![]() |
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#30
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Henry_H@Q_ wrote:
I meant to say that although Truax didn't have the right answer for airplanes, that work lead directly on to the whole world of hypergols in the US, many, many vehicles and engine/motors. Got it. He did come up with some brilliant design work, which he must have know were inappropriate for aircraft. Most rocketeers of the time had their eye on spaceflight and had to search hard to justify their projects. There was considerable opposition to wasting resources on "that Buck Rogers stuff." Those are the same figures in Sutton's "Rocket Propulsion Elements." I figure that Mano Zeigler gave different numbers in "Rocket Fighter" due to conditions in Axisland--with the Allies bombing their plants and supply lines, they may have had to settle for anything that could flow through the lines and burn. If I remember the book, and I am pretty sure I do, it was sort of a "quick and dirty" account based on very limited sources. I think I first read it myself only a couple of years after the war, so it has been around a while. A lot of documentation showed up later that the author didn't have then. I checked the copyright dates in my book, and the oldest date for "Rocket Fighter" is 1961. I vaguely recall seeing another book about the Komet somewhere, but I never had a chance to read it. That was a typical condition in the Reich. And, given how hard it was to find self-confessed Nazis after the war, the condition persisted. Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" is a classic example. You have to be careful about testimony of participants. You have to be ten times more careful when they are under duress. And, being a POW after having lost a war is a LOT of duress. Speer wrote his book in Spandau, and he managed to keep it secret from the jailers. He was clearly writing with an eye on redeeming his reputation, such as it was. How it fooled anyone is beyond me. (Although the military historian SLA Marshall claims that the Germans did, indeed, get the "Nuts!" message. Marshall interrogated Manteuffel and his staff after the war. At one session Manteuffel kept blaming his mistakes on his staff. At last one of his subordinates leaned forward, waggled a finger in Manteuffel's face and shouted "Nuts! Nuts!") Another sub plot to that story that I have seen in one account was that there was some junior officere there who was an English language expert. He thought up the idea of the surrender demand. And wrote it and got permission to deliver it. But, when he got the answer, he didn't know what it meant. That's the version which played on the British series "World At War." An American officer said, more or less, "'I told him 'The general said "nuts!"' The German said 'I do not understand that word in this context.' I said 'Do you understand "Go to hell"?' The German said 'Yes, I understand that.'") --Bill Thompson |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Mooney Rocket | Al | Owning | 7 | September 1st 06 07:31 PM |
FS: Harmon Rocket II | Rob S. | Piloting | 0 | March 4th 06 11:50 PM |
Rocket Man.... | Gary Emerson | Soaring | 2 | November 5th 05 04:49 AM |
WW-II rocket motor on E-bay - opinions ? | BeepBeep | Naval Aviation | 32 | August 11th 05 03:29 PM |
TWO EXTREMELY RARE ROCKET BOOKS ON EBAY - INCREDIBLE ROCKET HISTORY! | TruthReigns | Military Aviation | 0 | July 10th 04 11:54 AM |