Notable events at the site include the first successful V-2 launch on 3 October 1942, visits by German military leaders, and Allied reconnaissance overflights and bombing.

The control center had a double door with a bulletproof glass window from which an observer maintained telephone communication with the Telemetering Building at a remote location from P-7.

[5][6] The control room also had switchboards, a row of four periscopes, manometers, frequency gauges, voltmeters and ammeters, green/red/white signal lamps, and switches at the propulsion console and guidance panel to dynamically display approximately 15 measurement points within the rocket.

Additionally, the control room had a big "X-time" countdown clock that displayed the time until launch, which was announced via loudspeakers as "X minus four minutes", etc.

A different gradually rising tunnel led from the long flame pit room to the exterior of the arena near the pumphouse (German: Pumpenhaus).

[5][6] The prominent tower within the arena was a mobile test frame/crane (Fahrbare Kranbühne)[1] which could be moved over the flame pit to position the rocket nozzle 25 feet above the deflector, and which allowed an entire missile to be gimbaled in two directions up to five degrees from vertical.

Under the concrete foundation were the recorder room, a small shop, an office, compressed nitrogen storage cylinders, and catch tanks.

The arena also included an engine cold-calibration pad for conducting flow test measurements by pumping water (instead of Liquid oxygen) and alcohol (which was recovered afterward) via the turbopump through the combustion chamber.

Outside of the arena was the 150x185x100h foot[1] assembly and preparation hall/hangar (German: Montagehalle), which had been designed to be able to handle a larger A9/A10 multi-stage rocket that was planned, but never built.

Later in the month Constance Babington Smith decided the scale was too small ... then something unusual caught my eye ... some extraordinary circular embankments ...

[7][10] Then a year later on 22 April 1943, Bill White and Ron Prescott in RAF de Havilland Mosquito DZ473 were sent from Leuchars to photograph damage from Allied bombing at the Stettin railyards: "On leaving Stettin, we left our cameras running all down the north coast of Germany, and when the film was developed, it was found to contain pictures of Peenemünde."

The Medmenham interpreters studied the elliptical earthworks (originally photographed in May 1942) and noticed an "object" 25 feet (7.6 m) long projecting from what was thought to be a service building, although it had mysteriously disappeared on the next frame.

[11] On 22 April 1943 a large cloud of steam was photographed near the embankments, which was later identified as coming from a rocket engine being test fired.

[12]: 433  Duncan Sandys' first photographic reconnaissance report on Peenemünde was circulated on 29 April 1943, which identified that the lack of power-station activity (Germany had installed electrostatic dust and smoke removers on the power station near Kölpin) indicates that "The circular and elliptical constructions are probably for the testing of explosives and projectiles.

Then on 14 May, an "unusually high level of activity" was visible at "the Ellipse" on photos from two sorties on 14 May, which was the date the Reich Director of Manpower (Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel) was a distinguished visitor at a launch.

[10]: 98 The last V-2 launch at Peenemünde was in February 1945, and on 5 May 1945, the 2nd Belorussian Front under General Konstantin Rokossovsky captured the port of Swinemünde and the Usedom island.

Russian infantry under Major Anatole Vavilov stormed Peenemünde and found it "75 per cent wreckage" (the research buildings and test stands had been demolished.