How Hitler’s fear-inducing ‘flying bomb’ ushered in drone warfare

On June 13, 1944, a strange new aircraft appeared in England’s skies.

While the Royal Air Force was accustomed to scrambling to intercept German fighter and bomber aircraft from mainland Europe, this new threat was different. It was unmanned.

Described by baffled onlookers as a “pilotless plane,” it had wings, a jet engine and a warhead that delivered far-reaching explosive damage on impact. Its engine cut out in midair shortly before it fell on targets. It was self-guided.

This was the Fieseler Fi 103, or Vergeltungswaffe 1, better known as the V-1 “flying bomb,” and it’s often called the first cruise missile. But the V-1 could more accurately be described in today’s nomenclature as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — moreover, as the first suicide drone.

Like UAVs today, the V-1 was c