Accession List of German Documents Pertaining to Guided Missiles (plus Index, Glossary of English Guided Missile Terms, and Report No. 55289 on "Project Hermes")

Ft. Eustis, VA: Ordnance Department, Army Service Forces, 1946. Complete in three volumes, all "Reproduced by Technical Information Branch, BUAER, Navy Department," marked "Restricted.". [1], 572; [1], 573-1147; [2], 1149-1762 pp. printed on rectos only, in March 1946. Along with related documents Index to Volume I, II, II, [1], 98 pp; and Glossary of English Guided Missile Terms, unconventionally paginated, approx 100 pages. All five of these volumes are mimeographed typescript on rectos only. 10½" x 8", printed boards, tied through punch holes in spines with shoestring. Very Good with light foxing and soiling.A sixth document is included from a rocketry (truncated) project involving German scientists: Report No. 55289 "Project Hermes": Investigation of Unsymmetrical Forces Due to Jet-entrained Air Produced During Launching of the V-2. Aeronautics and Ordnance. General Electric. Prepared by A.B. Gregg Jr. [2], 20 leaves. Mimeographed typescript + figures & graphs, 3 full page halftone photographs. Dampstaining along bottom edge. Project Hermes was a missile research program that ran from 1944 to 1954.
Includes two original snapshot photographs of a V-2 rocket attached to wheels for transport, U.S. military personnel standing by.
A scarce and significant documentation of the United States' absorption German rocket technology at the dawning of the Cold War, and also its enlistment of German scientists including Werner von Braun and Major General Dr. Walter Dornberger. The three large accession lists, the Index, and the Glossary were produced by the Foreign Document Evaluation Branch, Development and Proof Services, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The five volumes were produced to streamline access to the massive array of engineering documents taken out of Germany and to facilitate the work of German and American scientists in jump-starting the American missile program. We could locate only three institutions with a set of all five volumes, the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives; Museum of Flight, Seattle WA; and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Library, MD. These volumes document the orderly transfer of knowledge about rocketry, weapons programs, and the earliest stirrings of a space program from Nazi Germany to the United States. They are mostly bibliographies of technological literature in German, with a focus on the V-2 rocket. (Inventory #: 140944760)