Pilotless Aircraft Research Division, NASA history collection

Description (June 27, 1945) The launching of the first rocket at the NACA's Wallop's Island Facility on June 27, 1945. Joseph Shortal described this launch as follows: "The initial operations on June 27, 1945 on Wallops were to check the tracking station location and operation, check the use of CW (Doppler radar for measuring velocities of missiles and to gain experience with actual rockets. Five 3.25 inch rockets were fired at 39.4 elevation angle, and one each at 33.7, 29.3, and 21.5. All were fired in a direction parallel to the beach to simulate the first Tiamat missile launching. Four of the eight rockets were tracked satisfactorily by the SCR-584 radar located at the mainland tracking station 2 and a strong signal was obtained on the CW radar.