72 years ago

[computedshorty]

During my search for records of the V1 & V11 Bombs, I came across this website by Steve who wrote the V1 & V11 Doodle Bugs & Rockets, who is also a member here of this Eastdulwichforum. He had read that I was trying to trace the bomb dates, and contacted me.

I was able to tell him that my father was one of the Air Raid Wardens based in the Dulwich Library that attended the damage in Court Lane where his Grandmother was living, on Dovercourt Road where the V11 Rocket landed on 6/1/1945.

He asked if I could give any information on the V1 Doodle Bug that Landed in the Lordship Lane / Eyenella Road / Court Lane triangle on 13/7/1944, as he was now living there.

This is his own entry.

The V1 fell in the area behind Dulwich Library at the junction of Lordship lane and Woodwarde Road. It injured 14 people and demolished part of a church and the priest?s house in Lordship Lane. . 9 shops and 40 houses suffered severe damage in Lordship Lane and 50 houses badly damaged in Court Lane. The damaged/rebuilt area can clearly be seen.

My younger Sister was in the Library Gardens when it fell, she was luckily dragged into a brick Air Raid Shelter in time. The bomb explode just a few hundred yard away. Her account is somewhere on the Wartime Memories caled " Dont pick the Daiseys "

This is by Steve;

I have been interested in the V1 and V11 attacks for many years. My family lived in South London during the war, in

Beckenham and Dulwich and I was often told stories of the Blitz and the V weapon attacks.

My mother ,who lived in Beckenham, used to tell a story of how she used to travel from Clock House Station to Charing

Cross on the train to work. One day she looked out of the window and saw a Doodlebug flying along on a parallel course !.

Everyone just went on reading their news papers and after what seemed like a long time it veered off and exploded . I

recall asking her if she was frightened. She replied, "well yes but you just got used to it !"

My Dulwich Grandmother, who lived in Dovercourt Road , used to frequently mention the bombing. I now live a few

hundred yards away, in Court Lane, in a house itself damaged by a Flying bomb on the 13th July 1944.

My Uncle Peter, once told me that he used to go up to the Addington Hills, near Croydon, and watch the V2's being

launched from the Netherlands (on a clear day you could see the vapour trails going up into the sky). He was later

employed patching up Flying bomb and Rocket damaged houses.

So, intrigued with these recollections, a few years ago I started reading books on the subject including Bob Ogley's

excellent Doodle Bugs & Rockets, and the very comprehensive "The Doodlebugs" by Norman Longstaff. These provided

me with a huge amount of information.

However, being of an enquiring mind, I wanted to find out exactly what happened in South London during the Period,

how many bombs, where they fell, what damage was caused and what affect that this had on the post war shape of the

area.

Currently I am not able to handle any queries due to pressure of other work.

[edhistory]

The offical atlas shows how badly the Plough area suffered.

Big circle = V1

Small circle = V2

Black = total destruction

Purple = damaged beyond repair.

Why is this thread in the lounge?

John K

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Blitz Cristmas 1940.

Not a very good Christmas for them.

There were not normally as many rescuers on the bomb site.

Unable to trace place of Picture.

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Not many can be expected to be alive under this.

The early strechers were just two long poles with a canvas in between.

There was no thought of not moving a casualty, they just moved them holding arms and legs to the nearest place an ambulance could pick them up.

Here in the road you might see many covered stretchers, covered over completely with a red blanket, awaiting removal to the morgue.

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Just a normal day in the kids life, sitting outside the old home, wondering if the rest of the neighbours are being cared for, and where they have been moved to.

So many did not get moved, but the children were not told they all died.

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" No standing on top " as the conductor would call out, not much chance of this bus ever being repaired.

So its now no longer serving the public.

The advert on the bus here in Holbourn says Black & White, very apt as everything was indeed Black & White in those days.

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The Large Tram Depot at Camberwell Green was bombed and put many trams out of service.

They all got repaired, as the staff there had been used to altering them one of the early pre war makeovers was to enclose the drivers cabin that had been open to all weather, the passengers were grateful of the door that was behind the driver being closed.

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The trams entered the Depot on a set of rails to be loaded onto a transporter platform in the foreground that moved them to the appropriate row of parked trams.

The passengers had no glass in the tram for days.

Second picture

The Tram Transporter can be seen here to the right the controls can be seen they are the same as a trams controls.

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This picture in Aldwych shows how those nearby helped to get first aid to the casualties.

All able citizens helped, here the newer steel stretchers were being used.

Picture 2

This is what they got pulled from.

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Never mind you get them dirty, I will wash it and hang it out to dry, its a good day for drying.

Look at this thing they put in my yard, no room to swing a cat now, and no bloody door.

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Those children have nearly all passed on now, very few have the these memories to haunt them.

The lucky ones lived a full life.

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Seventy six Hospitals were damaged in London alone, this one in Lewishham as pictured.

Imagine Lying there with no protection above you at all and not being able to get to a shelter.

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Yes we did get hurt.

One day the air raid siren sounded. I ran down the garden to light the lamp in the Andersen shelter and returned to the house to carry one of the baby twins to the shelter, my mother bringing the other with her, With planes overhead, Mum said to get under the table as there was no time to get down the garden to the shelter.

The table was very large for the ten of us that sat round it for our meals. We could hear the bombs falling, then a tremendous explosion. Everything seemed to go orange ,then black, then silent, We couldn't breathe. Black soot and plaster from the ceiling choked us. We tried to get out from under the table. The complete window frame, dresser, and the cast iron kitchen range was keeping us in. We worked our way out from under the table.

A hole was where the window had been, glass was sticking in the facing wall, all the crockery was smashed when the dresser fell, the kitchen range was on its front with bricks in its place in the hearth. We were black with dust and soot.

?

I looked down the garden through the opening, The shelter where we would have been, was now covered with clay three times as high. The two large conker trees were leafless, there was now a space beyond the shelter, where there had been eleven houses, now smoked a gaping crater.

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My school friend Norman Luff was badly injured, he was put on a stretcher , and carried out through the alleyway between our house and next door, to the main road that was clear of debris. He was carried to a vehicle that had been a dust cart. It was a three wheeled Scammel unit that pulled a trailer van, where normally dust men walked into the back to empty dust bins, the vehicle was very low on the ground, and ideal for stretcher cases, it had been converted for ambulance work.

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My Dad working at Peak Freon's, was told by a driver who had been delivering to shops, that he had passed our home and that the house had been bombed and a boy was being taken out by stretcher into an ambulance.

Dad left work to see what had happened. In the war all men had to stay at work for the whole day as they were classed as directed labour, He had to get out of the factory gates. The gate keeper said he should not leave without a pass, but the van driver told him about the bombing and he let Dad go.

When Dad got home he was relieved to find out it was not any of us that were injured. My friend who was hurt never came back, nor any of the other people who lost their homes, as there was nothing left. They were homed elsewhere, I don?t remember seeing Norman again.

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Dad organised us to get bits of wood that had been blasted into our garden to use to board up the windows, we could do nothing about the roof as most of it had gone. The girls and Mum cleared up inside, and threw all the plaster and broken things into a heap in the road, Dad said keep the bricks as we would need them again.

We had a jam jar of tea, as all the cups had been broken, it was very hot and we could not hold the jar as it had no handle. The big kettle had been squashed so Dad mended the hole in the tin kettle with two washers and a nut and bolt. The gas was still working and the water was very slow.

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I was told to light the gas geyser in the bathroom and run five inches of water to have a bath, when I got in the bathroom the geyser was hanging from the wall by just the pipes the flue pipe was in the bath with all the soot and tiles from the wall. I told Dad, he said we would have to go back to the days when we used the old galvanised tin bath, its in the shed. I went into the garden to get it, but ran back to tell Dad that the shed had gone and so had everything in it.

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Mum was filling the copper with cold water, then she lit the wood under it to heat the water to wash all our dirty clothes. She gave a block of Sunlight soap to my sister to cut into strips to be put in with the washing, then kept pounding it with a wooden stick.

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It was getting dark, all the electric bulbs had been broken, it was pitch black inside as the windows were now boarded up. Dad said get the lamp from the air raid shelter . I once again ran into the garden, but it was impossible to get through all the clay that covered the entrance.

Dad made a lamp out of a screw top can. He made a hole in the lid, cut a piece of cloth, threaded it through the hole to hang into the Paraffin inside, adjusted it and lit it. The lamp worked but it was very smoky and soon used up the paraffin.

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We all got ready to sleep in the front parlour, five of children could sleep under the grand piano, but it had two rods with pedals hanging down that got in our way, we would have to sleep there as there was no chance of us using the shelter that night.

We were now realizing that we did have a few scraches and bruises now beginimg to show but it was that noise that kept ringing in your head.

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Arthur our cat came home, I called him my cat as liked to sleep on my bed, we had forgotten all about him, he was very frightened. He had some of the babies Cow and Gate powdered milk, mixed up for him in a tin lid.

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Dad had to go to the Wardens Post for night duty, he said ?Stay in this room and I shall know where you all are?. He went off to the Wardens Post shelter in the library just a block up the road from our house. We decided to go to bed as we could not see to do anything as the lamp had gone out, We just talked about what we might be able to do to make things better in the house, so we could repair things for the time being , mum said the house would not be repaired properly as there was no men to do it, or materials to use, we would do as best we could,

Dad would sort it out, don?t worry, we must be grateful that we did not get hurt like the people who had lived in the houses at the back of us.

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Wait till Dad gets home there is somrthing down the side entry.

[TillieTrotter]

Keep it going Shorty. xx

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The overhead wires have been broken damaging the upper deck of the Trolly Bus, the advert says " Everybodys ", but not until it has been repaired.

The firemen cant get the Fire Engine any closer so have to run with the hoses to the fire in the distance.

[Gidget]

CS,

Thank you for all this. What road did you and your family live in then?

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" Easter ".

But not a celebration this day, for those who were here then, or for the passengers that would wish to use the Trolly Buses.

Dont blame the London Tranport if as the old saying says " one never comes when you want one "

Some of the pictures are from outside the Dulwich area as there are not that many good pictures available to include.

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The Perachute Bomb was dropped from a plane, but not a lot of information was ever known about them.

Another silent bomb, there was no prior warning.

At least the Doodle bugs engine spluttering to a stop then silence as it fell to earth.

It was quite a shock for this couple to find this in their garden.

You can almost hear the woman saying; " Fred keep your voice down you dont want it to go off now ".

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The picture of the site of the Bombed Co-op shown is some time later in close up you can seee the Contractors huts, and most of the debris has been removed, the bricks will be reused as seen stacked ready.

The two shops have had the side walls temporarily built up and a sloping roof fitted, and some of the garden walls have been rebuilt.

The old man with a walking stick is not worried passing in front of the oncoming tram as he knows it will slow down for the waiting passengers at the tram stop.

Opposite ( Iceland now ) was badly damaged the buiding that was there had to be replaced.

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No Trams today!

Due to the damage to the depot and the fleet of trams there can be no service today.

Service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Early Workmens Trams not available today.

( There was a cheap ticket for the early workmen at a reduced price. )

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The larger factories had their own Fire Brigade, the very large ones had several Fire Engines all supplied by the factory, and maintained and staffed by their own staff.

The workers would be carying out their narmal dutied until the Air Raid Siren sounded then they took up the fire fighting role.

This one shown was at the BATA Shoe factory in the East End.

Ironically a Bata shoe shop is just out of the picture of the Co-op to the right, it had been a Cinema years befor.

Those doing the duties only got paid at their normal rate fitting their job.

Second picture of the Star Mineral Water Co. With their lorry towing an Auxillery Fire Service Water Pump.

A bit of a change for them from gazing up the Lemonade.

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A few days after this picture was taken in our garden, the wall behind has been demolished by the bomb that dropped behind the bottom garden wall to the right.

We boys all got the pudding basin hair cuts by Dad mine can be seen clearly, and wearing my older brothers large wellingtons boots, the twins sitting quite unconcerned with the flowers they had picked, I was in charge of them while mum got dinner.

Some days after we were in the back kitchen when a bomb dropped about eighty foot away behind the back garden wall that had a large shed about seven foot high this and the two large conker trees, these deflected the blast above in our direction.

But not the houses behind five were beyond repair the others got repaired.

Our house had a lot of damage at the back and the roof.

[GSJ57]

Great map of the V2 hits on Londonist.com today.

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Picture one.

Barrage Balloons were sited quite close together, in any space that could accommodate them safely, bringing them down with out damaging close buildings, open parks could have several put there.

The site of the balloon was a concrete base, with a steel eyelet in the middle, to this was fitted a pulley where the Balloon?s cable was connected to the balloon through the pulley and the winding winch fitted on the lorry. If the balloon cable was used without this pulley the lorry could be lifted off the ground.

There were about eight in the crew some women, who had to release the tethering ropes that dangled down from the balloon about twenty ropes secured to more steel eyelets around the concrete base.

The winch operator protected by a mesh cage, started the engine and released the cable brake allowing the cable to unwind the Balloon would pull it self upward and if a windy day could soon get out of control on its passage up into the sky, the balloons were set at a height that the Doodle Bugs were expected to arrive.

The operator turned off the engine and returned to the hut that was hidden in nearby trees.

The Balloon in Dulwich Park was where the Bowling Green is now and their hut where they lived cooked and slept, under the tree by the path that led to the park Restaurant.

Another Balloon was sited near the junction of Peckham Rye and Nunhead near the old Open Air Pool.

The concrete base block can still be seen with the steel Pulley Eyelet now moved along side the pavement.

Picture two.

A Doodle Bug had come into contact with the Balloon cable ( this was the purpose of the balloons ) became entangled with it and both crashed on to the houses below, the picture was taken after much of the debris had been cleared away from the roads, now waiting for a crew to come and deflate the Balloon.

Two fighters have just flown past leaving the vapour trail. In the sky.