Archaeologists dig in landing sites of German V2 rockets

• Author: JERUSALEM POST STAFF
• Published date: 25 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The project is being led by brothers Colin and Sean Welch, who run Research Resource Archaeology, and they were able to discover from archive records where the rocket detonated on February 14, 1945.

"When V1 and V2 rockets first landed, the authorities examined every crash site very thoroughly in order to learn as much as possible about these new weapons, said Colin. "But by February 1945, they were less of a novelty and received less attention."

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Research Resource Archaeology has been investigating V2 crash sites around England for ten years, but Colin said that the St. Mary's Platt site was perfect for their purposes because it is away from buildings and there were no injuries or deaths as a result of the explosion.

"It means we can dig unfettered by any unpleasant thoughts - these were after all terror weapons that brought with them a lot of misery," he said.

Another reason the site is interesting to the archaeologists is that the crater left from the impact is larger than in other recorded explosion sites.

The researchers hope to find fragments with a manufacturer's code, which would tell them where they were made. This is important to the team because Research Resource Archaeology theorizes that Hitler's rockets were manufactured in factories around...