Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

210 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
many efforts were made throughout the years to delineate the areas of responsibility
according to mission, confusion continued in the development of the various rocket
and missile systems. 3
During the war, the Army arranged with its Ballistics Re search Laboratory
at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at
the California Institute of Technology to study the possibilities of long-range
guided missiles. 4 Based on the report, a contract was made with the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for general research on guided mis siles. The results were so encouraging
that two more were let. The first contract with the General Electric Company
in 1944 led to the development of long-range surface-to-surface missiles, later
named the Hermes Project. Although a tactical weapons system never materialized
from the ten-year project, it made valu able contributions in the areas of propulsion
systems, rocket fuels, aerodynamics, and guidance and testing equipment. Dubbed
the Nike Project, the second contract with Bell Telephone Laboratories and the
Western Electric Company in February 1945 was for the development of high-altitude
antiaircraft missiles. On 9 July, the Army established the White Sands Proving
Ground (later called White Sands Missile Range) in New Mexico for the practical
testing of mis siles. 5
After the end of World War II, the United States managed to obtain a few
completed V–2 rockets and enough parts to assemble about one hundred more. The
government also brought under contract the German team of Walter Dornberger
and Wernher von Braun, two of the most important figures in the history of guided
missiles, as well as one hundred thirty other German scientists and engineers. The
group initially established itself at Fort Bliss, Texas, which was convenient to White
Sands, and began to integrate the V–2 program with American efforts. Nevertheless,
until the early 1950s, progress was slow because the missile program was not
con ducted on a high-priority level.
Shortly after the German team arrived in Texas, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
fired the first of the Without Altitude Control, or WAC, Corporal series of supersonic
liquid-fueled rockets at White Sands. In what became known as the Bumper program,
the WAC-Corporal was later combined with a V–2 rocket as a booster to produce a
very high-altitude supersonic missile. On 24 February 1949, a V–2 Bumper boosted
a WAC-Corporal into space at a speed of 5,150 miles (8,286.4 kilometers) per hour.
It was the first man-made object outside the earth’s atmosphere. It was also the first
3 On the committee’s mission, see Subject File, 1942–46, General Records of the Joint New Weapons
Committee, Entry 92, RG 218, NARA.
4 A guided missile contains a built-in guidance system that may be preset prior to flight or that
may be controlled during flight either by internal homing devices or by external radio signals.
5 Charles H. Donnelly, The United States Guided Missile Program, prepared for the Preparedness
Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1959,
pp. 7–8.