Crossbow and overcast

the long version

Twenty years after VE Day this book revealed for the first time the exciting story of two of the most important secret operations of World War II: Crossbow and Overcast. Together they expose the fascinating history of the world's first long-range guided missile, the V-2 rocket. It was for possession of this Nazi secret weapon and the brains who built it that the U.S., Great Britain and Russia found themselves matched in a race against time and each other. Crossbow was the code name for the operation which first discovered and then defeated Germany's rocket potential. Overcast was the top-secret follow-up plan which eventually brought Wernher von Braun and other top German rocket scientists to the United States one jump ahead of the Red Army. But did we really win the battle for brains? What did the Russians get which enabled them to launch Sputnik and then be the first to put a man into space? Crossbow and Overcast gives the fascinating answers. Author James McGovern, himself an American intelligence agent in Germany for five post-war years, based this work on original source material. Many of the documents McGovern used were until shortly before publication still classified secret. In addition many of the men (both German and American) whose stories are told here made available to the author certain personal papers and photographs. Illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs.