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In 1943, the Admiralty’s Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) was tasked with creating a weapon capable of destroying the well-protected bunkers and other fortifications of Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’. The design team, which included a Lieutenant Commander Norway (better known as a novelist writing under the pen name Nevil Shute), calculated that well over a ton of explosives would be needed to be certain of destroying such targets.
Within months, a contract was awarded to Commercial Structures Ltd of Leytonstone for a rocket-propelled demolition charge, dubbed ‘The Great Panjandrum’, which could be launched from a landing craft. The prototype comprised a steel drum filled with explosives, suspended between a pair of wooden wheels, measuring 10ft (3m) diameter and powered by a total of 18 solid-fuel rockets attached to the wheel spokes. It was calculated that the production version with extra rockets would have a top speed of about 60mph (100km/h) when fitted with a 4,000lb (1,800kg) warhead. Panjandrum’s speed and weight would give it sufficient momentum to simply crash through any obstacles between its launch point and target.
Complete fiasco
The prototype, with a dummy warhead, was completed in early September 1943 and sent for trials on the beaches at Westward Ho!, near Bideford in Devon. The first t
rial ended in a crash when several rockets flew off the right-hand wheel. The number of rockets was increased to a total of 66 and a host of modifications were made in unsuccessful attempts to improve controllability. These included fitting a third stabiliser wheel and control cables, as the load imposed by the rockets’ fierce acceleration snapped the first set of cables, which then whipped back, narrowly missing the crew.
Weaknesses: hard to control, poor accuracy
Although stronger cables did withstand the strain, they failed to make any real improvement to Panjandrum’s accuracy. The ninth and final trial run was made in January 1944 in front of a host of senior officers. As one account put it:
At first all went well. Panjandrum rolled into the sea and began to head for the shore, the Brass Hats watching through binoculars from the top of a pebble ridge . . . Then a clamp gave; first one, then two more rockets broke free. Panjandrum began to lurch ominously. It hit a line of small craters in the sand and began to turn to starboard, careering towards Klemantaski [the cameraman filming the trial] who, viewing events through a telescopic lens, misjudged the distance and continued filming.
The account went on:
Hearing the approaching roar Klemantaski looked up from his viewfinder to see Panjandrum, shedding live rockets in all directions, heading straight for him. As he ran for his life, he glimpsed the assembled admirals and generals diving for cover behind the pebble ridge into barbed-wire entanglements. Panjandrum was now heading back to the sea, but crashed on to the sand where it disintegrated in a violent explosion, rockets tearing across the beach at great speed.
This fiasco marked the end of the project, although, interestingly, it has been suggested that the trials were artificially prolonged as part of Operation Fortitude, the deception campaign in preparation for the Normandy landings.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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