BtZ42: That "screaming" again

[Monte Davis]

The Web offers abundant video and audio of V-2 launchings... a few
recordings of the "buzz" from the pulse-jet of the V-1 cruise missile...
but no recording of a V-2 impact I can find. Several written versions:

"​
First, a whip cracking sound of a blast wave created by the rocket (moving
faster than the speed of sound) bounces off of the point of impact just
split seconds before the flash of impact. This was followed by the chaos of
the explosion with debris and earth churned skyward. Soon, the whine and
rush of whistling air as the sound catches up with the rocket followed by a
deafening roar of the incoming rocket, which tapers off to silence.
​"​

http://www.v2rocket.com/start/makeup/design.html

​[The sequence here would vary with your position on the ground: if you
were directly under the flight path but some miles short of impact, you
could hear the sonic boom -- a blend of many sharper "cracks," first from
directly above you then from other points along the trajectory -- well
before the sound of the explosion came horizontally back to you - MD]

​"​
the V-2 slammed into the ground at 4,000 miles per hour without warning,
except for a double sonic boom shortly before impact.
​"​

http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/sub/marshwvr.htm

​"​
Unlike previous bombing raids, the V-2 landed silently
​ [?!?]​
. The first warning it gave was the shattering of windows and the shaking
of buildings, followed by black smoke belching into the air
​."

https://alastairsavage.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/the-impact-of-the-v-2-rocket/

​For me as for everybody else, "A screaming comes across the sky" has come
to mean "incoming V-2" -- but again, that's something *we now bring to* the
opening page, with no mention of a rocket until p. 6. Nor do the
descriptions above lend support to "screaming" as the primary sound a 1944
Londoner would remember.

For what it's worth, Penguin's remastered audiobook of GR begins with a mix
of screaming (moaning?) air-raid sirens and staticky, fragmentary radio
voices. I have no idea whether TRP and/or Melanie Jackson had any hand in
that, but assume they could have prevented it they'd wanted. Sirens were
sometimes used for V-1s, which could with luck be spotted 20 minutes or
more before impact. I don't know if they were used for V-2s, but there
could rarely if ever have been enough lead time for them to help anyone.

Since first chewing this over, I've also remembered the screaming of
falling  bombs  in countless WWII movies and documentaries [not all types
or sizes of bomb did so]...

and the airborne Wild Hunt of Teutonic mythology, which Pirate will recall
on p. 72 and which recurs several times theerafter:
"Far away, through the rain, comes the crack-blast of another German
rocket. The third today. They hunt the sky like Wuotan and his mad army."

In its original context, the _Wutende Heer_ was associated with howling
winds (in which some heard the baying of hounds) as well as the crack of
thunder.

http://www.germanicmythology.com/original/earthmother/wildhunt.html
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