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The German terror weapon V1 was known to the population of the U.K. as the ‘Doodlebug’. The population of London may not have realised the efforts that were made to limit the numbers of these weapons that could reach their target. I spent much of the period in 1944, when they could be fired at London, in Dover, serving in a Motor Torpedo Boat and later in a Motor Launch.

The coast road between Dover and Folkestone had an anti-aircraft gun sited at about five to ten yard intervals all the way along it. One battery of heavy guns (I believe American) sited West of Dover and firing radar fused shells was particularly successful. One could see the shells bursting behind the V1, catching up and at about the fifth burst the V1 would explode. We used to estimate that this battery got about nine out of ten of the missiles in its range,

One day, on top of a bus going to Folkestone for a spot of shore leave, I saw a doodlebug hit by AA fire and dive straight down towards the town. The gunners were brilliant and hit it again blowing it up on the way down!

The narrowness of the Channel at this point and the speed of the V1s made the control of fighters over the sea very difficult and an experiment using a line of Motor Launches along the French coast firing rocket flares at the missiles, so as to guide the fighters, was tried. How successful this was, I don’t know.

The most scary moment for me was, one night out on patrol in the M.T.B. to see the flare of a doodlebug’s engine heading straight towards us with the red and green wing tip lights of a fighter right behind it. I t was the fighter that frightened us! We flashed our fighting lights and hoped he would hold his fire till he had passed us.

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