V Rocket rationale
1. Introduce your topic. (Assume you audience is unfamiliar with the topic): The V Rockets were missiles used in the second world war by Hitler, to try and sway the outcome of the war. The V1 was a “flying bomb”, or a bomb with a rocket engine on the back. The V2 on the other hand, was a ballistic missile, which means it goes up, almost into space, then comes down at a very high speed and hits the target. Both rockets were self-guided, meaning their targets and flight path were programmed into the rocket, and followed them without any help from the ground. Both these weapons caused widespread damage and huge loss of life even though they weren’t very accurate "It seems likely that if the Germans had succeeded in perfecting and using these new weapons earlier than he did, our invasion of Europe would have proved exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible” Dwight Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander. The V rockets also helped their inventors make a name for themselves, and Werner von Braun (V2) was even employed by the U.S afterwards. This meant von Braun could follow his dream and put humans on the moon, which he achieved when Saturn V and its crew set foot on the moon. It took an enormous amount of work to make these rockets, and it took more than 10 years of testing to create a rocket engine capable of carrying 10,000kg into the atmosphere and letting it hurtle back down again. Although these rockets killed tens of thousands of people, they lead the way for missiles and spacecraft alike.
2. What is your creative response? What are you trying to say? Is there a theme or purpose? Explain what the viewer is meant to see. How did you develop your response? How did your visit to the AWM influence you? Explain your method and challenges: My creative response is a website, and the website is dedicated to giving an insight into the workings and history behind the two V Rockets and their inventors. The website theme is black, with a bright neon blue which gives it a feel that I though looked a bit WW2 like. The viewer is meant to see a wealth of information, which is only made better by the YouTube clips and newspaper articles. I designed the website so the viewer could access the information quickly and easily, while all the information being there. It took around 10-15 hours to gather the information, design the website, and then put the two together to create a user friendly experience, but it was a fun 10-15h, and making the website has helped a lot with my knowledge of the V Rockets. Given my topic, I felt the visit to the AWM was not overly useful, but it was good to see a real V1, and the AWM is still a very interesting place, and I think will help with the rest of the semester and learning about WW2. There were a couple of challenges along the way though. Finding reliable information was tricky, which meant checking three or more websites to make sure the information was correct. Another was finding primary sources, as primary sources relating to V1s and V2s were not as abundant as I had first thought.
3. Evaluate the usefulness of a primary and secondary source for your topic. Why was each source useful? How did you apply this information in you creative response? The primary source I used was a written report from my grandmother about the V1 and V2 blitz on London. She had a V1 land near here house and she described it as “the doodle bugs came over fairly low – I do not remember seeing one – hearing them was bad enough. We listened, holding our breath that it would not stop. When it stopped it meant that it was about to plummet down to the ground.”, and this is very useful. I know the source is reliable because it’s my grandmother, and she remembers it like it was yesterday. It was useful because it gave me a great insight into what it was really like when the missiles were landing on London. Because of the format she wrote it in, I was able to put the piece of writing straight onto the website as a direct quote. A secondary source I found useful was the website History Learning Site- The V Weapons, as it had a number of good sources such as the Imperial War Museum in London. This website was useful because it had reliable sources, and the information was exactly what I needed to know not only as an overview, but some of the useful details as well. I applied this to my website not directly, but writing my paragraphs I would check by this website and most of the archive I had built up in my head on the v rockets come from this website.
4. What is you topic’s significance in world history? Apart from being the first guided missiles, the second blitz, and the little brother to every missile and spacecraft ever made, not a whole lot. And one of the inventors was on the front of Time Magazine… Being the first guided missile is definitely significant, as almost every piece of technology has some form of autopilot to guide it eg. Civilian planes, military planes, rockets, space craft, ballistic missiles just to name a few. The second blitz is also a significant even in world history. Whenever WW2 is taught, or written about, the blitz is always mentioned, because it was horrific, killing thousands of civilians. The second blitz was just as bad, but even more terrifying for the population “The single most destructive attack landed on a cinema, killing 561 moviegoers” - Michael Neufeld, 2013… But this time, Germany had nothing to lose.
The final significant point is that the V Rockets are the little brother to every missile and spacecraft ever made. Although the V2 was far more the middle brother and the V1 the youngest, they both played a part. Think of Saturn V, the first rocket to put a man on the moon. That was designed by the same man that designed the V2, but half the work was done before he foot on American soil. The amount of work that was put into these rockets was so valuable later on, so much testing already done, so many examples of what works and what doesn’t. Had these rockets never been made, the man on the moon would have either been Russian, or would have been standing there 10, even 20 years later. And every mission we have launched into space, like the mars rover, would still be traveling to mars, rather than transmitting data already. These are just some of the reasons the V Rockets were a very significant piece of machinery in history.
2. What is your creative response? What are you trying to say? Is there a theme or purpose? Explain what the viewer is meant to see. How did you develop your response? How did your visit to the AWM influence you? Explain your method and challenges: My creative response is a website, and the website is dedicated to giving an insight into the workings and history behind the two V Rockets and their inventors. The website theme is black, with a bright neon blue which gives it a feel that I though looked a bit WW2 like. The viewer is meant to see a wealth of information, which is only made better by the YouTube clips and newspaper articles. I designed the website so the viewer could access the information quickly and easily, while all the information being there. It took around 10-15 hours to gather the information, design the website, and then put the two together to create a user friendly experience, but it was a fun 10-15h, and making the website has helped a lot with my knowledge of the V Rockets. Given my topic, I felt the visit to the AWM was not overly useful, but it was good to see a real V1, and the AWM is still a very interesting place, and I think will help with the rest of the semester and learning about WW2. There were a couple of challenges along the way though. Finding reliable information was tricky, which meant checking three or more websites to make sure the information was correct. Another was finding primary sources, as primary sources relating to V1s and V2s were not as abundant as I had first thought.
3. Evaluate the usefulness of a primary and secondary source for your topic. Why was each source useful? How did you apply this information in you creative response? The primary source I used was a written report from my grandmother about the V1 and V2 blitz on London. She had a V1 land near here house and she described it as “the doodle bugs came over fairly low – I do not remember seeing one – hearing them was bad enough. We listened, holding our breath that it would not stop. When it stopped it meant that it was about to plummet down to the ground.”, and this is very useful. I know the source is reliable because it’s my grandmother, and she remembers it like it was yesterday. It was useful because it gave me a great insight into what it was really like when the missiles were landing on London. Because of the format she wrote it in, I was able to put the piece of writing straight onto the website as a direct quote. A secondary source I found useful was the website History Learning Site- The V Weapons, as it had a number of good sources such as the Imperial War Museum in London. This website was useful because it had reliable sources, and the information was exactly what I needed to know not only as an overview, but some of the useful details as well. I applied this to my website not directly, but writing my paragraphs I would check by this website and most of the archive I had built up in my head on the v rockets come from this website.
4. What is you topic’s significance in world history? Apart from being the first guided missiles, the second blitz, and the little brother to every missile and spacecraft ever made, not a whole lot. And one of the inventors was on the front of Time Magazine… Being the first guided missile is definitely significant, as almost every piece of technology has some form of autopilot to guide it eg. Civilian planes, military planes, rockets, space craft, ballistic missiles just to name a few. The second blitz is also a significant even in world history. Whenever WW2 is taught, or written about, the blitz is always mentioned, because it was horrific, killing thousands of civilians. The second blitz was just as bad, but even more terrifying for the population “The single most destructive attack landed on a cinema, killing 561 moviegoers” - Michael Neufeld, 2013… But this time, Germany had nothing to lose.
The final significant point is that the V Rockets are the little brother to every missile and spacecraft ever made. Although the V2 was far more the middle brother and the V1 the youngest, they both played a part. Think of Saturn V, the first rocket to put a man on the moon. That was designed by the same man that designed the V2, but half the work was done before he foot on American soil. The amount of work that was put into these rockets was so valuable later on, so much testing already done, so many examples of what works and what doesn’t. Had these rockets never been made, the man on the moon would have either been Russian, or would have been standing there 10, even 20 years later. And every mission we have launched into space, like the mars rover, would still be traveling to mars, rather than transmitting data already. These are just some of the reasons the V Rockets were a very significant piece of machinery in history.