[RodM]

Hi Ed,

thanks for the comments.

I will respectfully disagree with your comments on speculation. In fact, I have researched at a documentary level and continue to research the Bomber Command side of the reporting of these various phenomena in the late war period, including the actual descriptions by crews, the BCHQ investigation and response, and to a limited extent, looking at what the phenomena could possibly have been.

The main point is that the RAF crews believed them to be jet or rocket aircraft, primarily the Me262 and Me163, and in the vast majority of cases, this just wasn't so (unless, of course, you have some evidence to the contrary - loss lists of aircraft destroyed for even a small percentage of the RAF claims, Luftwaffe operational records, Luftwaffe first-hand accounts, post-war intelligence investigations - please let me know).

BCHQ quickly established several common threads evident in the reporting and the claims by the RAF crews. Among these, as I have clearly pointed out, was the number of claims where the object seen simply exploded in the air with or without being fired at. Another was that the crews, except in a small few cases, when further pressed by intelligence officers, admitted not actually seeing an aircraft or outline of an aircraft (even although they may have reported an Me262 or Me163), instead seeing lights moving across the sky. If seeing a light and reporting it as this or that type of aircraft is not intrepretation, then please tell me what is.

Ed, you have referred to the 8 February 1944 report, and this subject (i.e. rocket projectiles) was again brought up during the November 1944 investigation by the BCHQ. In fact, the conclusions by that Command after the large number of reports from early November were:

"While it is possible that the enemy may be experimenting in a small way with the use of his jet and rocket propelled aircraft by night, the weight of evidence suggests that the phenomenon that is being reported is an expendable projectile other than an aircraft." (TNA AIR 40/256)

By the way, as a counterpoint to the Rocket Phenomena report, Bomber Command Intelligence Report No. 4661 was prepared on 31 March 1945, and this report acknowledged the bomber crew reports of "'jet aircraft' and wingless missiles," and described a range of German missiles known to be in existence via captured documents - the Hs.293, Hs.298, the X-4, and the Hs.117.

Thus, the original purpose of my question in this thread was to find information on the likelihood of RATO being used. This is so that such a possibility could be considered along side the actual use of jet aircraft at night, the increased use of signals munitions (to indicate the position and the course of the bomber stream), V1 or V2 trails, and the use air- and/or ground-launched self-propelled munitions (as you've pointed out, there were plenty of crew reports indicating that they were followed by lights that could change course).

Cheers

Rod