Book Review - 12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon - Jamie Holmes

Reviewed by Dr. Robert Addinall, who teaches courses in History and Administration at the Royal Military College of Canada

12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon is a book that focuses primarily on two Second World War military technologies: the German development of the V-1 pilotless pulse jet bomb (essentially the forerunner to cruise missiles), and the American development of variants of the proximity fuse for various types of anti-aircraft (AA) and, later in the war, ground bombardment artillery shells. The first part of the title refers to the typical amount of silent glide time that a V-1 rocket took after its engine cut out to impact the ground. The second part primarily refers to the scientists of “Section T”, headed by geophysicist Merle Tuve, of the World War II era U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) overseen by Vannevar Bush.  

Despite the title, the story of the smart fuse gives the impression of overshadowing that of the V-1 by the end of the book. In the way that Holmes unfolds his narrative, the V-1 serves as something of a protagonist that ultimately illustrates the importance of proximity-fused weapons in a defensive role. That said, weapons with the proximity fuse went on beyond that role, as seen with the AA fire against Japanese air attacks in the Pacific theatre or against German ground forces during the Ardennes offensive of December 1944 and January 1945. In discussing why he chose to revisit this topic, Holmes notes, “[O]ver the fall of 1945, the smart fuse enjoyed a short time in the national spotlight. Newsreels from Universal, Paramount, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer celebrated its feats in theatres. The rush of publicity was newsworthy in itself.”^{Footnote 1}  He adds, “Silver Spring, Maryland, home of the Applied Physics Laboratory, was suddenly ‘on the front pages of newspapers all over the country’”^{Footnote 2}  and “Dr. Merle Tuve, ‘one of the foremost physicists in the world,’ was … ‘being billed as one of the nation’s No. 1 heroes.’”^{Footnote 3}    

However, Holmes finds that general knowledge of the history of the proximity fuse was itself eventually overshadowed by other even more prominent developments of the period and became “a quaint piece of Americana”^{Footnote 4}   before being mostly forgotten. He remarks, “[As] the decades passed, Section T’s contributions gradually faded from collective memory …. Overshadowed by the atomic bomb and then muddled by a messy patent suit, the story of the fuse receded. Based on the early British work on rocket fuses, which were not effective, a fiction took hold that the British had ‘invented’ the smart fuse and merely passed it along to Merle Tuve to manufacture.”^{Footnote 5}

Holmes indicates that he researched the book based on “a wide variety of archival sources, many of which have never been written of previously,” with the assistance of “a great number of archivists and librarians.”^{Footnote 6}  As such, 12 Seconds of Silence is well-researched and provides a new perspective on an old and, at times, partially forgotten subject. Regarding military history, Holmes’ work contains some subsidiary theses that can provide an interesting basis for discussion. For example, he argues that the proximity fuse was one of the world’s first “smart weapons,”^{Footnote 7}  although that term only came into wide circulation later in the 20th century. He also argues that ground and ship-based anti-aircraft weapons were largely ineffective before the introduction of the proximity fuse.^{Footnote 8}  Overall, though, these aspects of military history are interwoven with other narrative elements of his text. He attempts to—and largely succeeds in—building up what are essentially human-interest stories around various main actors in the history of the American proximity fuse and German V-1 programs. That is a more significant aspect of the first third of the book, entitled “Part 1: Peace,” in which he recounts details of the pre-war lives of Merle Tuve and various other members of the OSRD, as well as other research and development organizations and projects. In the second and third parts of 12 Seconds of Silence, entitled “Part II: War” and “Part III: Victory,” human interest is a less significant aspect. However, Holmes still devotes some attention to fleshing out the personalities and experiences of the individuals who were part of history. In the two later thirds, the human-interest aspect often transitions into occasional sections of organizational history regarding Section T, the OSRD, German V-weapon research at Peenemünde, and so on. Amongst other things, Section T quickly evolved from being “a team of inventors and tinkerers” at the start of the war into a large complex organization with extensive links to the manufacturing industry and with members transferred into military units in active combat zones by the mid-to-late war period.

In addition to the aspects of Holmes’ narrative discussed above, there is a less developed parallel narrative focusing on both espionage and information security efforts involving the proximity fuse and German V-weapons research. To this reviewer, the espionage aspect of the book also seems somewhat overshadowed by other aspects of the narrative, similar to how, at least to an extent, the proximity fuse history edges out that of the V-weapons. However, in both cases, this reflects the events of history as much as Holmes’ choices in constructing his text. Anglo-American espionage efforts against the Germans in terms of V-weapons were reasonably successful, even if various senior British military personnel were initially skeptical of German efforts in terms of self-guided bombs and rockets. In contrast, German efforts to discover what the Allies were doing regarding proximity fuses failed. By 1944, Anglo-American espionage efforts were also aided by air superiority, which allowed extensive aerial reconnaissance of German V-weapon launch sites. Even though, at times, critical details were missed by Allied analysts, German espionage efforts, as well as efforts at keeping their own projects secret, continued to be ineffective. Similarly, the German V-1 ultimately failed to influence the course of the war significantly, even though it did cause some significant damage and loss of life in the greater London area of the U.K. during parts of the summer of 1944 and required the Allies to commit significant AA assets to defend the port of Antwerp during late 1944 and early 1945, while the proximity fuse became a substantial part of the story of Allied victories of 1943–45 leading to the defeat of the Axis powers. The emphasis of the historical narrative naturally tends to slant towards the victorious side and its weapons and away from efforts that failed.

While the general historical significance of the proximity fuse and the German V-1 were known to this reviewer as a military historian, Holmes’ new account of the development of these weapons was quite interesting, and the detailed notes on his archival sources could provide students of history with fresh starting points for additional research. Most military and academic readers are likely to find 12 Seconds of Silence worthwhile reading, even though it is more popular history than academic study.

This article first appeared in the April, 2024 edition of Canadian Army Journal (20-2).