[edwest]

In the excellent but politely dismissed book, T-Force by Sean Longden (ISBN 978-1-84529-727-5), I must have one hundred yellow post-it tags throughout the book. The author identifies "Ken Moore who fought in Normandy with the Royal Artillery before being posted to the 5th Battalion of the King's Regiment, which formed part of the infantry element of T-Force." This gentlemen provided the author "with a vast number of documents" and access to veterans of the unit. He then states his book would examine a subject "that, if I did not write it now, would be lost forever." The group would operate with 30AU, or 30 Assault Unit, later renamed 30 Advance Unit.

One thing worth noting was the looting of captured documents by unidentified British troops. Then there was the incident where little information could be obtained about a German aircraft-delivered torpedo at Houilles because "... the Germans had eliminated all Frenchman known to have any access to it." and Frenchmen who had been working for the Germans were killed or in one case, just disappeared even though he was thought to be in a jail.

Referring to targets in Paris, he writes of "... French scientists who were believed to have played a role in the development of the next generation of German rockets, the so-called V3."

Cologne. "To the north of the city, 30AU captured an 'opportunity target' which was not on the 'black-lists' but was a source of vast intelligence. The factory was producing equipment for use in guided rocket systems, jet- and rocket-propelled aircraft, and chemical fuels." "Just ten days after the operation the Admiralty produced a 300-page book of translations of the seized documents."

"Elsewhere, they arrived at targets only to discover the relevant technolgy had already been spirited away in what Pennycook later described as 'semi-piratical expeditions.'"

"Pitt-Pladdy and 13 Platoon were examining the Wolff shotgun factory, which had been used for making V2 rocket propellant and a product named 'DIGL', a substitute for nitroglycerine..."

"Even more than 60 years after the end of the Second World War, some of the documentation related to T-Force operations in the second half of 1945 remains classified."

"The 'Waterfall' rocket, which had been designed in Germany for anti-aircraft use, played a significant role in future American projects, leading directly to the development of the American Hermes-A1 missile."



Ed