V-bombs and weathermaps

by Brock McElheran

Towards the end of World War II Germany unleashed its weapons of vengeance on the British population - the V-1 flying bomb (a pilotless aircraft) and the V-2 rocket (the precursor of the ballistic missile). Brock McElheran experienced these fearsome weapons first-hand. In V-Bombs and Weathermaps he recounts his own experience of being under attack and pays tribute to the brave civilians in southern England. He shows that the German assault on the British population was as much a battle as any of the more familiar campaigns on the continent. A meteorological officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, McElheran studied at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and served at naval air stations in southern England. During a V-1 attack he was seriously injured when his rooming house in Greenwich was hit. Taken to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, famous for its pioneering work in plastic surgery, he underwent several operations and months of treatment. Back in Canada, McElheran worked i