Robert Harris’ “V2”
Book review by Dennis D McDonald
I was excited to learn that Harris had written a book about World War Two and the V2 rocket. He's my favorite writer of historical fiction. I looked forward to seeing what kind of spin he would put on Wernher von Braun's amazing and terrifying World War Two accomplishment.
I read this novel over a period of two days and was not at all disappointed. Harris’ weaves together 2 parallel stories. One concerns a German engineer responsible for on-site technical support of a V2 launch site. The other concerns a young female British officer recruited to help calculate V2 launch points based on radar tracking data. The two perspectives eventually intersect while revealing a subtle and clever balancing of fact and fiction.
The novel is vintage Harris flavored as usual with exhaustively researched historical and technical detail. Things that stood out for me:
The unremittingly gloomy and cold weather the characters must deal with.
The horrors of the V2 strikes on London and the death and destruction they caused.
Von Braun's justification for developing this terrifying but strategically ineffectual terror weapon.
The grim reality of Belgian citizens’ subsistence while still suffering from years of Nazi occupation.
The nightmarish conditions under which the V2 rockets were manufactured by slave labor.
The intricately detailed and technically precise description of the V2's launch operations conducted from its mobile launch positions.
The cunning of Wernher Von Braun as he planned his team's eventual surrender to the Americans so he could pursue his dream of space travel. (At one point the fictional Wernher von Braun describes his plan to surrender to the Americans saying, “…but do you think I couldn't convince an American president to go to the moon?”)
The subtle and not so subtle (mis)treatment of women at the time.
The reliance on educated women to perform manual and complex ballistics calculations using nothing but slide rules and printed logarithmic tables
If you like historical fiction and are somewhat technically inclined, this one's for you.
Postscript 1: Was there really a “White Hart” pub in London during World War Two? Is that the same one later written about by Arthur C. Clarke?
Postscript 2: I live within walking distance of the cemetery where Wernher von Braun is buried. I visit there regularly, walk by his grave, and pay my respects (see below).
Review copyright © 2021 by Dennis D. McDonald
Ivy Hill Cemetery, Alexandria, Virginia
