HOB’S LANE 007

There was a piloted V-1, called a Reichenberg. Pilot Hanna Reitsch won an Iron Cross for figuring out how to land it without dying. Which is weird, really, as she intended for pilots to use them as suicide bombs. She pitched the idea, helpfully named “Operation Suicide,” to Hitler in 1944.

Details are confused on this. At one point, the idea was that the Reichenberg would be launched off the wing of a heavy plane, the pilot would aim the thing, set the target, and bail out. But Operation Suicide required them to stay in the plane. It remains unclear why they would need a procedure to land the Reichenberg after Reitsch and her team took the undercarriage off the thing.