Eighty years ago the start of the era of ballistics missiles

 

After two failed attempts, the German A-4 rocket, orginally developed for the army as a form of long-range artillery, achieved an entirely successful launch. It travelled 190km from the Peenemuende test centre reaching an apogee of 85km before splashing down in the Baltic. The age of the ballistic missile had begun and, better known as the V-2 (for Vergeltung or revenge), the A-4 would soon become a major preoccupation for the British authorities as they received intelligence of its development.

Hitler delivered one of his increasingly rare public speeches at the  Sportpalast to mark the opening of the year's edition of the Winterhilfe campaign, one of the key dates in the Nazi calendar. He gave a comprehensive and detailed account of how he saw the war was developing including his habitual sneers at Winston Churchill. He also reminded his listeners of his prophecy that the Jews, who he claimed had wanted the war, would be exterminated. The speech was extensively reported in the British media but the last point was omitted.

The elderly Royal Navy cruiser HMS Curacoa rendezvoused with the liner Queen Mary in service as a troop-ship carrying 10,000 US troops to Britain. Queen Mary was zigzagging in a standard U-Boat evasion pattern. Both captains thought they had the right of way and the ships collided. The 80,000 ton liner ripped the 4,000 ton cruiser in half and she sank with the loss of almost all her complement of 300. After the war the Admiralty sued the Cunard Line and the case went all the way to the House of Lords. Two-thirds of the blame was finally apportioned to the Curacoa's officers.

An article by the Labour (hereditary) peer Lord Strabolgi entitled "What's Wrong With The British Army" in the widely circulated US Colliers Magazine was the subject of a furious debate in the House of Lords with Lord Lovat leading the attack in his army uniform. The article noted the army's dismal failure and blamed its generals, "Brought up in the Imperialist school, out of touch with the common current of popular feeling and opinion, they have been quite incapable either in Whitehall or on the battle front of understanding a modern totalitarian war." Strabolgi's political parti pris was manifest but coming so soon after another purge of the commanders in North America, it was hard not to see some justice in it.