How A Ragtag Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon w/ Jamie Holmes

On this edition of Parallax Views, in June of 1944, shortly after D-Day, the Nazis unleashed a wave of devastation on London with a superweapon. The Allies had expected retaliation from the Axis powers, but they had not expected the death machine that was the V-1 or Vergeltungswaffe (Vengeance Weapon One). Few within the Allied powers thought that they could counteract this new obstacle to defeating the Axis forces. And yet, in a story of human ingenuity defying the odds, a rag tag band of inventors, tinkerers, and spies would ultimately bring about the invention of a fuse device would thwart this Nazi superweapon. In his new book 12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon, journalist Jamie Holmes, whose work has appeared in such outlets as The New York Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast, brings to light this heretofore overlooked bit of WWII history and, in the process, finds a parable about science, governance, leadership, and human ingenuity that may have something to tell us about how to handle the crisis we face today in the form of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It's a story that includes a Nazi spy ring operating in New York, an scientific advisor to Britain's MI6 intelligence services and the beautiful French spy who aided him, and a small band of scientist who began working with little resources on a small farm in Virginia to stop the Nazi menace. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views.

This Episode Brought to You By:

The War State:
The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963
by
Michael Swanson
of
The Wall Street Window