January 1945

  3 Responses to “January 1945”

1. 

   Ray Osborne says:

   Wed, 7th May 2014 at 5:44 am

   I would be interested in any documents relating to the above incident. My mother, who recently died’ told me about being in the house at 34 Maybank Road, South Woodford when this took place. Luckily, while the house was quite damaged, she and her father and sisters were unhurt.

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2. 

   Allan carter says:

   Sat, 21st Jun 2014 at 8:11 pm

   A piece of V2 shrapnel came through the front window on the 23rd January 1945, that had landed near Fords Car factory Dagenham. My Dad had it engraved with our names on it .Mr & Mrs Carter Donald, Allan and Rob at 117, Second Ave , Dagenham Essex. I now have it at home in a glass cabinet.

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3. 

   Frederick Clark says:

   Fri, 10th Feb 2017 at 12:46 pm

   At 08.37 a.m 23rd. Jan.1945 my brother and I were getting ready for school, we were in the kitchen of our council house in Crutchley Rd., I was aged 6, my brother Gordon was 11 yrs. old.I remember it being extremely cold with the occasional wintry shower,my older sister Eileen had gone to work at Sainsburys in Catford and our mother was making her way to the 124 bus stop in Verdant Lane, a few minutes walk from our house. At precisely 08.37, Hitlers “vengeance” rocket, the V2 slammed into the cemetery in Verdant Lane, just over the back from where we lived. There was no warning, unlike its predecessor the Doodlebug (V1) which made a horrible rattling sound. The 13 ton V2 travelled faster than the speed of sound and impacted at over 3,000 miles per hour, you couldn’t hear it coming, the only noise being after the blast. I can recall the walls seemed to contract and expand also a sensation that seemed to take your breath, our back door suddenly blew in just missing my brother. I was sitting under a shelf containing pots and pans and a heavy old clock, the shelf snapped in the middle but the contents luckily did not fall on me. After the initial shock we looked out the back,there was another row of houses between us and the cemetery,over these in the distance we could see a huge pall of smoke mushrooming at the top, also there were lots of clods of clay splattered everywhere. There are some gaps in my memory, some of which were filled in by my older siblings and mother.The next thing I recall was that we were in Verdant Lane looking for our mother, my sister had been given a lift home by her boss. Our mother had been waiting for a bus when the rocket struck, the blast had apparently knocked her off her feet and thrown her into the road, she was bruised and dazed with a few minor cuts and bruises, other than that, unhurt. I remember the scene, the road was strewn with debris, big clumps of soil, glass and debris and as we made our way back home we were stepping over what we believed were human remains.My impression was that everything seemed to have fallen silent and there seemed to be a foggy type haze, I’m not sure if this was from the blast or the weather conditions at the time.It seems that our house had received only minor damage, some broken windows and a good splattering of clumps of clay. This monster was fired from Batt 1./485 loosduinen (site 19) The Hague,it then travelled faster than the speed of sound before smashing into the cemetery, a V2 creates a crater approx 66Ft. wide & 26 Ft. deep throwing up approx 3,000 tons of material into the air, 0 deaths were recorded and only 7 people were injured.A lucky escape for everyone in the area,it would have been so different if it had exploded on hard ground. .

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