A THICK JET OF ORANGE-WHITE FLAME FURIOUSLY SPURTED

from the tail of the huge cigar-shaped rocket. The powerful

engine roared angrily as a mixture of liquid oxygen exploded

in its combustion chamber. When the thrust of the motor

reached 55,000 pounds, the missile shivered and slowly rose

from its launching pad; up and up it soared, its tail blazing

red, climbing beyond the evergreen tops of the slender Pom-

eranian pines, heading for the low, gray sky. After four seconds

of vertical flight, the thirteen-ton rocket slowly started tilting

to horizontal position. Within fifty seconds it attained an angle

of 49 degrees and crossed the belt of sand dunes rising on the

coast; soon it was far away in the sky, gliding over the murky

waves of the Baltic.

On the desolate beach, two men were following the rocket s

flight through powerful binoculars. One of them looked like a

product of the "pure German race" as depicted on the propa-

ganda posters of the fanatic Reichsminister Dr. Alfred Rosen-

berg. He was young, tall and fair-haired, and his handsome

face was illuminated by a pair of blue eyes and an easy, con-

fident smile. He wore a tweed jacket, a white roll-neck pullover

and casual slacks made of expensive wool. But his easygoing

outward appearance was misleading: At the age of thirty-two,

he was Germany s wonder boy, and her foremost rocket scien-

tist-Dr. Wernher yon Braun, the master brain behind the

huge rocket research and development base of Peenemtinde.