Serge Golian, Santa Ana, California, Utah Uranium Oral History Project

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SERGE GOLIAN #1 problem psychologically than the V-2s, because the V­ls were slow, relatively speaking, craft. I don't remember now, but perhaps 400 miles an hour. This is­- it's a small aircraft as it were which would eventually come down and explode. That meant of course that they heard them coming, and knowing they were coming and wondering if they were destined for you or not, you worried for about the length of time that you could hear them, which was quite a long time. Whereas later on the V-2 weapons were quite different because they came in at, oh, I believe their actual landing was something like 3600 miles an hour. They came in so rapidly that you would just not hear anything, they hit and they exploded and then you were warned that a V-2 was on the way after the explosion. So, the effect, the psychological effect of the V-2 was I believe, much less. At least in my case it never bothered me as much as the V-1, because with the V-1 you would have the alarms and the loudspeakers would say, "Flying bombs on the way, take cover, take cover." CE: Where? SG: Well, there were many places to take cover, and usually the nearest one where I was, the nearest one was the subway. The subways were quite crowded. 10