejet-powered cruise missile; the V-2, a liquid-fueled ballistic missile (often referred to as V1 and V2); and the V-3 cannon. All of these weapons were intended for use in a military campaign against Britain, though only the V-1 and V-2 were so used in a campaign conducted 1944-45. After the invasion of Europe by the Allies, these weapons were also employed against targets on the mainland of Europe, mainly France and Belgium. Strategic bombing with V-weapons killed approximately 18,000 people, mostly civilians. The cities of London, Antwerp and Liège were the main targets. 1,115 V-2s were fired at the United Kingdom. The vast majority of them were aimed at London, though about 40 targeted (and missed) Norwich. They killed an estimated 2,754 people in London, with another 6,523 injured. A further 2,917 service personnel were killed as a result of the V-weapon campaign. Since the V-2 was supersonic and could not be heard (and was rarely seen) as it approached the target, its psychological effect "suffered in comparison to the V-1". The V-weapon offensive ended in March 1945, with the last V-2 landing in Kent on March 27, and the last enemy-action incident of any kind on British soil occurred at 09:00 on 29 March 1945 when a V-1 struck a Hertfordshire field.[29] In terms of casualties, their effects had been less than their inventors hoped or their victims feared, though the damage to property was extensive, with 20,000 houses a day being damaged at the height of the campaign, causing a massive housing crisis in south-east England in late 1944 and early 1945.