Free Republic

Archaeologists have discovered the exploded remains of a German V1 "flying bomb" that crashed in a forest in 1944 on the way to its target in London. The dig has turned up several key metal parts from the unpiloted V1, a predecessor of today's guided cruise missiles. It was one of thousands of"retaliation weapons," or "Vergeltungswaffen," launched by Nazi Germany in the last months of World War II.

An incredibly rare Kamikaze version of Adolf Hitler's deadly V1 terror weapon is about to go on display at a British museum 47 years after it was saved from the scrapheap - and restored in Germany. The piloted Doodlebug was effectively a suicide bomb packed with one ton of explosives in its nose. Towards the end of the Second World War, some 5,000 V1 rockets, the world's first cruise missile, were launched by the Germans to bomb London, causing massive loss of life.