V-weapons vast majority aimed at London; 2,515 reached the city, killing 6,184 civilians and injuring 17,981. Croydon to the south, on the flight path of the V1s suffered severely taking 142 hits. V-2 rocket launching sites were set up by the Germans around The Hague in the Netherlands on 6 September 1944. The first was launched from here against London on 8 September 1944 and took an estimated 5 minutes to fly the 200 miles from the Hague to London where it struck at 6.43pm on 8 September on Chiswick causing thirteen casualties. As the V2 explosions came without warning, the
V-2 sounding rocket Complex 33 for the captured V-2s was built around this blockhouse. Initial V-2 assembly efforts produced 25 rockets available for launch. The Army assembled an Upper Atmosphere Research Panel of representative from the Air Material Command, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Army Signal Corps, Ballistic Research Laboratory, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Michigan, Harvard University, Princeton University, and General Electric Company. German rocket scientists of Operation Paperclip arrived at Fort Bliss in January 1946 to assist the V-2 rocket testing program. After a static test firing of a V-2 engine on 15 March 1946, the first V-2 rocket launch from Launch