First flight Test, Altitude 18,000 Feet; April 16, 1946

The German V-2 rocket, Hitler's "brain child" of World War II, is the grandfather of America's family of large missiles.

Based on findings made by America's Dr. Robert H. Goddard following World War I, the Germans hit a peak production of V-2's during 1944 and 1945 at Peenemunde, and terrorized Allied populations of Europe and England until the end of the war.

The German program started in early 1940, and the first V-2 was launched July 6, 1942. The third missile, launched in October 1942, flew 170 miles and was the first successful V-2 in flight.
Between August 1944 and February 1945, the Germans made some 3,000 rockets with a peak production of 30 missiles in one day. Hitler's production target was for 3,600 rockets in one year.

The Germans had an underground production plant in Nordhausen with a 900,000 square-foot production area. The plant was constructed in two parallel tunnels 500 feet apart, each a mile and a quarter long and cut completely through a mountain.

The main rocket assembly line started at one end of the first tunnel and missiles, moved along on rails, were finished and tested upon reaching the opposite end of the tunnel and were ready for delivery to launching sites.

The second tunnel was used for bringing in units and parts for subassembly lines which were 46 smaller tunnels cross-connecting at strategic points the two main missile arteries.
Subassemblies were channeled to tunnels and timed so that they reached the main assembly line at the time and place required. The total length of the entire tunnel-web was 18 miles.

United States Efforts Focus on White Sands

Operation PaperClip

Operation Paperclip was the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of World War II. The project was originally called Operation Overcast, and is sometimes also known as Project Paperclip.

May 6, 1937: Hindenburg lands in fiery explosion

Hindenburg Disaster
It was the largest airship ever built; over eight-hundred feet long from its nose to its massive tail fins. It was the height of luxury travel and carried over 2,656 people across the Atlantic from Germany to New York and Rio de Janeiro. It was the Hindenburg. In the space of 37 seconds the mighty zeppelin was destroyed in a fire that killed a third of its crew and passengers and left spectators crying in horror.

What caused this catastrophe? Was it negligence, sabotage, or as Hitler called it, "An act of God"?

The first successful dirigible (a balloon that has engines to control its horizontal movement) was built in France in 1852. Although other countries built these types of airships, the Germans quickly became the most advanced in this form of lighter-than-air technology. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a German businessman, built a fleet of experimental dirigibles. The type of airships Zeppelin built were spindle-shaped with a rigid internal steel structure (unlike the flexible bodied blimps common today). Inside the craft were large bags filled with gas that gave the ship its lift as well as catwalks to allow the crew to move back and forth inside the hull to service the airship. Beneath the craft was a gondola which carried the crew and passengers. By 1911 Zeooelin's airship LZ-10 (also known as the Schwaben) was in passenger service and would go onto make 218 flights carrying 1,553 passengers. Zeppelin became so well-known for this type of dirigible that his name soon became synonymous with that type of airship.

Starting in 1914, the beginning of WWI, the Count's zeppelins were used to drop bombs on cities in a number of European countries. They made over fifty raids on London alone, dropping nearly 200 tons of explosives. As the war progressed, however, most of the German's zeppelin fleet was destroyed by British guns or aircraft. The gas that gave them their lift, hydrogen, was very flammable, and even a small bomb hitting a zeppelin could reduce it to ashes in just a few minutes.

After the war Germany again began building large airships. As part of war reparations the Germans built the ZR-3 Los Angeles for the U.S. Navy. In 1928 the Zeppelin Company built what was the most successful passenger dirigible of all time, the Graf Zeppelin.
The Graf Zeppelin was a hundred feet longer than any other airship ever built and stretched 776 feet from nose to tail fins. It was designed as a passenger liner to compete with the ocean liners crossing the Atlantic. With a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour, it cut the time it took to make the trip by more than two-thirds. The passenger cabin was outfitted with drapes and thick carpeting. Dinner was made by professional chefs and was served using silverware, crystal and fine china. Time magazine declared, "Certainly for trans-oceanic trips, the airship is the thing."

The Hindenburg Construction

Some of radio's greatest moments are when the actual event occurs live on the air or while a reporter is recording and the unexpected happens. One such event happened to reporter Herb Morrison on May 6th, 1937 in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith died this weekend at age 97

John Kenneth Galbraith, a Harvard economist and behind-the-scenes political adviser to Democratic presidents, died late Saturday of natural causes. He was 97.

Galbraith’s influence was felt far beyond economic circles. He thought across disciplines, Benjamin Freeman, a Harvard economics professor and friend of Galbraith's said, "Not just in the field (of economics), but broadening the discourse to encompass the world at large.''

This column by William F. Buckley Jr. appeared in the September 28, 2001, edition of National Review Online.

More About Galbraith

Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Empire State Building Celebrates 75 Years

Empire State Building Celebrates 75 Years

By Adam Phillips New York 1 May 2006


Human societies have always built great monuments to celebrate their values. The Egyptians had their pyramids. Medieval Europeans had their great cathedrals. For 20th century Americans, it was the skyscraper that best embodied the power and progress that defined their era.

Today, the undisputed king of American skyscrapers is the Empire State Building, the soaring Art Deco behemoth that opened its doors on May first, 1931, 75 years ago.

It is difficult to tell from the street at the base of the 381-meter tall Empire State Building how monumental a structure it really is. But you know it even before you ride its elevators to the top. In fact, as soon as you step inside the marble-clad lobby, with its Art Deco grillwork, fantastical chrome ornamentation and triumphalist artwork, it's clear this is a landmark, a building like no other in the world.

Lydia Ruth, the Empire State Building's public relations director, knows she has a world-famous treasure to work with. She points to the countless films in which it has played a leading role -- from King Kong to Sleepless in Seattle to An Affair to Remember, and Independence Day.

"When any movie or television show wants to say they are being filmed in New York and they do that establishing shot, they always show the Empire State Building," she says. "It's kind of like the spirit of New York."

In recent decades, the Empire State Building was eclipsed by the taller twin towers of the World Trade Center. After those towers were destroyed by terrorists in 2001, the Empire State Building was once again Manhattan's tallest spire. But the special quality of the building is about more than its height, or even its place in popular entertainment.

Ruth says she's just as impressed by the engineering, workmanship and sheer pluck that went into the building's construction. The Empire State Building was erected during the depths of the Great Depression, for most a time of gloom, not optimism and daring. Its construction was also a logistical tour de force that took a mere one year and 45 days to complete, a world record.

"I don't think you can get a piece of furniture made in a year and 45 days now," she says. "They actually installed a little rail line around the building to deliver the materials. We got marble from Italy; all the limestone came from one quarry in Indianapolis they still call the Empire State Building Quarry. They were good quality materials. There was no shoddy workmanship. And that's why I think it stands today as such a testament to engineering and people's ingenuity."

The Empire State Building, of course, is also a busy workplace, filled with travel agencies and photo studios, barber shops, garment factories and other enterprises. More than 850 tenants employ over 9000 people.

The most senior occupant is Jack Broad, 96, of the Empire Diamond Company on the 76th floor. He moved in in July, 1931, two months after the building opened, and has seen its best times and its worst times. He vividly recalls the day in 1945 when a B-25 bomber got lost in a fog and crashed into the 79th floor.

"The building became a torch," he says. "The gasoline ran down the side of the building. As soon as it burned out, the building looked intact -- except the plane was still sticking into the building."

Like many of the Empire State Building's loyal tenants, Broad says he finds great joy in the daily contact with the building and its unique vistas. "On a clear day, I can see for a hundred miles. People say 'when are you gonna retire?' I answer 'when they plant me.'"

The talk of height has made this reporter eager for the view from the top -- one of the only places in New York where one cannot see the Empire State Building.

"It's spectacular to see the sights and be able to see the Statue of Liberty," says one American tourist. "It's pretty amazing," agrees a British visitor. "You've got the Chrysler Building and you've got Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the financial district."

Another tourist nods, grinning. "It's breathtaking. It shows you how big the world really is!"

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