March 1945

  20 Responses to “March 1945”

1. 

   Beverley Beatson (nee Cornwell) says:

   Monday, 29th August 2011 at 5:19 am

   Very interested to find info on computer after watching programmes on TV. I was on a bus travelling to school at Sidcup at the time the Orpington High Street V2 landed. The bus rocked and carried on. Didn’t ever hear any more information about that V2 or where it had actually landed.

   Also had attended a clinic on the 2nd March and went home for lunch instead of straight back to school. So was at home in 49 Elm Grove when the rocket landed in soft earth behind a house further down the road. My sister was just coming home from there with 2 little friends and worst injury was their cousin at the nearest house. We had always understood that the last V2 to drop was ours in Elm Grove. So pleased to be able to get correct info. We just didn’t hear about any others. Useless information for you but glad we have had an opportunity to see how many rockets did land in March 1945. I was 14 – 15 3 weeks later.

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     Sally Cook says:

     Sunday, 11th November 2018 at 9:03 pm

     I have just read your ‘Responses to March 1945’. I have heard your family name Cornwall for many years by my family who often reminisce about their time in Elm Grove. That rocket in Elm Grove landed in my aunt’s garden (Olive Green who also later lived at 49!!) The two little friends of your sister’s are my sisters, Christine and Frances or possibly Sue and our cousin Janis Harvey. Yes our other cousin Peggy Harris was the little girl badly injured, mainly facial but fortunately lived a long life and had one daughter. My mother kept her finger on Peggy’s artery for 20 minutes until the ambulance arrived. They were only talking about you all a few weeks ago and that your mother bred rabbits during the war for food and later you all emigrated to New Zealand and she had got a job as a TV presenter in the 50s.

     I do hope you are able to see this message as many years have gone by since you wrote yours!

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2. 

   Ian says:

   Friday, 1st February 2013 at 9:45 pm

   No. 987, V2 March 10th, 1945, Cowper Close

   My father, his 2 sisters and mother, survived the Cowper Close blast. They lived in the next street over, Wendover Way, and were just having breakfast when 987 arrived without notice. They believed 13 to have been killed at the time, and my father recalls looking into the crater shortly after the blast. They (aged 13, 9 and my father 7) got away with minor cuts as the blast took the roof off their house and dropped the content in on them. All 3 children are still alive and all recall that morning very vividly. As one who runs a WW1 remembrance website, thank you for finite detail that has anchored what has been an amazing family story until now. Best wishes, kindest regards Ian

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     Phil Massey says:

     Tuesday, 6th May 2014 at 5:38 pm

     This is not a direct memory, as I was only coming up to 3 years old at the time, but I have been told that our house, 24 Cowper Close, Welling, Kent, was completely destroyed by a V2 rocket during the war.

     My mother was preparing to take me shopping and was checking her hat was on straight using a mirror above the gas stove in the kitchen. The stove shot forward, shattering her pelvis and the rest of the house fell on top of her. My aunt, who was waiting for her near the back door, was apparently blown out into the Anderson shelter just opposite, and was badly injured en route. I, however was still in the living room, strapped into my pram (presumably to keep me under control rather than bone ideness on my part – the bone idleness didn’t set in until some years later) which, it seemed, turned turtle and formed a totally protective shelter – I was not injured at all!

     It was my howls that were heard by the rescuers, and my mother could hear me too which gave her hope. As I was dug out of the wreckage I was held aloft by my dungeree braces for all to see. I’m told a photo of this was taken, which even reached newspapers in the USA, triggering some food parcels, but if it exists I don’t know where to find a copy of it – it’s taken me years to find any mention at all of the Cowper Close V2 strike even, to confirm our family history, so thank you wrsonline!

     Getting my mother out was a trickier operation as gas was escaping nearby. There was also a risk of her being suffocated by falling dust during the rescue attempt, which was known to have occured to some casualities of bomb blasts initially found to be alive. One of the rescue team pushed his beret through the rubble on a stick in order to cover my mother’s face and avoid this.

     My mother was taken to a nearby military hospital, where it was expected that she would never walk again. However, some six months later, a nurse spotted that one of her toes was moving under the bedclothes in time to some music on the radio. She gradually recovered quite well with, along the way, the help of a steel corset, though she suffered most of her life with tinnitus put down to skull fractures she had also sustained.

     She received a 70% War Disability pension, and when she reached state pension age she was offered a place in The Royal Chelsea Hospital, but laughed it off saying the red coat wouldn’t suit her!

     She died in 1999 aged 78, having had, we believe a very happy life despite this terrible event.

     Phil Massey

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     David Viner says:

     Friday, 15th January 2016 at 10:41 pm

     My grandparents (William and Alice Clark) lived at number 27. Mum always told me the V2 landed on the front gate. Granddad had taken the dog out for a walk before the attack and came back to devastation. Grandma was one of those who lost her life that day. Thankfully, my mother and her sister had left home some years before in order to be nearer to where they worked.

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3. 

   Peter webber says:

   Tuesday, 5th August 2014 at 10:43 pm

   There was a rocket hit at Uppingham Avenue Stanmore middx on march 23 rd 1945 at03.07!
   19 killed – 10 houses demolished
   I survived this hit & was in the only house where there was not a fatalities
   Posted 5 th august 2014

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     Admin says:

     Wednesday, 6th August 2014 at 9:30 am

     I think that would have been incident number 1076 on the 22 March 1945 at 3:35am as that is the date the deaths are recorded on the Civilian War dead Register.

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       Geoff Cole says:

       Sunday, 18th February 2018 at 6:22 pm

       Re Incident 1076 on 22 March 1945, I was very young (19 months old) and we lived in the adjacent Coledale Drive. It must have been that morning (it was daylight) and I clearly remember being in my father’s arms wanting to walk downstairs but not being allowed to presumably due to there being glass everywhere. The picture clearly in my mind is looking through the glassless landing window – the only time I would have been able to see through it as it normally had obscured glass in it. The window was on the side of the house facing Uppingham Avenue. I was always told that 13 houses were rebuilt. The picture is still vivid.

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     Brian Prescott says:

     Tuesday, 21st May 2019 at 11:38 am

     My mother, younger brother and I lived at 67 Wetheral Drive, which ran parallel to Uppingham Ave. We three slept every night in a Morrison shelter in the dining room. We didn’t see our father much as he was in a reserved occupation, working 12 hour shifts at the BBC broadcasting to Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula as he was fluent in five languages. After a hurried breakfast we joined the other kids looking for bits of the V2 as near as we could get to the still smouldering hole, where houses and gardens once were. One lad offered a largish piece to another boy for all his bag of marbles but, the boy was too smart, as he declared that the piece of bomb was only a bit of drain pipe, and refused the trade! There was a rumour, at the time, that a 14-year-old had been blown by a freak of the blast,over a row of houses and into the next street through a shopwindow. He was found dead but unmarked. I did not see this myself and do not know if it was true or a “fairy story” made up by some mischievous child. Next day we went down to Belmont Circle to queue for black sheets to put over the window frames to keep the rain out until our turn came for new glass. to be fitted.

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       John Wood says:

       Thursday, 5th October 2023 at 6:06 am

       The boy you refer to was Roy Mitchener. I was 9 years old and lived in York Avenue. Primrose Webber and her brother were also killed. Our house was also badly damaged.

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4. 

   Bil Webb says:

   Sunday, 22nd March 2015 at 5:54 pm

   V2 episode at Tudor Close, Chislehurst Road, Chislehurst, Kent.
   26th March, 1945.

   Looking back to those far off days in 1945 seems a very long time ago. Seventy years back in time I was still a lad at school living in Chislehurst not far from the Chislehurst Caves.

   By the end of 1944 we had experienced the V1 or doodlebug offensive on south east England during the previous summer months, beginning soon after the D-Day landings in France and lasting for about three months, until the French Channel coast had been cleared of the enemy by Canadian and British forces.

   At the start of 1945 air raids if I remember seemed to have been rare events at that time, although there had been reported explosions in the area. So far as I was concerned routine life carried on as usual. January and February passed without any dramatic incidents in the Chislehurst district, at least so far as I knew. My life was centred on winning the boxing finals at my school, only a short distance away from home at Bickley Hall, still intact and functioning without recourse to any evacuation, as had happened to some other local schools. I can remember thinking that I stood a good chance of collecting a prize.

   The big day duly arrived. It was Monday 26th March, 1945. The boxing match was planned to begin at 3.00 p.m. and my contest was due to start at 3.15 p.m. lasting for about fifteen minutes. At least that was the plan. Fortunately as it turned out, the guest who was to present the prizes was late. Had he been on time most of the pupils as well as parents would have been assembled in the gymnasium.

   Without any warning just after 3.15 p.m. the glass roof collapsed on the few assembled people in the gymnasium. At that moment I was standing by the stage on one side of the hall, and to some extent protected from the falling debris. I noticed one of the parents held his great coat open to several nearby boys offering cover from the falling glass. Nobody knew what had happened as the only noise had been the falling roof.

   I remember walking down a corridor to the side door of the building. All the plaster had fallen to the floor leaving the walls and ceiling bare except for a layer probably one metre high at the base and leaving a perfectly straight line all the way down the corridor between the intact plaster and bare wall.

   As I stepped out of the door, it was noticeably very quiet. Bird song and background noises were absent, unusual for that time of day. I still did not know what had happened even when reaching the end of the path alongside the building. Everything looked normal to the right, but turning to my left the view changed dramatically.

   Rising silently over the nearby trees were fast moving dense black and grey clouds, swirling in eddies and accompanied by a strong smell of what I now know was cordite. The smoke was rising higher every second, certainly for hundreds if not thousands of metres into the atmosphere. I heard later that the smoke could be seen from miles away. I realised immediately with some shock what the scene represented. It could only be a V2.

   Looking at the scene from where I was standing it seemed as though the smoke above the trees was in a direct line with our house. I knew my mother would normally be home at that time of day, and also realised that nobody could have survived the impact. I can remember feeling at a complete loss for some minutes although the head master and staff insisted that I should stay on the premises.

   Remarkably, in the event our house was not seriously damaged as the blast probably passed over the roof, unfortunately hitting other properties further away. My mother it transpired was out shopping, and lived on or another forty five years.

   There is a sequel as some years later when on a visit to New York in about 1959, I happened to look at an early morning Television Channel, at that time still a novelty in Britain. Who should appear on the screen but Walter Dornberger, the former commander of the Peenemunde rocket centre in Germany during the war, and closely associated with the development of the V2. He was very self-assured with a cigar in one hand and so far as I can remember, spoke about his work with the American Army Ballistics Department and the U.S. Space Programme.

   Bickley Hall School passed into history when it was demolished to make way for a housing estate in the late fifties.

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5. 

   Michael Fidler says:

   Saturday, 5th August 2017 at 8:57 pm

   979 V2 incident Waltham Holy Cross 9 March 1945 2 killed

   This V2 rocket exploded at Andrews Nursery, Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey on 9 March 1945 and killed the owner Charles Andrews who was working in the boiler pit. We understood he died of shrapnel wounds. His name is not recorded in the V2 casualty list, but his death as a civilian is recorded in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, WWII Civilian Deaths, 1939-1945.

   ANDREWS, Charles Robert, age 64; of 149 Ordnance Road, Enfield, Middlesex. Son of Sarah Dunn (formerly Andrews), Ponders End. Injured 9 Mar 1945 at Sewardstone; died same day at St. Margaret’s Emergency Hospital.

   My interest in the matter is that my grandfather, George Thomas Fidler, bought the nursery, now called Netherhouse Nursery, in 1946. Ownership passed to my father, Ronald George Fidler, who continued the business and still lives on the land.

   As a child in the sixties and seventies we heard stories about a V2 rocket exploding behind the potting sheds and killing a worker. It was not until undertaking research that I learned two people had died. My father recently confirmed that one of the deaths was the owner Andrews. As children, my brother, sister and I worked on the nursery planting roses. We used to collect fragments of alloy metal shrapnel. The most recent find was in 2015.

   By the time my family took over the nursery 1946 the cater had been filled in. However the disturbed London clay beneath always made it a difficult area to cultivate.

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     Pete Andrews says:

     Monday, 22nd January 2018 at 8:18 am

     Hi Michael, Charles Robert Andrews was my Great Uncle who my Father was named after. I’m so glad i found a bit more information about him. I had found him on the CWGC page and have heard some interesting stories from my mother regarding what happened after his death. Sadly my father passed away in 1978 when i was 14 so i never got the chance to ask him about his uncle.

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       Michael Fidler says:

       Sunday, 6th February 2022 at 6:52 pm

       Thank you for your comments Pete. I am glad this gave you a little more information for you. Sadly my father died in July 2020 and we shall be putting up the nursery for sale. I am hopeful the rocket site itself will remain undisturbed, now in my parents back garden, May Cottage, Sewardstone Road, and will not be built over.

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     Lorna Tuohey-Athey says:

     Sunday, 17th May 2020 at 10:52 am

     I have recently discovered that a cousin of my mothers is listed as civilian war dead occurring on 9th March at the same nursery. Her name was Ethel Turpin. It is also possible that i have other relatives that worked at the Nursery, namely her husband Albert Turpin and possibly some Watson and Kettle’s.
     It is so interesting to learn more of those horrendous times.

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       Michael Fidler says:

       Sunday, 6th February 2022 at 6:55 pm

       Dear Lorna, I have found a possible reference to your relative in

       “PEELERS PROGRESS”
       Policing Waltham Abbey since 1840
       by Bryn Elliott

       “A group of people were working in a
       nursery just to the south of Mott Street at lunch time when a V2 landed almost in
       their midst. There were ten casualties, two, including a woman from Greenfield
       Street, Waltham Abbey, being fatal.”

       Reply
6. 

   HAZEL DUPILLE says:

   Friday, 17th November 2017 at 7:58 pm

   The time and date of this direct hit are correct but the map shows the V2 fell in between Betterton Road and Manser Road when it directly hit no.11 manser road.
   My parents Tom and Norma Martin and myself (Hazel aged 10 months) were in a Morrison shelter in our house across the road at no.4
   The rocket directly hit no.11 killing two single ladies Miss Paten and Miss Lloyd
   Mr and Mrs Cole were killed in no.9 and Mrs Turner and a child were killed in no.7 – Mr Turner was on night shift
   Mr and Mrs Moggeridge were killed in no.5, their daughter Tina was out dancing

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7. 

   Ron Gobell says:

   Saturday, 17th October 2020 at 4:26 pm

   We lived at No 42 Ingleton Avenue, Blackfen, next road to Cowper Close. We had just got up as I recall, my mother was getting we kids dressed, I was nearly 5 and my sister was 3 years old when a the V2 landed in Cowper Close, my Dad was at work. It blew the back of our house in and part of the roof collapsed, there was rubble and glass everywhere and much soot I recall, we were covered. My sister had injuries to her head, she still has the scars, she was carried off to hospital. I was taken to a somebodies house nearby and cleaned up I was fortunate and was not hurt neither was my mother. I remember still, looking through the opening at the back of our house towards Cowper Close and all I could see was a sea of rubble and a solitary chimney stack still standing defiant. In the weeks following my Mum, me and my sister were evacuated by train via Paddington Station with lots of others to Perranporth in Cornwall. We did not return for a number of months until our house was patched up. My Dad remained in Kent because of his work. This is the first time that I have been able to establish a V2 attack No for Cowper Close, information is appreciated.

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8. 

   Ron Gobell says:

   Tuesday, 29th March 2022 at 4:36 pm

   I was 5 years old living in Ingleton Avenue with my Mother, Father and Sister at No 42 when the V2 landed on that day in March 1945. My Dad was at work at the time. The back of our house was blown in by the force of the blast and we were then looking out at the devastation. The only injuries were to my sister, who was three at the time, the french doors shattered and glass from this door resulted in some cuts to my mother who was dressing my sister at the time and also caused a bad cut to my sisters face above her eye. She still has the scar. I was just covered in soot as I was standing near to the fire place. I do remember looking out of our shattered house and seeing the devastation and I remember, for some reason, seeing a solitary chimney or struture standing like a monument in the direction, I presume, of Cowper Close. I do not remember the timescales of events after the blast all I remember is that I was transported from our house to a house in a neighbouring road, the Jacket family, and was cleaned up. I stayed at the Jacket house for a few days afterwards. Shortly after the blast, my Mother, my sister and myself ended up in Cornwall, via a long train journey, as evacuees. We eventually returned to Ingleton Avenue. Sadly, I did not know before I looked at your site that 12 people died in this attack.

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9. 

   Jacqui Adams says:

   Wednesday, 7th December 2022 at 6:17 am

   6 March 1945 a V2 landed on houses in Earlham Grove Forest Gate. No 6 Earlham Grove was where my mum Shirley Golding was staying. She was 14. In the house on that fateful day were her grandparents, Jewish Russian refugees Sarah aged 61, Mark a cap maker, aged 63. Also present were Hilda daughter aged 30, Jack brother aged 23 on leave from Egypt where he had been serving, his wife Sadie aged 22 and their little boy aged 2. Around 7 in the evening a V2 killed all except my mum. She lay under rubble for 2 days until rescued and taken to hospital. Her hospital admission cert says ” multiple injuries, enemy action” My mum’s scars healed. Her mind didn’t. The legacy was years of depression, rage, breakdown, abuse of sleeping tablets, several attempts to end her life. The wider family never spoke about it. Her own mother couldn’t speak about it. What we would now understand to be ‘ survivors guilt’ and ‘ PTSD’ wasn’t recognised or treated except with lots of drugs. I only knew fragments so I’m currently creating a body of work for an exhibition commemorating this event, honouring their memory and healing this awful family wound. Sadly mum is no longer with us.

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