After the liberation of Belgium, starting in 13/10/1944, the Germans supposedly tried to use the V2 as a strategic weapon to prevent the use of the strategic harbor of Antwerp. Without any success, it didn't stop the use of the harbor even for a day. Given the resources and manpower that had to be used to build them this obviously doesn't makes sense. But that can conveniently be blamed on the irrationality of Hitler.
Interestingly, in Antwerp the public was warned beforehand that when the bombs were used the media couldn't provide reliable information about the impacts. Because they didn't want the Germans to know if they were successful. I presume this was also the case in Britain, because of the stories of the spies telling they were overshooting London.
This leads to an interesting question: would the media blackout have made it more difficult to fake the bombs because they couldn't show any video or pictures?
Or would it have been easier because they had only to spread the right rumors, and nobody was able to debunk them?
The participants of the hoax could be told that they were doing this to confuse the Germans.
Here is a story about the first V2 attack:
source:
http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-art ... ocket.html
The missile first struck Staveley Road, a fairly quiet street in one of London’s suburban districts. It landed near Chiswick station on the eighth of September in 1944, where it killed three people. The youngest casualty was a young girl named Rosemary Clarke, who was only three years of age. The V2 rocket left a thirty-foot crater, destroying over ten houses and damaging for than five hundred. Given this level of destruction, the number of deaths was fortunately small. The number of injuries, on the other hand, was much higher. John Clarke, Rosemary Clarke’s brother, had a mild hand injury. He remembers seeing that his sister’s body was not badly damaged, but the force of the blast had caused her lungs to collapse.
At the time of the explosion, many were not fully aware of the cause. A number of witnesses believed that the explosion was caused by a faulty gas main, though the depth of the crater and the lack of piping in the debris raised suspicions. The V2 rocket became known colloquially as a “flying gas pipe” due to the confused rumors. Officials did not reveal any detailed information on the weapon until two months later, but many were aware of the nature of the attack within one hour of the explosion.
Londoners were not new to such attacks. They had already suffered the Blitz years ago. The reason that this particular attack came as something of a surprise is that, less than a week before the V2 rocket hit, it had been reported that the Germans did not likely have the capabilities to fire such weapons as far as London. This turned out to be far from true.
Less then a week before it hit, what a coincidence.
In Antwerp, the city and the media were controlled by the Allied forces. If V2 rockets were a hoax, the same people could have been employed and moved from London to Antwerp. This is an official picture attributed to the US Signal Corps, that is widely used. the title is "This boy's dead body, aflame, bears ghastly witness of the horror of the damage done by V-2 on main intersection in Antwerp on main supply line to Holland. Belgium, November 27, 1944.". (see
http://research.archives.gov/description/531329)
Why do I think it is fake?
It is the sharpest picture I found of that period. Yet unlike other pictures, where a photographer could really take his time choosing the best conditions, using a tripod... this one is supposed to be taken In a crisis situation. The soldiers look like they are just strolling around as if there is no emergency at all, while the man or boy is still smoking. How do they or the photographer know he is beyond rescuing? If they have something more urgent to do, why are they not running? Why is the jeep burning, it doesn't look like it was very close to where the bomb must have dropped? What kind of bomb would set a jeep on fire (an atomb bomb?).
The man is not much farther from the camera than the jeep, yet they are of similar height. That doesn't seem right. Why are the stones around the jeep darker?
The official identifier of the photo is 111-SC-232557, the date in the title is November 27, 1944. But how come there are pictures that are supposed to be older, that have a lower number as identifier? For example "Troops Find Loot Hidden in Church, 04/24/1945 " is number 111-SC-204899. (I am not saying that picture is real, it is found at
http://research.archives.gov/description/5757187.) It looks like the picture was made after the war.
(I saw a closeup of the same scene in a video about the bombs at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOt8_yMp0KY)
As for the reasons why the V2 rockets would have been hoaxed I have some suggestions:
The V2 rockets were obviously very important to promote the idea of space travel. So they were a crucial part of consequent space hoaxes.
For example: When Hergé made his comic "Objectif Lune" (Destination Moon), published in 1950 he used the V2 as a model (adding a nuclear engine)
The V2 also gave us the concept of ballistic missiles. I think they were an essential element of the nuke scare. If nuclear bombs had to be dropped by a plane they would be much easier to intercept and less scary. We wouldn't have the image of an unstoppable Armageddon by pressing a button we have now.
Possibly (some) modern ballistic missiles are also a hoax. With terminal speeds of over 5000 m/s, wouldn't they burn up like a meteor?
Edit: possibly instead of
possible