Wernher von Braun was a former German Nazi who had been working to develop the Vengeance Weapon 2, or V-2, missiles for Hitler. Tens of thousands of people died making the missiles or from them, Von Braun was one of 120 German scientists who secretly participated in a U.S. project called Operation Paperclip. There, he was given a new life and worked with other scientists to develop America's first-ever ballistic missile. He was later promoted to director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, directing the development of the Behemoth Saturn V rocket. This would later carry the first men to set foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

V2 Missiles, which was developed by Wernher von Braun, was a destructive missile. The terror that it brought to London would be difficult to imagine today. Although the missile was destructive, it was not effective. It's estimated that 4,000 of these missiles were fired towards England but less than 1,500 actually reached their targets. Large numbers of V2 missiles were later captured by the United States and the Soviet Union for their missile and space exploration programs.