An interesting article from USA Today about Andy Rooney hearing rumors and reports that a German U-Boat fired a V-1 “Buzz Bomb” at New York City. Nothing here is remotely definable as hard evidence of such a launch, but rumors of such efforts on the Germans part have been floating about since late 1944. The concept is reasonable enough… basically an early version of the “Regulus” system. But so far as I’m aware, no verifiable hardware, drawings or even artists concepts from the war years have come to light to support the idea that the Germans were seriously developing a sub-launched V-1.

Did Andy Rooney miss big WWII scoop?

The reported reactions of the military officials Rooney talked to certainly seem like the reactions of military types trying to stamp out a story. There are two obvious reasons for this:

1) The Germans really did launch a V-1 (that either crashed or was shot down), and the military wanted to keep it secret to prevent a panic

2) The Germans didn’t launch a V-1, and the military wanted to prevent false rumors from leading to a panic.