In Washington, on July 6, 1945, in a classified memorandum with the subject heading “Exploitation of German Specialists in Science and Technology in the United States,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally approved—on paper—a Nazi scientist program. President Truman was not made aware of the initiative. The governing body that had been assigned to “exercise general supervision” over the program and to “formulate general policies for procurement, utilization and control of specialists” was the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, G-2. A five-page memo was sent out to eight agencies within the War Department outlining “principles and procedures” governing the classified program. The three most important points were that “certain German specialists… could be utilized to increase our war making capacity against Japan and aid our postwar military research,” that “no known or alleged war criminals should be brought to the United States,” and that “the purpose of this plan should be understood to be temporary military exploitation of the minimum number of German specialists necessary.” According to this initiative, as soon as the jobs were completed “the specialists would be returned to Europe.” Participants, it was noted, should be hereafter referred to as “eminent German specialists” as opposed to “German scientists,” because not all the Nazis being requested for program approval had degrees in science. Included in the mix were Nazi bureaucrats, businessmen, accountants, and lawyers. The project also now had an official code name, Operation Overcast. The name Paperclip would not be used for another eight months.
Military agencies that were interested in hiring German specialists were to submit their requests to the assistant chief of staff, G-2. “Only the most compelling argument should bring a German specialist to this country,” the initiative stated, and only the “chosen, rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use” would be approved. The British would be made aware of the program, in general terms. At some point after the first large group of scientists had arrived in the United States, a “suitable” press release would be generated by the War Department so as to “avoid possible resentment on the part of the American public.”
A list of desired German scientists—“List I”—accompanied the memo. It included 115 rocket specialists. When the British learned about the U.S. Army’s intentions to hire the German rocket scientists, they asked to first be allowed to conduct two rocket exploitation projects of their own. The Americans agreed and released into British custody a group of scientists, engineers, and technicians including Wernher von Braun, Walter Dornberger, and Arthur Rudolph.
The first British project was called Operation Backfire, a V-2 field test that took place on Germany’s north coast, at a former Krupp naval gun range in Cuxhaven. Operation Backfire was designed to analyze technical data about the V-2 by having the Nazi rocket engineers fire four rockets, also taken piecemeal from Nordhausen, at a target in the North Sea. This would allow the British to evaluate various technical elements, from how the rocket was launched to its flight controls and fuels. Arthur Rudolph, the former Mittelwerk operations director, was considered an expert in launch techniques, and to his biographer, he later recalled a scene from Operation Backfire: “The V-2 ran on alcohol of the same chemistry as that appearing in say, Jack Daniels and Old Grandad [sic]. The people at the test site apparently knew that.” One night, according to Rudolph, a group of British and German V-2 technicians got drunk together on the rocket fuel. A British officer came upon the group arm in arm, “apparently comrades now, and lustily singing, Wir Fahren gegen England, or ‘We Will March Against England.’ ” General Dornberger was not part of the drinking and singing. The British kept him on a short leash, away from the test firing and always under a watchful eye. The British had alternative plans for Walter Dornberger. They were not interested in the knowledge Dornberger possessed. They wanted to try him for war crimes. After the test, he would not be returned to the Americans as the British had originally promised.
“The British pulled a sneaky on us,” explained Major Staver, who attended Operation Backfire. The Americans were not permitted to take Dornberger back after the Operation; instead, Dornberger was declared “on loan” and was taken to England. There, he and von Braun were “interrogated for a week by the British and then kept behind barbed wire in Wimbledon for four and one-half weeks while waiting to be picked up by the Americans.” Eventually, von Braun was returned but General Dornberger was not. Instead, he was issued a brown jumpsuit with the letters “PW” for Prisoner of War stenciled on the back. Under armed guard, he was taken to the London District Cage near the Windermere Bridge for interrogation. From there, General Dornberger was transferred first to a castle in Wales and then to Special Camp XI in Island Farm, South Wales, where he was an extremely unpopular prisoner.