Whoa, wait a cotton-picking minute. The Germans invented the prototype of the drone. Gee, they have short memories those Germans.
German V-1 on exhibit in Peenemünde where the rockets were originally made until the entire area was flattened by the RAF. Older brother of the modern cruise missile. | A right side view of an AGM-86 air launched cruise missile (ALCM) in flight. It doesn’t look all that different from its predecessor, the V-1. |
Friends, I ask you, don’t these two weapons look really similar to each other? They certainly do to me. Nazi Germany fired 9,521 V-1s at Great Britain, killing or wounding over 22,000 British, mainly civilians.
In the article in Der Spiegel, German critics say drones are new weapons to kill people without any rules. You don’t say? How quickly the Germans forget. I would take this criticism from a lot of countries and not get boiled about it but for the United States to be criticized for using drones to kill people by the Germans is too damn much.
German rules in World War Two for using the drone prototype a/k/a the V-1 to kill people.
1) Aim at Great Britain.
2) Fire.
3) When the fuel ran out, the V-1 nose dived and exploded wherever it came down be it an RAF airfield or a hospital.
[Images courtesy of wernerfrueh.de and Wikimedia.]
Charles McCain is a lifelong student of World War Two. He grew up in South Carolina and is a graduate of Tulane University. An Honorable German is his first novel. After surviving a bout with cancer 3 years ago, Mr. McCain is at work on several writing projects. He lives in Washington, DC.
