Tottenham Court Road - 24th September 1940

The night blitz on London was into its third week when a bomb fell in Tottenham Court Road, about 200 yards north from the tube station and the east end of Oxford Street.  It caused a crater in the roadway and a gas main caught fire.  At least one vehicle was destroyed.  On the east side of the street the Central London YMCA was damaged; seven people were killed and two more fatally injured.  In the street close by a further three people died.
Across the street things were worse as a whole row of shops with flats above collapsed and some fires started.  Fortunately most of these were unoccupied but at 8 Tottenham Court Road the staff of an amusement arcade were caught in the collapsing building and seven people died.  Next door at the Blue Posts Public House, a further four people died.  Behind these properties in Hanway Street another person was fatally injured.
On the other side of the junction with Hanway Street two Cypriots were killed, probably at the Lyons Corner House and with two more people killed in the street, the total was 28 people killed or fatally injured.
Picture One (for which I acknowledge the copyright of Getty Images and hope they approve of the use I have put the photos to) show the view looking north up Tottenham Court Road the following morning:

The crater is clearly visible in the foreground; firemen are playing a hose on the ruins to the right in case a fair re-starts.  Various wardens and civil defence personnel are to be seen but the rescue effort seems to be over.  The building facade on the extreme right of the picture is the YMCA and the road junction just beyond it is Bedford Avenue.  The destruction to the (mainly empty) buildings on the west side of the street (to the left) is evident.

For Picture Two the photographer would have walked past the crater about fifty paces and turned around to look back:

We are looking at the west side of the street, the same buildings as on the left side of Picture One; the water jet from the firemen's hose can be seen coming from the left side of this Picture.  Again, the civil defence personnel present are seen standing in small groups and the rescue effort is obviously over.  Just above the water jet from the hose, on the left side of this picture, you can see some buildings in the distance; this is the site of the modern Centrepoint tower block.  Just in front of the buildings you may be able to make out a crowd of onlookers, possibly including people who worked in the shops now destroyed,

In terms of the places I mentioned at the start of this article, the rubble where the firemen are training their hose is Number 8, and the Blue Posts pub is the building mainly still standing just besides the rubble.

For Picture Three the photographer would have walked back past the crater, past the position from which Picture One was taken and about twenty yards further towards the crowd of onlookers we saw in the distance in Picture Two.  At the junction with Great Russell Street they would have turned and focused on the Blue Posts Public House across Tottenham Court Road:

The rubble to the right was the amusement arcade; a wrecked vehicle is in the middle of the street.  To the left of the building was the junction with Hanway Street and the building visible in the background is where one person was fatally injured (Hanway Works).

Picture Four widens the angle because the photographer has walked across the junction with Great Russell Street (over the photographer's right shoulder):

The left side of the Blue Posts is more clearly visible, as is the smoking rubble to the right (numbers 8-12 Tottenham Court Road) showing why the firemen were still dampening down in the earlier pictures.  The corner of the YMCA building is just visible in the top right.

Picture Five widens the view still further because the photographer appears to be standing in the main road now:

This seems to have been taken later in the morning than Pictures Three and Four because the firemen have done their work and no more smoke is coming from the rubble.  The wrecked vehicle is revealed to have had at six wheels and hence a truck seems likely.  For the first time there is a sense of urgency in the picture as a group of men seem to be hurrying past the wreckage.  The building on the extreme left of the shop is the Lyons Corner House.

Picture Six shows the equivalent view in the 1960s:

The extent of the wartime bomb damage is evident with all the pre-1940s buildings have been knocked down as far as the advert for Texaco.  On the corner of Hanway Street (now No Entry) the Blue Posts is back in business and the magic shop has replaced the amusement arcade.  The temporary walkway in the bottom right hand corner may suggest this was at the time when the old YMCA was being knocked down and the St Giles Hotel we see today was being built.

Picture Seven brings the story up to 2015:

Boots the Chemist now occupies the site of the Blue Posts and amusement arcade; only the buildings further up Hanway Street seem to be pre-1939.

Picture Eight shows an aerial view from 1947 (I acknowledge the copyright of Britain From Above and hope they approve of my use of their photo):

In the middle of the picture on a corner is a white tower: this is the YMCA building and Pictures Four, Five and Six above were taken from directly below the tower as we look at it.  Just to the left of the tower, across Tottenham Court Road, we can see the gap where numbers 6-12 would have stood.

Picture Nine shows the YMCA tower again, but this time from the (south) west looking (north) east, and in a pre-1939 view:

The buildings destroyed are visible across the road from the YMCA, closer to the camera.  Great Russell Street is just to the right of the tower; following the YMCA block to the left you come to the junction with Bedford Avenue, last see to the right of Picture One.

Picture Ten is the best modern equivalent I can produce, looking north with Centrepoint on the right:

The modern Boots the Chemist (and neighbouring shops) is the brown and cream building at the top of the picture on the left, and across the road are the four linked concrete arms of the building that replaced the YMCA.

To finish, Picture Eleven takes us back to 1940 and a view from the crater:

Michael Osborn was staying at the YMCA: "Late one night, when we were trying to get to sleep on mattresses in the gym in the basement, one of the larger bombs exploded just outside, in Tottenham Court Road. Most of the inside of our building was wrecked, an enormous lump of concrete landing on the bed I would have been sleeping in.  I had already decided to join the Royal Navy, and remember feeling intuitively that the way the building rocked must be what it would be like to be in a torpedoed ship; and so it prove two years later, when I was serving in a warship in the Mediterranean, escorting a convoy to Malta."

Pearl Sutton worked in the amusement arcade with her husband: "I was buried forty feet I am told.  It apparently was on the [newspaper] placards next morning.  Everyone was killed.  The manager, his son and several staff including my husband who I had only been married to for seven months.  So I was engaged, married and a widow at 21.  I understand it was a wall that saved me.  I was in a sort of alcove.  I remember being asked what religion I was while still being buried – having been thrown on my stomach, I was just able to talk and move my fingers slightly.  I was telling someone I felt they were walking over me – however I was asked if I knew what direction I was.  I can remember being dug out and there was great difficulty getting my feet out, consequently I’ve had bother ever since and I now wear a leg iron."

This account appeared in the book "Hospitals Under Fire":

“A Tuesday in the Autumn of 1940.

Red. (Raid on.)

Call out to YMCA Great Russell Street junction of Tottenham Court Road. Wilkins. One light party. With Mr Taber.  Mr Taber back and requested two more parties.  Woodward, three light.  E. Haynes five light with Mr Holman.  Getting out casualties, with many volunteers from YMCA.  Wilkins also working on Blue Post Public House.

Midnight. All parties back. St Pancras RP taking over Blue Post job.

Thus the log-book of the Holborn Rescue Party from eight o’clock to midnight that evening.  And this is what Wilkins has to say about it:

“There were eight of us in my lorry.  The gas-main was alight in the middle of the road and Jerry was up above.  The YMCA building was badly battered and the Blue Post public-house was down and burning.

Stretcher-bearers were busy with the first-aid party on the ground floor of the YMCA, where there was not much to be shifted, but a lot of dead and wounded owing to bomb blast in the road outside.  They took me to the top of the building, where there was a man in bed.  He was covered up with big slabs of breeze and a muck of dust and debris all over him with a chance of bringing more down if they tried to get him out.

I could hear him calling out ‘Over here ... over here.’ I man-handled that job.  The man came out all right and they soon had him on a stretcher.

Working my way down from that floor I ran into a man that was laying in a pool of blood the size of a dining-table.  Seeing they had first-aided him – with a tourniquet to stop the bleeding – we take a door and put him across it, and out he goes.  The next is a man with two legs broken.  We clear him and, an upturned table being handy, he is soon away.

Having finished at the YMCA – I counted more bombs come down while we were on the job – I was called to the Blue Post public-house.  There wasn’t much of the place left, and that was burning.  Behind it was a club room connected by a cubby-hole through which meals were passed.  They knew there was someone still in it.  The wardens had got three out by Hanway Street.  Then the top floors came down and shut it off.  What we had to do was find the cubby-hole and see if we could get through that way.

M’Culloch, a tough old Scot, was with me, sixty-five years if a day, a very big man and a fine worker.  Pity was, when we cleared the cubby-hole, it was 2 ft. 6 by 2 only.  All I could do to get through.  Mac couldn’t follow me.

Seeing the pub was well alight, and only a partitioned wall between it and the club-room, I asked them to clear a way out while I went in to do what I could.

I soon found the woman alive.  She was calling out, as loud and as cheerful as could be, from under a pile of rubbish.  The job looked bad.  The worst were two big piers laying off at an angle and in no way supported at the top, both likely to come down as we cleared the woman.  I began straight away to clear her head with my hands, then Freeman got through to help me, and the pair of us worked at both ends.

The more we worked, the better she behaved, calling out all the time and giving me instructions.  ‘Come on, Wilkie,’ she’d say, ‘there’s a bit more there.’  You see, she got my name quite quick.  At first I was lying on my chest, pushing my arm in and feeling round to find out what was keeping the big stuff off her.  Feeling my hand she said: ‘Take some of the dust out of my eyes, Wilkie.’  So I put my hand over her face to make her more comfortable, brushing and lifting buts away.

Pretty soon I knew she was lying all huddled up against the skirting-board and protected by a great flat stone which had come from I don’t know where.  It was making an angle against the wall.  Another smaller slab was over her head, leaning on the first and the wall.  Over all was three to four feet of debris.  All in, it was the trickiest job I ever had.  The fire was burning hard on the other side of the partition.  I was afraid it might come through, but more afraid I was working too fast for safety.

It certainly wasn’t appetizing.  We were getting drenched by the hoses, because they were trying to keep the fire off us, and smoke was pouring through all the time.

First we worked at the woman’s head, and so on down towards her feet.  She was a slight little thing, so small-made that as she lay there she was more like a child than a married woman.  We cleared her head and body first, then managed to release one leg, which came out with no shoe or stocking on.  The other was so trapped I couldn’t pull it out.

I said to her, ‘Try and turn yourself over a bit and see what you can do.’ Then, to our great relief, she pulled her own leg free.  Again it came right out of her stocking and shoe.  And so, quite barefooted, with only one light dress on her, she was at last on her feet, all smiling and still talking, and saying what an escape she’d had.  We offered to carry her over the broken stuff, but she would walk.  And she did actually walk over all that rubble and glass, which we found bad enough with our army boots on.

They out her on a stretcher seeing she was barefoot, and thinking she might go to pieces at any time.  That was the last I saw of her.  It was also the last job I did at the Blue Post, though we wre called out to another before the night watch ended.  Then I went home, and I’ll tell you a funny thing – though I was all right when I left the post, I could hardly knock at my own door.  Talk about going to pieces!  I’ll never blame anybody for that.  When I got inside there was I, trying to tell the Missus all about it, and crying like a child.”

THE PEOPLE WHO DIED

Hanway Street

NICHOLLS, NELLIE FLORENCE, age 42, OF 12A HANWAY STREET. WIFE OF J. NICHOLLS. DIED AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL.

Nellie Nicholls died at University College Hospital, at the north end of Tottenham Court Road, two days later. 

Nellie’s husband, John, was a motor-fitter.  In the National Probate Calendar, Nellie’s estate was valued at £470 and her home address given as 12a Hanway Works, Hanway Place.

Thanks to a 1947 advert we can tell the Hanway Works backed on to the Blue Post Public House (http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/a/a1/Im194709WW-CMC.jpg)

While the CWGC record does not link her to the incident on 24^th September I have inferred this based on the close proximity of her home address to a scene of extensive bomb-damage and the lack of alternative bomb incidents in the immediate area.

Tottenham Court Road 6, Blue Posts PH

BAKER, JOHN ALFRED, age 25, OF 77 ARLINGTON ROAD. SON OF DAVID AND AMELIA BAKER, OF 13 CORPORATION BUILDINGS, FARRINGDON ROAD, E.C.1. DIED AT 6 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Arlington Road is in Camden Town, parallel to the High Street.  Number 77 still stands.

COGAN, DORIS MAY, age 24, OF 40 LINDROP STREET, FULHAM. DAUGHTER OF GEORGE PLUMLEY, OF 2 RAVENSWOOD AVENUE, BROMLEY, KENT; WIFE OF CHARLES RICHARD COGAN. DIED AT 6 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Married Fulham q2 1938.  Lindrop Road is just south of Chelsea Harbour, number 40 still stands.

Likely daughter of George Older (sic) Plumley and Kezia Elizabeth Johnson (married September 11^th, 1910, at St Mary Magdalene in Bermondsey) – Kezia’s father (Doris’s grandfather) was a publican, giving a possible link to the Blue Posts pub.  Kezia died in 1920 aged 34.  George (Doris’s father) was a labourer, then a carter.

Doris’s husband, Charles (1915-1977) – may have re-married in 1949 to Bertha Skinner.

HAYES, THOMAS, age 61, OF 117 NEWINGTON BUTTS, LAMBETH. HUSBAND OF ELIZABETH HAYES. DIED AT 6 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

His home address has long been demolished.

TRITTON, WILLIAM, age 49, HUSBAND OF ALICE TRITTON, OF 26 SUTTON LANE, CHISWICK, MIDDLESEX. DIED AT 6 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Born 1^st August 1891 in Chiswick, son of a cart driver.  As a child known as Willie (1901 Census).  In 1911 Census occupation given as “Engineer worker”.  Married Alice Gould in 1915.

One child, William Ernest Tritton (1916-1974), an iron and metal sheet worker in 1942.

Alice (William’s wife) died on 3^rd March 1942, estate valued at £260.

Suttons Lane North still exists, uncertain if this is the same as Suttons Lane in CWGC.

Tottenham Court Road 8

BOLAND, RONALD RICHARD, age 14, SON OF ALFRED AND CONSTANCE BOLAND, OF 95 ALBERT STREET. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Albert Street is in Camden, close to the home of John Alfred Baker who died at the Blue Posts PH next door

From Ronald’s birth record, we know his mother’s maiden name was Hutchi(n)son.  Constance Mary Hutchison (b. 3^rd July 1904, d. 1973) married Thomas Alfred David Boland (b. 31^st March 1897, d. 1961) in 1924.  Thomas had been in the Navy from 1914-1923

Alfred Henry Arthur born 1924

Ronald Richard born 1926

Constance Dorothea born 1928

Alan born 1935

Ronald’s older brother, Alfred, died in the battle of Arnhem in 1944, aged 20.  He was serving with 7 Platoon, S Company, 1^st Parachute Battalion.  In Oosterbeek on the western edge of Arnhem he was shot by a sniper and buried in the garden of a house on Utrechtsweg; his body was later re-interred in the CWGC Cemetery:

http://www.warcemeteries.nl/Boland.html

From 1949 Constance (Ronald’s mother) is listed as living alone.

MOSS, ARTHUR, age 33, OF 52 BROADWICK STREET. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

52 Broadwick Street still standing.

SEILER, JOSEPH SAUL SOLLY, age 38, OF 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. SON OF MARCUS AND BERTHA SEILER, OF 100 OSBALDESTON ROAD, STAMFORD HILL; HUSBAND OF HELEN SEILER. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

and

SEILER, HENRY, age 17, OF 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. SON OF HELEN SEILER, AND OF JOSEPH SAUL SOLLY SEILER. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Helen Seiler, wife and mother, lived to 1982 (born 1900).

SMITH, THOMAS GEORGE, age 18, OF 63 MYDDLETON STREET, ROSEBERY AVENUE, FINSBURY. SON OF MR. AND MRS. A. E. SMITH. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

SUTTON, EDWARD ERNEST, age 26, OF 144 HARRINGTON ROAD. SON OF MRS. C. SUTTON, OF 4 ST. JOHN'S STREET, MARGATE, KENT; HUSBAND OF PEARL SUTTON. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

Married Pearl L Hamilton in q1 1940 in Lambeth

WOODHOUSE, ROBERT JOHN, age 46, OF 10 ABERDEEN PLACE, ST. MARYLEBONE. SON OF AMY WOODHOUSE. DIED AT 8 TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

http://person.ancestry.co.uk/tree/63688842/person/34105786004/facts

Great Russell Street YMCA

ADLESTONE, CYRIL, age 21, F.A.P. MEMBER; OF Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET. SON OF DAVID AND SARAH ADLESTONE, OF 20 NEWTON PARK VIEW, LEEDS. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

EDWARDS, HENRY CHARLES LEWIS, age 36, OF Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET. SON OF ALICE EDWARDS, OF WHITE HOUSE, BOURNE END BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., SOUTH TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

FISHER, JOHN BERNARD, age 17, HOME GUARD; OF Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET. SON OF HERBERT J. AND EMMA C. FISHER, OF BRANDON ROAD, WATTON, NORFOLK. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

KEOGH, AGUSTIN WILLIAM, age 49, HUSBAND OF ETHEL KEOGH, OF 26 SEKFORDE STREET, CLERKENWELL. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

RICHARDSON, MARCUS WILLIAM, age 30, OF 42 ERPINGHAM ROAD, PUTNEY. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

STEWART, PERCY HAMILTON, age 57, OF 44 BAYHAM STREET, W.1. SON OF THOMAS AND SARAH STEWART, OF MARSLAND ROAD, BROOKLANDS, CHESHIRE. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

TEMPLE, DAVID EDWARD, age 18, HOME GUARD. SON OF ALFRED AND DOROTHY ROSS TEMPLE, OF 76 TYRONE ROAD, THORPE BAY, ESSEX. INJURED 24 SEPTEMBER 1940, AT Y.M.C.A. HEADQUARTERS, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD; DIED AT MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.

From http://www.aviva.com/about-us/heritage/world-war-two/roll-of-honour/t/

Born September 1922. Entered company service 6 May 1940 at Southend as a clerk in the Accident Department. Was a member of the Home Guard. Evacuated to Aldwych from Southend on 01 July 1940. Stayed in the London Central YMCA at Tottenham Court Road London then moved to basement shelter at Aldwych with Mr W J Robinson, Mr F C Schilling and Mr J Ellis Pilgrim. Decided on 24 September 1940 to sleep at the YMCA was injured in air raid hit on the building and died in Middlesex Hospital.

WILLS, NORMAN LEONARD, age 20, OF Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET, HOLBORN. SON OF ALFRED CHRISTOPHER LEONARD AND ALICE EMILY ISABELLA WILLS, OF 16 EAST PARK PARADE, NORTHAMPTON. INJURED 24 SEPTEMBER 1940, AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET; DIED AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL.

WILSON, COLIN CAMPBELL, age 5, OF 4 VASSALL ROAD, STOCKWELL. SON OF COLIN CAMPBELL WILSON AND ISABELLA WILSON, OF 6 BUTTERMERE STREET, GRANGETOWN, SUNDERLAND, CO. DURHAM. DIED AT Y.M.C.A., GREAT RUSSELL STREET.

Tottenham Court Road Fun fair        

NORMAN, CECIL ARMSTRONG, age 41, HEAD FIREMAN, LONDON UNIVERSITY FIRE SERVICE; OF 92 REEDWORTH STREET, KENNINGTON. SON OF HELLEN ELIZABETH NORMAN, OF 34 GOLDEN MILLER LANE, POLEGATE, SUSSEX, AND OF THE LATE JOHN BEECROFT NORMAN. DIED AT FUN FAIR, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

SIMPSON, EDWIN CHARLES, age 50, OF 26 MORNINGTON CRESCENT. SON OF ALEXANDER FORD SIMPSON. DIED AT FUN FAIR, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

SPINER, IVY WINIFRED, age 26, OF 110 THEOBALD ROAD, HOLBORN. WIFE OF A.C.2 M. SPINER, R.A.F. DIED AT FUN FAIR, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

From http://www.margatecivicsociety.org.uk/Margate%20War%20Memorial%20WWII%20Civilians%20Roll%20of%20Honour.pdf

Miss Ivy Winifred Baker killed on 24th September 1940 when an enemy bomb struck an amusement arcade at 8 Tottenham Court Road, London where she was working. She was aged 26. Her brother Walter had been killed three months earlier when his submarine Grampus was depth-charged in the Mediterranean. (See also Mrs I. W. Spinner [sic] and Stoker W. E. Baker, RN)

Interred at Margate Cemetery

Tottenham Court Road

IRVING, GEORGE HENRY, age 39, OF 6 FELLBRIGG ROAD, CAMBERWELL. SON OF THE LATE ARTHUR AND ELIZABETH IRVING, OF 41 THURLOW STREET, ST. PANCRAS. INJURED AT TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD; DIED SAME DAY ON WAY TO CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL.

Tottenham Court Road Lyons Corner House

STYLIANOU, ANDRONIKOS, age 28, OF VIZAKIA, NICOSIA DISTRICT, CYPRUS. DIED AT LYONS CORNER HOUSE, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.

The Lyons Corner House was at the junction of TCR and Hanway Street, with an entrance on Oxford Street

http://www.kzwp.com/lyons/map.htm

and this suggests the link between the two Cypriots.

Oxford Street

HUSSEIN, SEFFER, age 32, CYPRIOT NATIONAL; OF 8 STEPHEN STREET. INJURED AT OXFORD STREET; DIED SAME DAY AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL.

Oxford Street 6

McELLIGOTT, JOAN, age 19, OF 6 OXFORD STREET, ST. MARYLEBONE. DAUGHTER OF TIMOTHY MCELLIGOTT, OF CLAHANE, TRALEE, CO. KERRY, IRISH REPUBLIC. INJURED AT 6 OXFORD STREET, DIED SAME DAY ON WAY TO CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL.

The Mayflower Hotel, The Barbican, Plymouth - 21st March, 1941

nb This post does not relate to any building/business currently called The Mayflower Hotel. 
This post started from this story on the BBC Peoples’ War website:

Contributed by 

superchelsea

People in story: 

great great granda Glanville

Location of story: 

Plymouth,Devon,England

Article ID: 

A2359208

Contributed on: 

27 February 2004

Well my great granda was standing on Plymouth hoe when he heard the drone of engines. He thought it was just the spitfires coming back from France. As they drew closer he saw they were Stuka bombers! He ran to the shelters as fast as he could. His father,my great great granda, who owned the Mayflower Hotel, though they would fly over and bomb the big cities. He was wrong and he was killed along with 14 people who were staying at the hotel. As for my great great granda he was ok and he was one of the two survivers and he was rushed to hospital and had to have his kidney removed . my great great granda got the ditingused red cross for his part in WW1.

The Mayflower Hotel was bombed in one of the great raids on Plymouth, on Friday 21^st March 1941  It was certainly near to Plymouth Hoe, as the following map shows:

Plymouth Hoe is bottom left, and the Hotel was right by the Mayflower Steps, on the left hand side of the harbour and level with the Hoe.

Before its destruction, it looked like this:

It was totally destroyed in the bombing:

Today, the site is occupied by a new Tourist Information office, but the decoration above the door on the building to the left of the photo is the same:

The CWGC list of civilian war dead records seven people dying here; there may have been servicemen as well.  The great, great granda, with the medal from the last war, would have been Philip Pascoe Glanville, aged 62.  One of his sons died with him, Albert Francis Glanville, aged 33.

James and Florence Andrews, a married couple aged 67 and 66 had come from just round the corner in Stokes Lane.  As they walked to the hotel that evening, they might have called in at 77 New Street for Anna Maria Foster, 77 and a widow.

From a little further away came Bertie James Davis, a Cornishman aged 25, from Egerton Crescent to the east of the city centre, and Charles Samuel Harris, 27, from Vauxhall Street. Both were single.

The survivors of the bombing probably included the contributor’s great granda and his mother, Camilla Glanville, wife of Philip and mother of Albert.

While Stukas may have bombed Plymouth, this would have been in daylight and earlier in the war, probably in August 1940.  The contributor is thus probably confusing two incidents, the Stuka attack and the night-time raid that caused the destruction of the hotel.

Birkenhead, Laird Street - 12th March 1941

My post today was prompted by the memory of Thomas McGill, posted on the BBC Peoples’ War website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/06/a4074806.shtml“I was born in 1929 in Birkenhead, and attended St. James Infant School followed by Brassey Street Secondary School. I left school aged 14 years in 1943. Prior to this, my family and I were in the May Blitz of 1941. At about 12:00 midnight we were all in a large brick shelter on our back field. The raids had ceased long past, not a sound of planes or anything else. My father called us out to go into our homes. It was a clear night, with no clouds etc. We went into our home, the kettle was put on the coal fire, and we were all settled down after a night of bombs and gun fire. My mother was making a pot of tea when suddenly all hell let loose. There was the most horrendous explosion, too hard to describe in words, doors, windows, roofs, everything was coming down on top of us. Then, deathly silence again. When we got out of the mess and into the street everywhere was aglow with fire. Two aerial land mines had floated down and landed on Laird Street. The whole main street had just vanished, with only heaps of rubble and dead bodies everywhere. The next day, like all children, we were climbing onto the school roof to pull down the parachutes. Vulcan Street was lined from top to bottom with dead bodies while they were digging out the dead- something a twelve-year-old will never forget, plus night after night of bombs and guns. We used to watch the bombs falling from the planes in the ray of search lights and we heard them screaming down before exploding, but to children it was fun.”
31 people died here, strongly supporting Mr McGill’s memory this was caused by a parachute mine.

This is how the site looks today, looking along Laird Street in the direction of the Mersey Tunnel, at the junction with Miriam Place; motorists might know the BP garage just visible on the right.  The houses here would have been numbered between 294 (the North Star pub in the distance, and 346, the older terrace houses which resume again just behind the camera on the left.

From above, Laird Street runs from top-left to bottom right. The row of trees on the north side in the middle of the photo mark the site. Bertha Street is the cul de sac just above the trees.

The people who died here were at:

Number 316 (furthest from camera): George and Peter Sherlock, aged 5 and 3.
Number 318: Florence and Stanley Gooding, aged 27 and 16.
Number 320: Frances Wilson aged 33, and her son John, 5.
Number 322: John and Mary Brennan, aged 61 and 58, and their son Robert, 15, as well as Mary Salmon, 45, possibly a lodger.
Number 324: John and Rose O’Callaghan, 73 and 71, and two daughters Margaret 36 and Catherine 34.
Number 326: Mary McElroy, 53, her daughter and son-in-law John and Josephine Roberts, 33 and 31, from Greasby in the Wirral, and another daughter and son-in-law, William and Vera Burkes, 24 and 23 who lived with Mary at this address.
Number 328: Harold Beattie, 55, Elizabeth Jones, 30, and her 12-month old baby, Beryl.  Elizabeth lived in Bidston, about a mile away.
Number 330: Catherine Edge, aged 77.
33 Bertha Street backed onto Laird Street to the left of the photo; at this address William and Annie Rowland, 35 and 37, and their son William George, 14, were killed.
At 39 Bertha Street, Charles and Penelope Upton, aged 60 and 40, and their son David, 6.
2 Miriam Place would have been on the corner with Laird Street, immediately in front of the camera in the photo above.  Maria Oakes, 74, died here.
The final casualty was Catherine Pierce, 19, whose home address was Merritt Avenue, Birkenhead, less than half-a-mile away.  She could have been walking home or possibly visiting a friend on Laird Street.

The bombing was part of an attack on the Merseyside dock area (Laird Street indicated by red circle and arrow to Miriam Health Centre, on the left hand side):

Dixie Deans, the footballer, was born at number 313 Laird Street, and would probably have known some of the families involved.

Berkeley Square 16th September 1940 - the bomb with(out) nightingales

Future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton MP, wrote in his diary:

“Tuesday 17^th September

Drive up from West Leaze with Wilmot and Gaitskell.  Arrive in Berkeley Square where we find that at 10.15 last night a bomb crashed right in front of our entrance, killing two Home Guards on my staff, flinging a mass of sand and sand-bags over everything, making a crater in the basement, and smashing nearly all glass in front, including my own room, and tearing up quantities of railings and stone work outside. Upstairs everything is a mass of broken glass, burst window frames, tattered curtains and general mess.  I take refuge for some days in Lord Finlay’s room and start sleeping in the basement in my War Room.  This is well-ventilated and proof against most hits or sound, though occasionally I am rocked in my sleep by distant bursts.

All this is rather disturbing to the work of the Ministry, but the spirit is generally cheerful.  On the other side of the Square two Georgian houses are completely destroyed by a delayed action bomb which turns them into a mass of brick dust and charred matchwood.  There are also other fires and explosions all around the neighbourhood.  Hitler seems to have a special spite against drapers’ shops in Oxford Street.”

(“The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 1940-1945” edited by Ben Pimlott)

Dalton had been Minister for Economic Warfare since May 1940 and had his office in Berkeley Square House (on the map below it is on the right side of the Square)

The excellent West End at War website covers this incident, but the sequence of events can be clarified with the help of Dalton’s diary.  We can now tell there were three related but separate incidents in the Square, seemingly from bombs dropped on the evening of the 16^th (at 10.15pm according to Dalton):

One exploded close to the entrance of Berkeley Square House

One fell close to Numbers 38-40 but did not detonate immediately, eventually exploding at around 05.31 on the 17th

One fell close to Number 30 but did not detonate immediately, eventually exploding at 01.16 on the 18^th

This fits with Dalton’s diary, assuming he recorded the days’ events late in the evening of the 17^th; at this point the bomb beside number 40 had exploded on the other side of the Square (numbers 38 to 40 are on the corner of Hill Street, on the left side of Square on the map.

The other delayed action bomb at Number 30 (top left corner on the map) had not exploded at that point but would do so in the early hours of the following morning. Dalton’s diary helps us understand the bombing was part of the raid on the evening of the 16^th, not on the 18^th as West End at War suggested.

ABOVE: Google Street View of the modern entrance in glass just above the red taxi

Who were the two men who died?

There were three Home Guard deaths on the 16^th September in London.  From National Probate records we can identify Philip Seager Berry, age 35, son of Thomas William and Violet Seager Berry. B.A. (Cantab.)., as having died at Berkeley Square House.  On the assumption the second man came from the same Home Guard unit, then he was Theodore William Kenzion Hewelcke OBE, age 60, husband of Nina from South Croydon

Their unit seems to have been the 35^th County of London (Civil Service) Battalion (CWGC refers to the ‘35^th CITY of London Battalion’ and to the ‘35^th County of London (Hackney) Battalion’))

Theodore Hewelcke was born in 1880 in Kingston, Surrey.  He was the fifth child of Wilhelm, a Prussian-born corn merchant, and Annie Louise Kirkham. Theodore was naturalised as a British subject on 21^st March 1888.  Theodore seems to be missing from the 1891, 1901 and 1911 Census returns and the next glimpse we have of him is in 1920, as acting vice-consul in Baku, and the manager of the Russo-Asiatic Bank in the same city.  He was awarded the OBE, possibly for serving there during the Russian Revolution.  At some point he married Nina (maiden name uncertain, 1896-1960); there is no evidence they had any children.  By 1940 they lived in Arkwright Road, Sanderstead.

Philip Berry was born 1905 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. In 1911 he lived in Stevenage with his father Thomas William Seager Berry who was a parliamentary agent, and his mother Violet, one sibling and three servants (cook, housemaid, nurse).  There is no evidence he married.  In 1940 he lived at Crossways, Stevenage, and in the Probate Calendar he left effects of £21,562, naming a solicitor and Frank Hollins, a civil servant.

And the nightingale?

The point is there were no nightingales!  In the song, the atmosphere that night was so enchanting that the most unlikely things were possible – angels dining at the Ritz and nightingales singing in Berkeley Square.

Christ Church, Broadway - the bomb by New Scotland Yard

This post builds on the work of the excellent West End at War website and I urge you to read their original post about this incident here. 

A busy lunchtime on Victoria Street and I was looking for somewhere to sit with my lunch.  There’s a garden on the corner of Broadway (opposite the famous revolving sign for New Scotland Yard”), surrounded by a low wall.  As the map below shows, this is actually the old grave yard – Christ Church once stood between the current gardens and Caxton Street.

Here is the equivalent Google maps view:

On the night of 16^th/17^th April 1941 a major air-raid on London took place with numerous incidents, casualties and fires.  From the accounts I have read, the following is either known or probable:

• At some point, probably after midnight, incendiary bombs set the church on fire.
• Firewatchers did what they could but contacted the emergency services.
• Fire engines were attending numerous incidents all across the centre of London; initially one pump was spared and subsequently an engine with a turntable ladder also arrived. (Photographs below show contemporary pump and turntable ladder views, not from this incident.)

• Soon after the arrival of the turntable ladder, a German plane was heard circling overhead; at just before 3.30am it was said to have dived and dropped at least one bomb (some sources say a whole stick of bombs).
• One bomb exploded on or near one of the two fire appliances – my guess is it was the pump because we know the turntable ladder stayed upright.  This engine was destroyed with sufficient force for the mark made by a wheel to be seen in the wall of a bank on the other side of the road (see map) several years later.
• One fireman was killed instantly.  Up to nine others were seriously injured, and were probably taken to nearby Westminster Hospital in Horseferry Road.  (This hospital would probably have been extremely busy and the injured judged fit to travel would have been transferred to outer London as soon as possible.  One destination would have been the Hillingdon County Hospital.)
• At least three of the injured subsequently died, and possibly a fourth man as well.  The uncertainty arises because in four cases the Commonwealth War Graves Commission record states at which incident people were injured.  However, some sources say up to five men died of injuries, and there is a good match for one additional fireman.
• The (anonymous) fireman on top of the ladder was knocked unconscious but the ladder stayed upright and when he recovered sufficiently he was able to climb down, obviously badly shocked.

Writing in his diary the following day, Stephen Melville Woodcock said, “Nr the office at 55 Broadway Christ Church was gutted and still smoking and a fire escape ladder and fire engine were lying in the road charred and broken.”

The three photographs below, taken from Google Street View show the modern view.

Above: The view across Victoria Street looking up Broadway (church gardens and modern building behind the trees) - the bank where the wheel from the shattered fire engine made the impact was on the corner buidling site on the right of the photo.

Above: The same view but having crossed Victoria Street, the white building end on to us on the right marks the site of the church.

Above: The view looking back down Broadway towards the first two photos, the church would have stood where the white five-floor building in the centre of the photo now stands.  The bomb would have dropped in the roadway on the left.  The famous revolving sign outside New Scotland Yard is just out of the photo on the left.

Was the bomber aiming for the fire engines?

In general, bomb-aiming was not precise at this stage of the war – expert crews dropped incendiaries and follow-up crews bombed the fires.  It’s unlikely the German bomber was aiming specifically for the fire engines; while visibility was generally good that night, central London would have had a number of fires visible and it is possible smoke was obscuring the bomb-aimer’s view.  This could be why the plane seemed to those on the ground to be circling, trying to spot where it was.  It may have taken its aiming point from the shape of the River Thames and aimed for “The Government District”, so the explosion was purely by chance.

Where were the fire engines from?

We do not know where the engines were despatched from but the men who died all lived in west London.  Three of them had links to Hammersmith so one engine may have come from that area with the other one possibly coming from Marylebone.

Taking this as their origin, it is likely they had been dealing with other incidents already that night, either on their own (for smaller fires) or as part of a bigger group fighting a major fire.

How sure can we be the fifth man was injured here?

CWGC records are precise about the date Robert Parbery, the fifth man who may have died here, was injured and that the incident was in Westminster.  The only other fireman killed that night was in a major incident at the Newport Buildings by Leicester Square.  Of course, it is possible Parbery was injured somewhere else.

The other link to the Christ Church incident is his home address, please him in the west London area.  This would be in common with several of the other firemen. 

What did Christ Church look like?

Photographs of the church prior to 1941 are surprisingly hard to find and there are none at all of the aftermath of the bombing.  While the West End at War website has what seems to be a sketch of the church, the shape of the tower does not match those clearly visible on aerial photographs of the period:

Above: taken from the Britain from the Air website, the prominent building in the centre of the photo is 55 Broadway, London Transport's HQ building.  The ruins of Christ Church are directly below it in the photo, clearly showing the square tower, not a spire.

The men who died

Albert Gentry, aged 51, killed immediately

William Henry Herbert, 31, died on the 18^th April at the Westminster Hospital

Douglas Bruce Baldwin, aged 40, died on the 20^th April at Hillingdon County Hospital

Alexander Walter Collins, aged 33, died on the 21^st April at the Westminster Hospital

In addition, we know fireman Robert George Parbery, 33, was injured in Westminster on this night and that he came from West Kensington, maintaining the link of other casualties with west London.  He died on 6^th February 1943.

Albert Gentry was born in 1890, in Mundon, Maldon in Essex, son of William and Ellen.  He was the middle one of none children (eight boys, one girl).  His father was variously a farm labourer and a shepherd.

He probably served in the armed forces and one possibility is that he was an acting sergeant in the Royal Engineers; this would be consistent with his role in 1941 as a senior fireman in the London Fire Brigade.

He married Edith Etta Collier in in 1922 in West Norwood, Lambeth; Edith was five years younger, daughter of a railway signalman.  A few years after they were married they lived in Hammersmith (at 126 Willow Vale) but by 1941 they lived in East Acton at number 1 The Green.  There is no clear evidence they had any children.

Albert left effects of £351 to his widow.

William Henry Herbert, was born in 1909 in Bloomsbury, son of Henry Herbert and Elizabeth Sherman.  His father was a dining room attendant (presumably analogous to a waiter) and in 1911 they lived in the Corporation Buildings on Farringdon Street.

By 1932 the family was living at 19 Thayer Street in Marylebone (the southern continuation of Marylebone High Street) where his father was a caretaker (the address being a popular one for people who lived out of town to use as a London base).

William married Annie Beatrice Finbow in 1938 in St Marylebone and in 1941 they lived in a flat at 64 Wendover Buildings, Chiltern Street.

Douglas Bruce Baldwin was born in 1901 in Notting Hill, youngest of three 3 children.  His parents were John Edward Baldwin, a self-employed carpenter, and Mary Ellen Barnard.  The family had only just moved to London from East Grinstead, Douglas’s uncle staying with them and working as a general labourer.

By 1911 his elder brother Albert was apprentice to a pharmacist, and his elder sister Constance was in domestic service.  The family lived at 203 Portland Road, Notting Hill.

He married Maude Alice Love (1902-1991) in 1925, and by 1939 they lived in a flat at 127 Coningham Road in Hammersmith.  There’s no evidence they had any children.

Alexander Walter Collins was born in 1907 in Fulham.  He is the most difficult of the four men to trace.  He was married to Evangeline Mary Jane Wallis (1909-?) in the second half of 1940 in Hammersmith and they lived in Sinclair Road.  He left £186 in effects to his widow.

Robert George Parbery was born in Fulham in 1909, son of William Parbery and Edith Dennis.  William was a second-hand furniture dealer, and the family lived at 60a Valetta Road, Acton Vale.

He married Emily Irene Francis at the end of 1939 in Surrey.  Emily may have been a teacher, having been at Banstead Residential School as a 22-year old.  Robert died and was buried in Epsom, suggesting Emily took him back to her home area after the bombing.  (Emily may have been born in Swansea in 1904).

There is no probate record for Robert but when his father died, Emily, Robert’s widow, was named together with William’s business partner; his effects were valued at £1578.  Emily probably died in Somerset in 1983.

Above: again from Britain from the Air, 55 Broadway is visible top left and Christ Church is just below it and to the right.  Westminster Cathedral is in the centre of the photo and Westminster Abbey is just out of shot at the top of the photo.

Sources

My sources in addition to the West End at War post were:

Francis Beckett “Firefighters and the Blitz” pages 75-76

William Sansom “The Blitz: Westminster at War” page 80

Jane Waller and Michael Vaughn-Rees “Blitz: the Civilian War 1940-1945” page 280

Neil Wallington “Firemen at War” page 100