The U. S. Army and Project Hermes

Meanwhile, at the end of World War II, U. S. Army Ordnance became especially interested in learning more about missile technology from the German engineers under von Braun; from their technical documents; and from firing actual V-2 missiles in the United States. According to von Karman, the army air forces (AAF) had a chance to get involved in long-range missile development before Army Ord­nance stepped into the breach. In 1943, Col. W. H. Joiner, liaison officer for the AAF Materiel Command at Caltech, suggested a re­port on the possibilities for long-range missiles. Frank Malina and his Chinese colleague Hsue-shen Tsien prepared the report, stating that a 10,000-pound liquid-propellant rocket could carry a projectile 22 75 miles. Issued November 20, 1943, this was the first report to

Chapter 1 bear the rubric JPL, according to von Karman. But the AAF did not follow up on the opportunity. Army Ordnance then contracted with JPL to conduct research resulting in the Corporal missile; it also initiated Project Hermes on November 15, 1944.

Under contract to the army for this effort, the General Electric Company (GE) agreed to perform research and development on guided missiles. The Ordnance Department sought to provide the company’s engineers with captured V-2s for study and test firing. Through Project Overcast, which became Project Paperclip in 1946, von Braun and a handful of his associates flew to the United States on September 18, 1945. Three groups (about 118) who had worked at Peenemunde arrived in the United States by ship between Novem­ber 1945 and February 1946, ending up at Fort Bliss in Texas, across the state border from White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, where the V-2s would be launched once they were assembled from parts captured in Germany.39

Using U. S.-manufactured parts when German ones were dam­aged or not available in sufficient quantity, between April 16, 1946, and September 19, 1952, GE and the army launched 73 V-2s at White Sands. The last GE flight was on June 28, 1951, with the ensuing five flights conducted by the army alone. Depending upon the crite­ria of failure, some 52 to 68 percent of the flights conducted under GE auspices succeeded, but many of the failures still yielded useful information. Many of the V-2 flights carried scientific experiments, with the areas of experimentation ranging from atmospheric phys­ics to cosmic radiation measurements. The explorations helped spawn the field of space science that blossomed further after the birth of NASA in 1958.40

One of the major contributions to launch-vehicle technology by Project Hermes came from the Bumper-WAC project. This combined the V-2s with JPL’s WAC Corporal B rockets in a two-stage con­figuration. The flights sought to provide flight tests of vehicle sepa­ration at high speeds, to achieve speeds and altitudes higher than could then otherwise be obtained, and to investigate such phenom­ena as aerodynamic heating at high speeds within the atmosphere. Since a number of groups were already looking into launching sat­ellites, these matters were of some near-term importance because more than one rocket stage was commonly required to put a satel­lite in orbit.41

On the fifth Bumper-WAC launch from White Sands (February 24, 1949), the second stage reached a reported altitude of 244 miles and a maximum speed of 7,553 feet per second. These constituted the greatest altitude and the highest speed reached by a rocket or missile until that date. The highly successful launch demonstrated the va­lidity of the theory that a rocket’s velocity could be increased with a second stage. Also shown was a method of igniting a rocket engine at high altitude, offering a foundation for later two – and multiple-

stage vehicles. The final two launches of the Bumper program oc­curred at the newly activated Joint Long Range Proving Grounds in Florida, which later became Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and had previously been the site of the Banana River Naval Air Station until taken over by the air force on September 1, 1948.42

While preparations were being made for the Bumper-WAC proj­ect, six GE engineers assisted in launching a V-2 from the fantail of the aircraft carrier USS Midway on September 6, 1947. The missile headed off at an angle from the vertical of 45 degrees even though the ship had almost no pitch or roll. After the missile nearly hit the bridge and then straightened out momentarily, it began tumbling. This test, called Operation Sandy, could hardly have been encour­aging for those in the Bureau of Aeronautics who wanted the navy to develop ballistic missiles for shipboard use. Even less so were the results of two other V-2s, loaded with propellants, that were 24 knocked over on purpose aboard the Midway in part of what was Chapter 1 called Operation Pushover. They detonated, as expected. Finally, on December 3, 1948, a V-2 with propellants burning was also toppled at White Sands on a mocked-up ship deck. This produced a huge blast during which structural supports cracked. There was a rupture

in the deck itself, whereupon alcohol and liquid oxygen ran through the hole and ignited. These tests contributed significantly to the navy’s negative attitude toward the use of liquid propellants aboard ship in what became the Polaris program.43

With two exceptions (discussed later), the tactical Hermes mis­siles GE developed appear not to have had a large influence on launch-vehicle technology. They began as weapons projects but be­came simply test vehicles in October 1953 and were canceled by 1954. Nevertheless, according to a GE publication written in 1965, the engineers who worked on Project Hermes “formed a unique nucleus of talent that was fully realized when they took over many top management slots in General Electric missile and space efforts in later years." GE also later supplied the first-stage engine for the Vanguard launch vehicle and the second stage for the short-lived Atlas-Vega vehicle, among others. Finally, once Project Hermes ended in 1954-55, the people who worked on it shifted their focus to a ballistic reentry vehicle for the air force.44

Even apart from GE’s direct role in launch-vehicle technology, clearly there was a technical legacy of considerable importance from Project Hermes, including the firing of the V-2s. But opinions have been mixed about the significance of this legacy.45 One em­phatic proponent of its importance, Julius H. Braun, had worked on the project while serving in the army. He spoke of “a massive tech­nology transfer to the U. S. rocket and missile community" from the V-2. “There was a steady flow of visitors from industry, govern­ment labs, universities and other services," he added. Referring to the Germans under von Braun’s leadership, he observed, “Propul­sion experts from the team traveled to North American Aviation [NAA] in Southern California to assist in formulating a program to design, build and test large liquid propellant rocket engines. This program led to the formation of the NAA Rocketdyne division." Braun opined that “the rapid exploitation and wide dissemination of captured information" from the Germans “saved the U. S. at least ten years during the severe R&D [research and development] cut­backs of the postwar period." He listed a great many U. S. missiles and rockets that “incorporated components. . . derived from the V-2 and its HERMES follow-on programs."46

As the quotations from Braun suggest, the V-2 technology was a starting point for many efforts by both the Germans and U. S. engi­neers to develop more advanced technology for the rockets and mis­siles that followed. But the Americans did not simply copy V-2 tech­nology; they went beyond it. Even in assembling the V-2s for firing in this country, GE engineers and others had to develop modifications

to German technology in making replacement parts. Firms that con­tracted to make the parts undoubtedly learned from the effort.

Although many visitors surely picked up a great deal of useful in­formation from the Germans, as did the GE engineers themselves, JPL propellant chemist Martin Summerfield, who questioned von Braun and others about the rocket engine for the V-2 on April 19, 1946, evidently learned little from the interchange. Summerfield had already learned from his own research at JPL the kinds of tech­nical lessons that the Germans imparted. Others from JPL had a good chance to look over the V-2s while testing the Corporal and firing the Bumper-WAC. According to Clayton Koppes, “They con­cluded there was relatively little they wanted to apply to their proj – ects."47 Of course, even the Corporal did borrow some technology from the V-2, but JPL had developed much else independently.

Other visitors to the German engineers had less experience with rocketry and probably benefited greatly from talking with them, as Braun said. Projects like the Bumper-WAC added to the fund of engineering data. However, as Braun had mentioned, funding for rocket-and-missile development was limited in the immediate post-World War II United States. Firing the V-2s had cost about $1 million per year through 1951, but until the United States became alarmed about a threat from the Soviet Union’s missiles and war­heads, there would not be a truly major U. S. effort to go much be­yond the technologies already developed.48