Building Hitler's Supergun: The Plot to Destroy London

By the spring of 1943, for the first time since the beginning of World War II, Hitler was on the back foot. As Allied bombs rained down on German cities, the Fuhrer was determined to hit back. He drew up plans for the biggest gun the world has ever seen: the V-3 Supergun. From its bunker buried deep in a French hillside, this monstrous 25-barrelled cannon was designed to reduce London to rubble, and turn the course of the war back in Hitler's favour.

In a race to knock out the supergun, the allies dreamt up their own miracle weapons. The Americans devised the world's first ever drone: a remote controlled heavy bomber packed with explosives levelled at the gun's stronghold. The British drafted in Barnes Wallis, the genius behind the bouncing bomb. With his characteristic flair for lateral thinking, he came up with a weapon that would trigger an earthquake.

Exactly how Hitler built his supergun has remained a mystery, and the story of the Allies' mission to destroy it has never been told. Now, in a series of explosive experiments, engineer Hugh Hunt sets out to discover how the gun worked. With only a handful of grainy photographs to guide him, Hugh builds his own supergun to see if the weapon really could have brought London to its knees. He recreates Barnes Wallis's earth-shattering tests into bunker busting technology. Finally Hugh investigates the series of blunders that plagued the American drone strike, carrying out his own accident investigation into the flawed mission, which sealed the fate of a young man born to be president of the United States: Joe Kennedy Junior. (jakelijan virallinen teksti)