Comments on: March 1945

By: Ian Conway

Ian Conway — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:35:13 +0000

I realise I looked at the wrong incident as the Direct Hit Air Break-up over Woolwich Arsenal was on 1 March not 17 March 1945. The report for Jackson Street (1037) says 15 killed and 100 injured so it was quite a serious incident yet there seems to be little information available.

By: Ian Conway

Ian Conway — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:22:12 +0000

I’d be interested to know more details about the Woolwich Arsenal V2 (incident 891). The description says ‘Direct Hit Air Break-Up’ which suggests it was intercepted. In fact the rocket, or a substantial part of it, landed in Jackson Street in Woolwich, just across from the Arsenal. My mother’s family were in their house in Jackson Street at the time, 5.42am on St Patrick’s Day, 1945. My mother (Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Humble) remembers pulling her older sister, my aunt Jean, from the building, despite being a child herself. Jackson Street is no longer there, it used to be off what is now Nightingale Vale. Unfortunately my mum and my aunt are no longer here either, but my mum remembered that day vividly her whole life.

By: Sally Fearns

Sally Fearns — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:08:25 +0000

In reply to Sally Cook.

A few years later again.
I have just found this. My mother Rhoslyn is the sister of Beverly. She turned 86 last week and we were talking about the V2. Mum often talks about that day.
It’s interesting to read other people’s experiences.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 23:31:09 +0000

In reply to Les Clack. We really appreciate your contribution, and that people do come across your memories, it is after all the reason we started the site. Many Thanks

By: Les Clack

Les Clack — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 20:27:49 +0000

In reply to Rob Watson.

I must be roughly the same age as Phil Massey (see above), also coming up to 3 when the V2 fell in Cowper Close in March 1945. I was living at number 44. My mother was a war widow and we were living with her sister and her daughter till I was about 12. I have clear memories of that event. First, there was no bang, just the windows shattering, curtains flying horizontally coal from the outside coal bunker coming in through the now glassless windows, internal doors coming off their hinges, soot falling down the chimney etc etc and my mother holding me against her. My aunt was cut to ribbons by flying glass and we found her covered in blood lying on a great lump of road inside our front room where it had fallen from a great height through the roof and her bedroom floor. She survived and lived to a ripe old age. I just had a small cut on my face which left a scar that I can hardly find now, because of the wrinkles. I call it my war wound!
The house was pretty badly damaged as were numbers 42 (Mr and Mrs Nolan) 40 (Mrs Goldsmith and her sons) 38 (Mr and Mrs Verney and their two sons). Number 36 must have needed rebuilding because I don’t remember meeting the Packer family till they came back a long time later. Everything further down must have been destroyed or just disappeared. That’s where the crater was. More to tell, but I don’t know if anyone’s going to read this anyway

By: Rob Watson

Rob Watson — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 18:45:01 +0000

In reply to Phil Massey.

Phil…. My parents lived at 22 Cowper Close, Watsons. I was brought up there and left at age 21.
My parents bought 22 after the rebuilds.

By: John Wood

John Wood — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 05:06:03 +0000

In reply to Brian Prescott. 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.

By: Jacqui Adams

Jacqui Adams — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 06:17:15 +0000

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.

By: Ron Gobell

Ron Gobell — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 15:36:56 +0000

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.

By: Michael Fidler

Michael Fidler — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 18:55:30 +0000

In reply to Lorna Tuohey-Athey.

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.”