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History

Another Space History Resonance From 75 Years Ago

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 9, 2020
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Another Space History Resonance From 75 Years Ago

Keith’s note: As you may recall last year I posted a story “That Time Wernher von Braun’s Rocket Tried To Kill My Father” about my father’s near brush with death from a V-2 attack in London in March 1945 and how he – and later I – grappled with the personal impact of a weapon that fell from space. I visited the impact site in Hyde Park 2016. I recently got this email from Brian Roselle who is my age and had parents who lived through part of World War II in London. As it happens his mother was there at the impact area too as the rocket came in. Like Brian, I almost did not exist because of this rocket. In my case, it gave me a career 40 years later.

“Visiting my brother this weekend we looked in a shoe box with pictures and articles from our parents from WWII, and it reminded me of an incident my Mom mentioned years ago. Mom once told me of this incident she had while she was in London, where she had a close call. A V-2 rocket struck the Hyde Park area near where she was at the time and the explosion was extremely big and shook her up quite a bit, to the point where she wasn’t sure if she was going to survive whatever was happening. She was OK and subsequently found a fragment that landed in the park, picked it up, and it was still very hot. She ended up keeping the fragment and this was among the items we looked at this past weekend along with a note identifying it as the V-2 piece picked up in Hyde Park. I took a picture and attached it here. I found your article on NASA Watch while looking up more background on V-2 incidents. As you might guess, the article resonated with me. Between my Mom and Dad I think there were probably a few close calls in the European Theater at that time that went my way, so she could become a war bride to an American soldier and I could eventually come along. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience, I have learned a little more.”

At the end of my article I described a chance encounter with a young european couple and their boy at the foot of the V-2 at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. As it happens, they live in the Netherlands a few blocks away from where the V-2 that nearly killed my father and Brian’s mother was launched. Small world.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

12 responses to “Another Space History Resonance From 75 Years Ago”

  1. rb1957 says:
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    I would offer the fragment to one of the war museums, maybe one that focussed on the London blitz.

    • kcowing says:
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      Or maybe it is something that the family passes down forever.

      • rb1957 says:
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        if displayed in museum, how many more people, like yourself, will have a personal experience that resonates.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Unfortunately it seems to me that most often donations like this to museums end up being cataloged and then end up in storage. If I were donating something like this, I would want an assurance that it would actually be on display, not put in a box on a shelf.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        An interesting observation, Jeff. Is it based on your experience, or?
        I do know that major museums tend to constantly whine about insufficient space – both display, and storage.

        • kcowing says:
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          The Smithsonian is notorious for accepting things and they are never put on display.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          It’s a rather long read, but this article describes one of the Smithsonian’s non-museum facilities:

          Museum Support Center, August 1, 2018 Media Fact Sheet
          https://www.si.edu/newsdesk

          From above:
          “There are currently more than 54 million collections items at the MSC.”

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Yes, and when budgets get tight museums often engage in “deaccessioning”, a polite word for selling items although the practice is frowned upon..

          https://www.smithsonianmag….

          Cash-Strapped Museums are Selling Their Art

          Faced with budget cuts and debt, museums turn to “deaccessioning”

  2. Bob Mahoney says:
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    There are no coincidences.

  3. Michael Spencer says:
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    Your largely dispassionate writing regarding Herr von Braun is all the more remarkable.