Incident Number 822
My father’s memories of a very close call with a V2
I have just been going through my father’s memories of his near miss at Bawns in Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow on 19 February 1945. I was born well after the war in ’56, but this story has always stuck in my mind. Here it is in his own words, as presented in the life history I got him to write in the mid 1990’s:
When the V2s started we had our share of them in Walthamstow, on 19 February at 2.17 one fell on Bawns. There were 40 people killed and many injured, among them the Managing Director, Mr Green senior, a gentleman highly regarded by everybody, the Chairman and several of the staff. Arthur Hewlett was badly injured and his 14 year old son who had just started work was killed. I was lucky as I was the other side of the firm and escaped without a scratch. The damage was so great it was a job to know where to start, we dare not climb on the wreckage because of so many underneath. Within minutes the heavy rescue units arrived and took charge, those of us who could walk were checked to see if we were alright and then sent home.
After a few days we were sent for to go back to work, the heavy rescue had cleared most of the heaviest masonry away and demolition contractors were taking it away. We had only about a quarter of the staff in owing to so many injured but we got together and started clearing up and then some of the rest who had been slightly injured started coming back.
Dad told us more detail when recounting the story, and I’m sure he would not mind me sharing the commentary I made when writing my life story for my own children:
German unmanned flying bombs (known as the V-1 or doodlebug), and late in the war the supersonic ballistic V2 missile added to the death and destruction. My parents say the latter terrified people as they were used to hearing incoming threats, but being supersonic there was no warning at all with the V2. Dad witnessed this first hand, as he alluded to in his life story, when one fell on the factory in which he was working. He omits the detail in his written account, but I remember him saying he was waiting to talk to someone (his boss if I remember rightly), who was busy with someone else at the time, so he nipped over to the loo in the meantime. He was just sitting comfortably when, with no sensation of noise or blast, the toilet door vanished, and he had a front row seat to hell. He said the area in which he had been waiting, and his boss, were no more.
Thanks for your work on this site, it helps keep the memories alive for those of us whose loved ones went through hell before our own time.
Cheers
Steve Rogers
6 Responses to “Incident Number 822”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
My father Arthur & his brother Charlie was killed in this incident. The name of the factory where he worked was unknown to me so I have found this post interesting. As in most cases family didn’t mention too much about what went on during the war, just odd snippets. My father was aged 36 I was six months.
My very first memory ever was cutting my hand picking up glass from our shattered lean to and french doors at the back of our house at 40 Worcester Rd. I was born in october 1942 and lived out the war with my mum in a morrison shelter in the front room. I would have been 2 years and 5 months old on this date.
The devastation in the Ukraine brought back memories and some research to this website. I am saddened by the number of deaths and how close we came to being one of the casualties of this one event. We lived in this house until moving to Canada in 1957.
My grandfather Reginald Green of W. Bawn & Co was killed in the raid of19 Feb 1945, as related by my father Geoffrey Green a director of Bawns and a son of Reginald. Geoffrey, worked for Bawns and survived the raid as he was out on a business call. Geoffrey told me of the man who had survived by being in the toilet. In Feb 1995 I held a special lunch for employees of Bawns who had survived the Feb 1945 V2 raid. The lunch was in Bury St Edmunds near to the new Bawns factory. The survivor employees recounted to me their moments before the V2 attack. One survivor (a woman, sorry I do not have her name) was in the welding bay, paused and looked up to see a white plume of smoke; then all went blank because of the huge explosion. I well recall Arthur Hewlett, electrician at Bawns, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow. I saw him often in the 1950s and 1960s when visiting Bawns, I was born in Epping Essex but now live in Bury St Edmunds.
My grandmother was a victim in this event she lived in chewton road on the edge of blackhorse lane she was pulled from the wreckage but died from her injuries although the two houses were destroyed if you look at them now you can see the different color brick where they were rebuilt on the end of chewton road, there was a dish of fresh eggs sitting on the dresser untouched
My late uncle Ken was in one of the first heavy rescue teams to attend Bawns, he was 19 and being the youngest and fittest his job was to retrieve the body parts that hung in the trees. Its ironic that several months earlier than this incident he was on the top deck of a trollybus when another V2 landed in front of the bus near Roger Ascham school on billet road. The roof came off the bus and the blast perforated his eardrum and knocked him out. He lived most of his life in Walthamstow and passed away last year aged 99.
My late father robert george sandwell organised a plaque for this incident on the aniversary he was an apprentice there at the time the plaque of remembrance was on the main entrance.