Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

212 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
earlier boards had given priority to the development of atomic bombs and strategic
aircraft, the Hodge board gave prece dence to the development of modern equipment
needed to make the Army’s ground forces effective. The Corporal, Honest John, and
other artillery weapons eventually fulfilled the specific requirements outlined in the
guide and subsequent revisions. 8
Honest John Rocket
The Ordnance Corps responded promptly to meet part of the Hodge board’s
recommended requirements with a special-purpose large-caliber rocket, later known
as the Honest John. 9 Conceived in 1950 as a direct-support atomic weapon carrier
and fielded four years later, the 762-mm. Honest John was a solid-propellant finstabilized
supersonic free-flight rocket developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company
to comple ment medium- or long-range tactical-support artillery.
The earliest Honest Johns were hastily improvised weapons to augment existing
artillery when ammunition problems in Korea were still acute and when
the threat from the Soviet Union seemed particularly great. Although capable of
firing high-explosive con ventional warheads, it was the first large-caliber rocket
to carry an atomic warhead. The rocket was based partly on a crude German experimental
rocket and partly on a rocket designed by the Navy. The launcher was
a simple track, mounted on a standard Army truck, but the mechanism provided
the United States with the first opportunity of linking a nuclear warhead with a
mobile surface vehicle. Because of their makeshift nature, the rockets soon needed
replacement. The improved Honest Johns, which finally reached the field in 1961,
had a range of 25 miles (40.2 kilometers) com pared to the earlier rocket’s 16-mile
(25.7-kilometer) range and had greater accu racy and reliability. Weighing several
tons, the rocket’s self-propelled launcher was so light and its fire control so simple
that the system had greater battlefield mobility than conven tional heavy artillery.
The Honest John was aimed and fired in the same manner as cannon, and it could
be used in terrain where it was impossible to move an 86-ton atomic cannon that
had also been developed. The Honest John presented less of a camouflage problem
in position than the heavy gun, but because the back blast upon firing was plainly
visible, the rocket launcher had to move out of position quickly to reduce the
8 Mary T. Cagle, “History of the Basic (M31) Honest John Rocket System, 1950–1964,” Historical
Monograph Project no. AMC 7M Part 1, 7 April 1964, pp. 17–19, AMCOM files and copy in CMH files;
Army Equipment Development Guide, 29 December 1950, copy in MHI files.
9 Maj. Gen. H. N. Toftoy, commander of Redstone Arsenal, recounted in an article that the name Honest
John derived from the fact that he had overheard a Texan making some questionable statements and thus
challenged the latter, who exclaimed: “Why around these parts I’m called ‘Honest John!’” General Toftoy
applied the name to the rocket because, prior to the first test firing, the project was nearly canceled on the
grounds that such a large unguided rocket could not possibly have had the accuracy to justify further funds.
See H. N. Toftoy, “Army Missile Development,” Army Information Digest, December 1956, p. 32.