Chemical weapon V-1s in Alderney 'fantasy'
CLAIMS that occupied Alderney was being prepared to be a base for attacks on the UK using V-1 'doodlebug' missiles, armed with warheads containing deadly chemicals, have been described as 'utter nonsense' by an expert on the island's occupation.
Alderney Society president Dr Trevor Davenport is the author of Festung Alderney, a book which focuses on the island's German defences.
Commenting on an article in Saturday's Daily Mail – the first of two about Alderney during the Occupation – Dr Davenport said: 'If this first article is anything to go by, containing so much that has been speculated on before with no evidence apart from hearsay (or fantasy), then I cannot begin to imagine what other fiction will be included in their later "revelations".'
The report was written by Col. Richard Kemp and Alderney resident John Weigold, a former Army officer.
But after investigating tunnels used by the Nazis during the Occupation, the two men became convinced that not only was the island being readied to build V-1s, but that they would have carried more than just an explosive payload.
The authors claim to have seen and heard enough to convince them that the Nazis intended to have the weapons armed with warheads containing the deadly chemicals tabun and sarin.
They compared the tunnels beneath Le Val Reuters in Alderney with V-1 sites they had visited in France: 'We visited these and discovered that the measurements of their specially constructed storage facilities corresponded exactly to the shape and dimensions of the Val Reuters tunnel.
'It couldn't just be coincidence,' wrote the men.
