Special Mission V-2

Col. Holger Toftoy and the Operation That Brought German Rocket Technology to America

By Dwight Jon Zimmerman - April 26, 2016

Toftoy’s Special Mission V-2 provided the technology that kick-started America’s space program. Bumper 8 was an ambitious two-stage rocket program launched in July 1950 that topped a V-2 missile base with a WAC Corporal rocket. The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers, higher than even modern space shuttles flew. Launched under the direction of the General Electric Company, the Bumper Project was used primarily for testing rocket systems and for research on the upper atmosphere. Bumper rockets carried small payloads that allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and cosmic ray impacts. Seven years later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the first satellites launched into Earth orbit. In response, in 1958, the United States created NASA and launched Explorer 1. U.S. Air Force photo

In addition to not having an inventory list of what comprised a complete V-2, the team discovered that 100 complete and operational V-2s didn’t exist. As soon as a batch of V-2s was completed, off they went to the launch pads. Though about 50 V-2s, damaged in an American bombing raid, were found at the railroad marshalling yard at Nordhausen, Toftoy’s men were literally forced to grab 100 of whatever was in sight and hope for the best.

When he got the news of the find at Mittelwerk, Toftoy immediately ordered two 10-ton semi-trailers dispatched. Only one arrived, the other suffering a mechanical breakdown. Meanwhile, Maj. Robert B. Staver, commander of another Special Mission V-2 team, arrived on the scene and managed to convince the commander of the 71st Ordnance Heavy Maintenance Company, fortuitously stationed in Nordhausen, to lend him six of the company’s 2.5-ton trucks. Working around the clock, rail cars were loaded and trains sent west – right beneath the noses of British and Soviet officers searching for the same thing.

The damage done by a V-2 on a main intersection in Antwerp, Belgium, on a main supply line to Holland. National Archives photo

During a period of nine days beginning on May 22, a total of 341 railway cars loaded with V-2 parts and documents traveled from Nordhausen to Erfurt, where custody of the cars was transferred to the U.S. Army Military Railway System that would transport them to Antwerp. Inevitably the traffic caught the attention of British intelligence personnel in Erfurt, who fired their own rocket about the American “theft” up through channels. British members of SHAEF filed a complaint with Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Sometimes red tape can work in one’s favor. By the time action could be taken, everything the Special Mission V-2 teams had “liberated” was already aboard ships and en route to the United States.

Meanwhile, Staver’s team had been ordered to retrieve 14 tons of V-2 documents buried in a sealed mine at Dörnten, soon to be part of the British sector. When a British Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (CIOS) team arrived to investigate the reasons for all the around-the-clock activity devoted to clearing a sealed mine shaft, Lt. H.M. Hochmuth managed to convince them that the American team was doing a survey of natural resources, and that the German miners they were overseeing were boxing iron ore for documentation.

On May 26, a group of Red Army officers arrived for a tour of Mittelwerk. Staver had no choice but to show them around. With the Soviets now knowing what the Americans were doing, Staver worried he’d run out of time (the Red Army was scheduled to take control on July 1) before obtaining everything he had been ordered to collect.

Lt. Col. Herbert Axter; Maj. Gen. Walter Dornberger, commander of the V-2 laboratory at Peenemünde; Dr. Wernher von Braun, inventor of the V-2 rocket; and Hans Lindenberg after they surrendered to U.S. troops in Austria, May 3, 1945. Photo by Louis Weintraub

But through Herculean effort, their goal was met by May 31. The person most responsible for getting the work done was Bromley, and a grateful Toftoy awarded him the Bronze Star for his extraordinary effort. As it turned out, their race to do so was to a certain extent not necessary because, thanks to Soviet Union plans for a victory celebration in Berlin in June, the Red Army did not move in until July 14.

With the hard goods in hand and knowing only half the acquisition battle had been won, Toftoy turned his attention to the “soft” goods: the men responsible for designing and building the V-2, the most important of these being the program’s director, von Braun. Toftoy was instrumental in helping these men and their families get to the United States through Operation Paperclip. After the war, Toftoy continued his involvement in the Army’s rocket and missile program, eventually getting the nickname “Mr. Missile.” Toftoy retired in 1960 with the rank of major general. He died in 1967 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

This article was first published in The Year in Special Operations 2015-2016 Edition.