Footprints of The Blitz (5)

The Admiralty Citadel (author's photo)

In previous editions of this occasional series, we have tended to look at specific items of London's wartime past which have stood the test of time and which are still extant, perhaps albeit in a somewhat faded form and therefore maybe not to be seen for much longer, after seventy years or more. We have seen evidence of air raid shelters, signs for shelters, emergency water supplies, shrapnel damage and memorial plaques.

Today, we are going to take a look at some other sundry aspects of our wartime heritage which can still be seen in various parts of London and no doubt elsewhere across the country, if only one knows where to look. 

We start with something that is very close to this writer's doorstep, which takes the form of an Air Raid Wardens' Post, which is located in the car park of a private members' club in Charlton Road, Blackheath. The level of the car park has been built up somewhat over the ensuing years, hence the rather odd appearance but the entrance door which still exists at street level soon proves that it was designed for the habitation of fully grown adults. The owner of the club is quite proud of his piece of wartime history but was under the misconception that the concrete structure was the entrance to an air raid shelter. This writer did explain otherwise to him but isn't sure that he was convinced!

Charlton Road Wardens' Post (authors photo)

Fortunately, research at the excellent Greenwich Heritage Centre has discovered a complete list of the old Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich's Wardens' Posts and this list confirms that the photograph above is of Post 'Park 20' located adjacent to Charlton Conservative Club, which is indeed next door to the location in question. This list of Wardens' Posts tells us that the Post Warden in February 1940 was a Mr Plummer, who lived at 15 Banchory Road and that the telephone number of the post was Greenwich 0358! 

Further examination of the archives bring forth a cutting from a local newspaper of the period which informs us that the borough had installed no fewer than twenty two of these 'pillbox' type of posts as they were described. The cutting is reproduced below, which if the club owner is reading this, should put him in no doubt as to what the structure is in his car park.

From Wardens' Posts, we move just a mile or so along the road to Charlton Way on the edge of Blackheath itself, where we can see evidence of some of the improvised anti-invasion measures which sprung up across the country in the days following the fall of France in June 1940 when the invasion of this country seemed to be a serious threat. Amongst those defences that can still be seen are some loopholes, complete with firing steps behind in the wall of Greenwich Park, located inside what is now a council depot. It was a fair assumption that any advancing German force would be heading for central London after having fought their way from their landings along the south-eastern coast. The then Commander in Chief, Home Forces, General Sir Edmund Ironside, favoured a series of fixed defences, known as the GHQ Line as well as a series of 'Stop Lines' all of which were designed to halt, or at least slow down, an invading army. These fixed defences were abandoned in July 1940 prior to their completion on the orders of his successor, General Sir Alan Brooke, who believed in a more mobile form of warfare rather than static defence lines. Perhaps the best known vestige of London's anti-invasion defences is the Admiralty Citadel, which glowers over Horse Guards Parade, it's harsh concrete appearance softened, at least in the summer months, by the ivy which is allowed to cover it's walls.

These defences at Blackheath were not part of these fixed defences but more of an ad-hoc defence put in place by the local Home Guard, the 25th (County of London) Battalion, based at nearby Hollyhedge House. Closer examination of the wall today from inside the Council Depot reveals a whole array of loopholes, rather than the five visible today. The majority are today bricked up from the front but the apertures are still clearly visible from the rear. The Home Guard or Local Defence Volunteers may have been derided as 'Look, Duck and Vanish' but there can be no doubt that these brave men, a mixture of warriors from earlier conflicts and those too young to have been called up, would have exacted a heavy toll of any invading army.

Blackheath loopholes(author's photo)

We move from the Home Guard and anti-invasion measures to the Auxiliary Fire Service, formed in 1938 as part of the massive expansion of Britain's Civil Defence services in the wake of the Munich Crisis. The AFS were part time volunteers, who called be called up for full time service in the fire brigades if required. Although well trained by regular fire fighters, the vast majority of these enthusiastic volunteers had never fought a 'real' fire by the time that the Blitz on London started in September 1940. Never has the phrase 'baptism of fire' had a more literal meaning. The AFS acquitted themselves bravely and with great honour but were hampered by a lack of equipment and more importantly, a lack of standardisation across the country which hindered their ability to act as a mobile reserve to assist fire brigades across the country. It was as a direct result of this lack of standardised equipment that led to the removal of fire brigades from municipal control in August 1941, when the country's fire brigades were nationalised to form the National Fire Service or NFS. Although the NFS was disbanded after the war and the brigades returned to municipal control, the NFS formed the template for the modern fire services which continue to serve us bravely to this day.

The vast expansion of the fire brigades caused by the inception of the AFS meant that existing fire stations could not cope with the additional numbers of men and equipment and so it was that on the outbreak of war in 1939, many schools and garages were requisitioned for use as Auxiliary Fire Stations. The majority of the schools taken up in London were vacant in any case, as their usual occupants had been evacuated to the relative safety of the countryside, whilst many garages were finding a lack of trade due to the almost complete disappearance of private motoring due to petrol rationing. The AFS Stations in London, all followed London Fire Brigade practice of having code letters and numbers, which were prominently displayed on uniforms and vehicles. The station at 19-21 Cheyne Place, Chelsea was coded '6W' being under the overall control of Station 6, Brompton, located at 18 South Parade, Chelsea. The fire fighters at Cheyne Place obviously decided to make their presence permanently known in the area as they had carved in one of the masonry walls adjacent to their station a very large '6W' which is still clearly visible to this day.

Station 6W insignia (author's photo)

It is not known who carved the station code letters for posterity. Many of those who served in the AFS were from the world of the arts, some of whom were devoted pacifists who felt that they could serve their country better by saving lives rather than taking them but whose subsequent bravery in fighting the fire lit by the Luftwaffe could never be doubted. Perhaps this is the work of a sculptor turned firefighter.

Across London and it's suburbs are many reminders of the wartime past of our capital. As always, we have merely scratched the surface in this article but hopefully have given some of our readers the appetite to go out and discover some for themselves - tracking these clues of our Blitz history is good fun and elicits a certain amount of satisfaction at the culmination of a successful hunt.

More of these photographs will follow in coming editions but in the meantime, good hunting!

Published Sources:

London Fire Service: Directory of Auxiliary Sub Stations 1939-41 - WF Hickin, The Watchroom 2000

Unpublished Sources:

List of ARP Wardens' Posts - Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich/Greenwich Heritage Centre

The unknown Battle of Britain

Sgt John Hannah VC (IWM)

In August 1940, the Battle of Britain was at it's height and had been raging since early July. The enduring image of the Battle for most people around the World is of 'The Few', that gallant band of fighter pilots from the RAF supported by their comrades in arms from the Commonwealth and Allied air forces who succeeded in taking on the Luftwaffe over southern England, denying the Germans air supremacy and thus rendering stillborn any chance of a land invasion of this country.

To put matters simply, this is what happened; history tells us so and the fact remains that the efforts of RAF Fighter Command provided a turning point in the war and proved to the remainder of the World that the Nazi war machine was capable of being beaten and more importantly kept these islands free to ultimately provide the springboard for the liberation of Europe some four years later.

Of course, it was not known at the time that Hitler was lukewarm about an invasion of the British Isles, as were his Generals and especially his Admirals who rightly harboured a deep seated inferiority complex to the Royal Navy and despite the promises from Goering of air supremacy feared a bloodbath amongst the invasion fleet should the Navy be let loose amongst them. These divisions were not known to the British people and their Government and an invasion attempt was widely expected at some point during the summer or early autumn of 1940.

August 13th 1940 was 'Adler Tag' or Eagle Day, which was planned to be the first day of a concerted attempt by the Luftwaffe to knock out the RAF on the ground as a prelude to invasion. As so often during the Battle of Britain, German intelligence was faulty and many airfields which were not part of Fighter Command were attacked and thus Fleet Air Arm, Training Command and Coastal Command stations were attacked. This represented a hugely wasted effort by the Luftwaffe which merely allowed them as the hunters to become the hunted when RAF fighters from airfields hitherto untouched on the day tore into the German attackers, taking an especially heavy toll of the Ju87 Stukas. The sequence of events on August 13th 1940 is really beyond the scope of this particular article but suffice to say Adler Tag ended in a resounding defeat for the Luftwaffe, with forty five of their aircraft shot down for the loss of thirteen RAF fighters. Even a 700 per cent exaggeration by the German press of the RAF's losses could not disguise the fact that this was a defeat and that air supremacy over the British Isles would not come easily. After further heavy fighting and another decisive defeat on September 15th 1940, the day we now commemorate as Battle of Britain Day, Hitler postponed the invasion of Great Britain indefinitely two days later.

However, whilst this struggle for Britain's airspace was raging, another battle was going on, which to this day receives little publicity but which in it's own way was vital and demonstrated the British determination to defend the homeland whatever the cost.

In 1940, RAF Bomber Command was a shadow of the force it was to become two to three years later. Like the Luftwaffe's bomber force, it consisted almost entirely of twin engined light and medium bombers, along with the remnants of the single engined Fairey Battle force which had been all but wiped out during the Battle of France. The twin engined bombers were mainly obsolescent types such as the Blenheim, Whitley and Hampden, all of which were unsatisfactory aircraft and deeply unsuitable for daylight operations. The only modern bomber in the RAF's arsenal in 1940 was the Vickers Wellington, designed by Barnes Wallis, which with it's revolutionary geodetic construction was able to absorb huge punishment, which was just as well as this aircraft too, was unable to defend itself in daylight attacks, forcing the RAF to adopt the night bombing tactics with which it was to largely persevere for the remainder of the war.

83 Squadron Badge

Bomber Command had been at war almost as soon as war had been declared on September 3rd 1939, when a force of Hampdens from 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton set out to attack German warships at Wilhelmshaven. Fortunately for the bomber crews, they could not find their targets and eventually all returned home safely. The following day fifteen Blenheims set off for Wilhelmshaven, whilst a further fourteen Wellingtons departed for Brunsbuttel. This time the results were disastrous for the RAF; five Blenheims were shot down as were two Wellingtons, without any of the shipping targets being hit. This was to prove the shape of things to come for these unescorted daylight raids, culminating in a truly appalling attack on 18th December 1939 by twenty two Wellingtons on the Wilhelmshaven area which resulted in twelve of the bombers being shot down, after which the RAF retired to lick their wounds.

Following the Battle of France, it was clear that a potential invasion of this country was next on the German agenda and the large numbers of invasion barges photographed by the RAF's fledgling Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) shown gathering along the Channel ports was testimony to this threat. The Blenheim light bombers were identified as being best able to deliver the low level attacks on the gathering invasion fleet, although the entire force was used on several occasions to attack the barges. By September, some sixty percent of the bomber force was consistently being directed towards the Channel ports.

Guy Gibson, three years later to become known to the World as the leader of the Dambusters raid, was at that time a relatively lowly Flying Officer with 83 Squadron flying Hampdens out of RAF Scampton and described the relentless nature of the attacks on invasion barges at Antwerp in his autobiography, Enemy Coast Ahead.

"After each raid a reconnaissance was made and the C.O. would call all crews together. 'I have got some pictures of C Basin at Antwerp. Yesterday there were 400 barges there; today's reconnaissance shows 350. Who is on C Basin?'

Some pilot would shuffle to his feet.

'Well, you sank fifty, you and the rest, but that is not enough. You have got to put all your bombs in that basin, not a stick starting on the edge and then doing it's job, but every single bomb. Otherwise those bastards are going to come over here and invade us and then you will have to fight with your bare hands.'

Then off we would go again."

Guy Gibson and crew in 617 Squadron days (IWM)

These attacks were usually made from a height of around 4,000 feet and due to the low-level nature of these raids and the intense light flak, losses were heavy amongst the bombers but the German invasion barges and their naval personnel also suffered grievously and the forces concentrated in places such as Antwerp, Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk and Ostend were never allowed to assemble in peace.

One of Bomber Command's Victoria Crosses was won by a member of 83 Squadron, Sergeant John Hannah, a Wireless Operator in one of the Hampden bombers in Gibson's squadron. On 15th September, Hannah's Hampden had delivered yet another attack on the invasion barges gathering at Antwerp and turning for home, the bomber was struck inside the bomb bay, immediately starting a fierce fire. The fire was so intense that the rear gunner was forced to bale out of the stricken bomber and Hannah could certainly have done the same. However, he chose to remain behind and fight the fires whilst the pilot, Pilot Officer Connor, a Canadian, attempted to bring the crippled Hampden home. Hannah fought the fires for fully ten minutes, exhausting two fire extinguishers and eventually resorting to stamping out the fire with his feet and hands. Hannah was wearing a flying suit, which had some fire resistant qualities but in his efforts to put out the fires, he suffered serious burns to his hands, face and eyes, as well as losing his parachute in the process. Effectively trapped on his aircraft, Hannah eventually succeeded in completely extinguishing the fire, by which time the aluminium floor of the bomber had completely melted in places, leaving a precarious grid formed by the main structure of the aircraft. The fires safely extinguished, Connor succeeded in nursing the damaged Hampden back home to Scampton. Tragically, John Hannah contracted tuberculosis in 1941, no doubt as a result of the smoke inhalation and was invalided out of the RAF. He struggled to make a living as a cab driver but his health was too frail to continue in this employment and he died in 1947 from a heart attack, aged only 25.

Handley Page Hampden (RAF photo)

In 1942, under Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Command truly went onto the offensive with it's area bombing tactics, using their ever growing force of four-engined heavy bombers to wreak havoc by night amongst German cities and their occupants. As with the 'Battle of the Barges', the cost was a high one; by the war's end, some 55,573 Bomber Command aircrew had perished. The vast majority of these losses were on operations over German cities but when looking back at the Battle of Britain, it is wise to remember that at least some of 'The Few' were bomber crews.

Published Sources:

Bomber Boys - Patrick Bishop, Harper Press 2007

Bomber Command 1939-45 - Richard Overy, Harper Collins 1997

Enemy Coast Ahead - Wing Commander Guy Gibson, Crecy 2013

The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay, Aurum Press 2001

VCs of the Second World War - John Frayn Turner, Pen & Sword 2004

Footprints of The Blitz (4)

In the last edition of this occasional series, we took a look at the surviving air raid shelters that can still be found in London, whilst previously we have examined shelter signs that are still extant more than seventy years after they were first painted. Today, we return to the subject of signage as well as those buildings in London which still bear the 'honourable scars' of war in the form of shrapnel damage, which act as a lasting reminder of the deadly nature area bombing; if shrapnel could damage solid masonry in such a spectacular fashion, the prospect of what it can do to the human body does not bear thinking about.

Apart from shelter signs, one aspect of wartime London that can still be found by the patient detective, are the 'EWS' Signs, signifying the one time site of an Emergency Water Supply. These were effectively temporary dams to augment the supply of water to the fire services and proved invaluable in the event of water mains being severed by bomb damage, as frequently happened during the Blitz. These emergency supplies took three basic forms - firstly from natural or man-made waterways such as rivers or canals, or even swimming pools, of which both abound in London. This first sign which still survives on the Albert Embankment, alongside the Thames is simply adjacent to a small inlet of the Thames which actually stretches beneath the main road and allows hoses to be dipped into the river at high tide and across a short section of the foreshore at low tide. A mud filter would have been required to stop the supply silting up but apart from that precaution, a ready made supply was always available.

EWS at Albert Embankment (author's photo)

The second location for these emergency supplies was in the basements of bombed out buildings, of which by the winter of 1940-41, there were plenty to be found. These basements were exposed after the rubble of the bombed building had been removed and were then sealed with bitumen, concrete or other suitable material and following this work, all that was required was to fill the space with water and the fire services thus had immediate access to a large capacity supply. One such supply was to be found at the site of the former Surrey Theatre, a former well known Music Hall venue at St George's Circus, near the Elephant & Castle. On the night of May 10th/11th 1941, the last night of the Blitz but also the heaviest raid of the entire war, this EWS was the scene of one of the worst tragedies to affect the wartime London Fire Service. The raid started with a heavy fall of both HE and incendiaries at the Elephant and the immediate surrounding area. Soon, the fires were out of control and the hard pressed firefighters on the scene were faced with what was known in the trade as a conflagration. Shattered water mains made their task even harder and hose relays were started from Manor Place Baths, the Surrey Theatre and also another nearby 5,000 gallon dam. All of these required relays of hoses to run a distance of around 800 yards along the streets to the scene of the main fires at the Elephant & Castle and not only required firefighters at the 'business end' tackling the flames but also needed men on the spot to ensure that the supplies remained uninterrupted. Such was the intensity of the fires and the number of hoses being used, that the 5,000 gallon supply was exhausted inside five minutes, which brought the firefighting to a temporary standstill until fresh supplies could be connected. Just as the pumps were being connected at the Surrey Theatre, a bomb fell here too, killing seventeen firefighters from the London Fire Brigade, as well as from the London and Mitcham Auxiliary Fire Service. Today, the Surrey Theatre is but a distant memory but a plaque erected at the site by the excellent charity Firemen Remembered, acts as a permanent reminder of the ultimate sacrifice made by these seventeen men in the dark days of the Blitz.

Plaque at the site of the Surrey Theatre EWS (author's photo)

The third type of EWS were large man made coffer dams usually erected in existing open spaces, such as parks, school playgrounds or later in the war on cleared bomb sites. Once again, some of these signs are still extant and can be seen by the discerning eye. One such group of signs can be found in Camberwell Church Street, where there are the remnants of three such signs, although one of these is extremely faded nowadays. Closer inspection of the best survivor of these signs shows in the top quadrant, the capacity of the former dam as being 5,000 gallons.

EWS Sign Camberwell Church Street (author's photo)

In case anyone is wondering what one of these Emergency Water Supplies looked like, here is a shot of one in action located to the north of Blackfriars Bridge, in New Bridge Street. This one is a coffer dam example and is being simultaneously filled with fresh supplies of water whilst at the same time as feeding hose branches being used to fight a fire.

EWS New Bridge Street (author's collection)

From signs we move to scars - the scars left on London's buildings left by the ravages of war. Hitler's bombs did not respect the importance of buildings or structures. Those scars are today borne by noble buildings such as St Paul's Cathedral and other Wren designed places of worship, places of leisure and culture such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, statues of figures from Britain's mililtary past such as General James Wolfe and Lord Clyde to more humble but no less important edifices such as railway bridges, hospitals and railway offices. What links all of these structures is their having survived the worst that the Luftwaffe could throw at them. 

Some of the most vivid examples of shrapnel damage can be found at St Clement Danes Church, now the Central Church of the RAF but in 1941 a normal, if slightly grand, parish church on the edge of the City of London. Since 1910, it had been under the rectorship of the splendidly named Horation Pennington-Bickford and had survived the early stages of the Blitz relatively unscathed. On the night of 10th/11th May 1941, it's luck ran out and apart from a near miss from a high explosive bomb, Wren's beautiful 1685 church was soon ablaze from the incendiaries that rained down upon it. Across the road, Pennington-Bickford watched in tears as his beloved church burned and within a month, the old rector was dead, some said from a broken heart but undoubtedly due to the stress of seeing the destruction of his beloved church. In 1957, the church was rededicated as the Central Church of the RAF and is today a shrine to the RAF as well as the Commonwealth and Allied Air Forces, including the USAAF.

St Clement Danes (author's photo)

Similar damage can be found on many buildings across London and is not confined to the City centre. The statue of General James Wolfe, victor of Quebec in 1759 has stood overlooking the Thames and his beloved Greenwich since 1930. The plinth of his statue bears the scars of a German bomb which exploded nearby in 1940. Some members of the Greenwich Park staff peddle an urban myth that the damage was caused by a German fighter strafing the roadway. This story, although swallowed over the years by many a tourist and not a few locals, is utter twaddle - the nearby heath was the site of a large battery of anti-aircraft guns as well as a balloon barrage and it would have taken a brave or foolhardy pilot to risk his life by recklessly flying low merely to machine gun a statue!

General Wolfe's plinth (author's photo)

There are many other examples of shrapnel damage to be seen across London and next time we shall take a look at some more of these as well as some other reminders of our capital's wartime history.

Published Sources:

The London Blitz: A Fireman's Tale - Cyril Demarne OBE, After The Battle 1991

The Lost Treasure of London - William Kent, Phoenix Press 1947

Footprints of the Blitz (3)

In the previous article of this series, we continued our look at surviving shelters and shelter signs. This time, we will take a look at some more of these surviving remnants of London's wartime past that can still be seen, provided that one knows where to look of course. As before, all of these images are the property of the author and may not be reproduced without my express written permission.

Temporary Shelter

First up, we see an example of a temporary shelter designed for use by one or at most, two people for short periods of time when working in exposed areas. This particular example is to be found in the London Transport Museum Depot at Acton and was discovered in undergrowth at Hainault Underground Depot in Essex, which had been used by the United States Army Transportation Department during the war in the run-up to the invasion of Europe. London Transport used these temporary shelters extensively for their members of staff and they were often to be seen in the booking halls of underground stations so that staff on duty could take cover in an emergency without having to leave their posts. They were made of fairly thick guage steel and would have provided protection against anything other than a direct hit but would also have been extremely uncomfortable for anyone even of average build.

The next photograph is of some shelters that have recently been unearthed by building works adjacent to Hayes & Harlington Station in Middlesex. I have note been able to examine these shelters too closely as they are now in the middle of a construction site but they appear to be quite substantial affairs possibly for the use of railway workers at the time. It is quite possible that these shelters will disappear once building works get underway and another small piece of London's wartime heritage will be gone for ever.

Hayes & Harlington Station

Another shelter possibly intended for railway staff can still be found adjacent to Bromley South Station in Kent. This shelter is also difficult to reach as it is on railway land  behind a solid looking fence but is of a concrete construction and capable of holding twenty or so people in reasonable safety.

Bromley South Station

For our next look at surviving shelters, we take a look at one of the once ubiquitous Anderson Shelters which could be found in the garden of almost every house in the country with a garden large enough to accommodate one. Nowadays, the effects of the passage of time on these largely steel structures has ensured that most of these once widely seen shelters have now disappeared from view.  These Anderson Shelters, named after Sir John Anderson, the minister responsible for Air Raid Precautions in 1938, were of a galvanised steel construction, largely of corrugated sheets six feet high, bolted together and then buried four feet beneath the surface, leaving only the top portion protruding above the ground, which was then designed to be covered with a minimum of fifteen inches of soil, so as to provide a measure of protection from shrapnel and blast. These shelters could accomodate a typical family of four people and were issued free of charge to those householders who earned less than £5 per week and for those who earned more than this figure, they could be purchased outright for £7. Despite their seeminly flimsy construction, these shelters were extremely efficient at absorbing blast and there was many a family who survived some very close shaves who had reason to be grateful for their Anderson Shelter. Today, one of these shelters survives in the garden of a house located in Stockwell, south London and the owner has made an effort to keep the shelter in something approaching it's original condition. This pleasant urban garden is occasionally open to the public during the Open Gardens Weekend event, at which time the owner places bedding inside the shelter to add to it's authenticity. Some photographs are shown below which shows the inside and outside of the shelter.

Anderson Shelter exterior

  

Anderson Shelter interior

To give the reader an idea of the robustness of these shelters, take a look at this archive photo from the Greenwich Heritage Centre that shows the damage caused by a V-1 explosion in Burney Street, Greenwich on 27th June 1944. Despite the terrible damage to the properties which no human being could have survived, the ruined gardens reveal several Anderson Shelters, battered but unbowed. The occupants of these shelters would have survived the experience, no doubt shaken but still in one piece.

The aftermath in Burney Street (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

One type of shelter that can still be seen in the centre of London are the Deep Level Shelters, which were built as a response to the experiences learned during the First Blitz of 1940-41 and were designed to shelter vast numbers of people in unrivalled safety and comfort. These huge structures were built adjacent to existing Underground stations and were originally planned to be ten in number - five north and five south of Thames. In the event, the shelters at Oval and St Paul's were not proceeded with but the constructions at Belsize Park, Camden Town, Chancery Lane and Goodge Street north of the River and at Clapham Common, Clapham North, Clapham South and Stockwell south of the Thames went ahead. Each of these shelters was designed to accommodate 8,000 people and post-war were intended to be linked to form a new express tube line, which in the event never happened. The shelters were all completed by 1942 and although the worst of the conventional bombing was over by this time, five of them were opened to the public as a result of the 'Terror Weapons' campaign and provided safe accommodation for many thousands of people during this period. The shelter at Goodge Street was used by General Eisenhower and his staff as a safe underground headquarters during the run-up to D-Day in June 1944. These shelters all survive to this day, many in use as archive storage facilities but there are hopes that at least one of them may one day be opened to the public for inspection.

Exterior of Stockwell Deep Level Shelter

Next time, we will take a look at some of the sundry structures and signs from wartime London that can still be seen in their fading glory.

Printed Sources: 

London Transport at War - Charles Graves, London Transport 1974

The Shelter of The Tubes - John Gregg, Capital Transport 2001

Footprints of the Blitz (2)

Last time we looked at some of the surviving shelter signs in London that I have managed to capture on film for posterity. This week, I have unearthed some more photos of shelter signs along with one or two surviving shelters of various types. As before, all of the images shown are copyright to the author and may not be reproduced without permission.

Camberwell New Road (author's image)

The first image is of a sight that cannot now be seen in the form shown in the photograph, as it has now been partially obscured by a street name sign. The shelter in question that Londoners were being directed to was located on the platforms of Oval Underground Station, one of many then in use as deep level shelters. Oval Station saw out the war without incident, despite the surrounding area being heavily bombed but further down the Northern Line on 14th October 1940, the shelterers at Balham Station were not so lucky; a 1000kg high explosive bomb penetrated over forty feet and before exploding and the resulting explosion and flooding caused the northbound tunnel to partially collapse and fill with water from fractured water mains and sewers, which resulted in sixty eight shelterers being killed and many more injured.

Lee High Road

Our final shelter sign for now sees us remaining south of the Thames but moving south-eastwards to Lewisham. This is a slightly faded effort but one which is worth saving for posterity as with the passage of time, it may not be much longer before this sign fades away completely. This sign can be found in Lee High Road and it's junction with Brandram Road and the letters 'L-T-E-R' can still be seen reasonably clearly, whilst the remainder are somewhat more faded. There is the remnants of another sign in Brandram Road itself but this is so faded as to be now almost completely illegible.

We now move to the shelters themselves and for the first one, will stay south of the Thames but will move westwards to the grounds of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. 

NPL Teddington

There are at least two surviving shelters at this location and probably more than this but lack of time has so far precluded a more exhaustive search. The image shown is of the least overgrown shelter, which is located near to the cricket ground and would no doubt have been available for the use of employees of this important wartime facility. These brick and concrete shelters were basically surface shelters and would have provided protection from shrapnel and flying debris but would have been useless against a direct hit. Even the blast from a near miss would have probably caused the brick walls to collapse, bringing the concrete slab roof down on top of the unfortunate occupants. Londoners with their somewhat wry sense of humour, christened these type of shelters "Morrison Sandwiches" after Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary of the time who was responsible for Civil Defence.

Another similar shelter, only on a much larger scale, survives in London's East End at Fawe Street in Poplar. Although the roof is somewhat overgrown, the shape of the shelter is still clearly visible and it is clear that this would have been capable of holding a considerable number of people.

Fawe Street, Poplar

Shelters could take all sorts of strange forms and often utilised the basements or cellars of existing buildings, expecially when there was nothing else available. Two such shelters are still visible in the Royal Borough of Greenwich - the first one in the grounds of Charlton House, which as the attached press cutting shows, was licensed to accomodate forty people. The shelter is actually located beneath a building formerly used as a public toilet, which rather primly was described as 'The House at Charlton House!' Charlton House itself was used as Wardens' Post 'Park 8' so the Air Raid Wardens presumably didn't want members of the public getting in their way!

Greenwich Shelters

Charlton House Grounds

The other shelter in Greenwich referred to in the list of 'Where to seek safety' was strangely described as a Trench Shelter but was actually located inside the underground reservoir located in Greenwich Park, although there is some doubt as to whether this shelter was ever actually used 'in anger' given the fact that there were plenty of other shelters available in the immediate locality. This would be shelter is included out of interest, especially for the fact that is was shown in the list as having been capable of holding three hundred people. Although I've never been inside this building, one can only imagine the claustrophobic conditions that would have prevailed inside.

Greenwich Park Reservoir Entrance

Before we leave the borough, there is another shelter in Charlton which is of interest, even though it is not immediately visible. This is located in the back garden of 88 Charlton Road, now a dentist's surgery but a house that during the wartime years was requisitioned by the Army as a billet for the crews of Anti-Aircraft guns that were located on the nearby Rectory Field. Whilst the guns would keep blazing away at most times, if the bombing became too adjacent, the crews would retire to their shelter, which incidentally was a good deal more substantial than the equivalent Anderson Shelters provided to the householders of the unrequisitioned houses nearby!

Shelter Entrance, 88 Charlton Road

Unfortunately, I have never been able to explore inside the shelter as it is full of old furniture, although maybe one day perhaps it will have been emptied and an exploration will be permitted.

There are plenty of shelters and other wartime structures that remain dotted around various parts of London, not all of which I have captured as yet. Our next edition will feature some more surviving shelters as well as other more random buildings and signage from the war.

Published Sources:

London Transport at War - Charles Graves, London Passenger Transport Board 1947

Footprints of the London Blitz (1)

Until very recently, I have had a large number of my wartime related photographs published on one of the well known photo sharing websites. A recent unilateral "improvement" of this site which I felt was anything but an improvement has finally given me the incentive to cancel my subscription, take the photos down and begin to re-publish them on this blog.

Rather than attempt to upload a hundred or more photographs in one hit, perhaps it is a good idea to use these images plus some which have never been published before to illustrate a theme relating to wartime London which still survives. This week, we are going to examine air raid shelter signs, a surprising number of which still survive in various parts of London. All of these images were taken by me, are my copyright and may not be used or reproduced without my express written permission.

Perhaps surprisingly, Westminster is the home to many surviving shelter signs, although less surprisingly these are mainly off the beaten track.

Lord North Street

The signs above and below are to be found at several locations along Lord North Street and Longmoore Street and indicate the way to shelters that were formerly located in 'vaults' in the basements of the properties concerned. These were public shelters which would have provided a measure of protection against anything but a direct hit on the premises above.

 

Longmoore Street

   

36 Longmoore Street

The next sequence of shelter signs are slightly easier to find, being on main roads but perhaps a thoroughfare which people would normally traverse by car or cab. The first sign is outside La Gavroche, a Two Star restaurant in Upper Brook Street, just off Park Lane. This isn't the only shelter sign to be found on this street, for continuing into Brook Street proper, two further signs can be found and these are also reproduced below.

 

43 Upper Brook Street

42 Brook Street

The final sign in Brook Street can be found outside number 72. All of these are remarkably well preserved.  

72 Brook Street

The final pair of shelters to be found in Westminster are in Queen Anne's Gate and are of a similar 'vault' type basement shelter. The first sign is now partially obscured by a Blue Plaque erected in 1954 by the erstwhile London County Council. Were the plaque to be erected today, the shelter sign would doubtless have been preserved but the fact that it has been partially obliterated reflects the mood of 1954; the Blitz was too recent a memory for most people and any remnants of it were not to be commemorated.

28 Queen Anne's Gate

A few doors further along though, we can still find an unadulterated sign, again in a good state of preservation. At the time of writing, it is partially obscured by a building contractor's hoarding but I am assured that when the works are complete, the sign will remain intact!

30 Queen Anne's Gate

Moving away from Westminster and the centre of the capital, we can find more shelter signs both in southeast and east London. In Poplar, we can find a sign outside Our Lady Immaculate Church in Norway Place, the crypt of which during the Blitz, in common with many other places of worship would have been used as a shelter. The faded sign tells us that the shelter was capable of accommodating 250 people, no doubt in fairly grim conditions but which would have provided respite from the horrors outside. This sign was painted over, no doubt immediately after the war but seventy years on, the black paint is wearing away, revealing once again the original sign.

Norway Place E13

Moving south of the river to the London Borough of Lewisham, we can find another cluster of signs. The first group can be discovered in and around Deptford High Street. The first one, adjacent to Deptford Station actually points towards a still extant location, the railway arches, although the shelters have naturally long disappeared. These are much larger signs than those found in Westminster and whilst some have been painted over, they are still readily visible and identifiable.

Deptford High Street SE8, adjacent to Station

There are a couple of other signs to be found just off the High Street, in Frankham Street and Comet Street and again, especially the former, still readily visible. These point to the location of now long demolished public surface shelters.

Frankham Street SE8

Comet Street SE8

For our next group of shelter signs, we remain in the borough but move along towards Lewisham itself. The first one we see is on the road bridge across the railway in Tanners Hill and once again, points towards a shelter that is now only a memory for some older residents of the area.

Tanners Hill SE8

The next sign is at the junction of Shardeloes Road and Lewisham Way and although the wall upon which it is painted is somewhat the worse for wear, the sign itself is still clearly visible some seventy four years after it was first painted.

Lewisham Way/Shardeloes Road junction

Until recently, there was another surviving sign in this area but which sadly has recently fallen victim to a new property development, being replaced by a facile imitation in the form of a Dollar sign advertising the development. This sign was in Jerningham Road and is shown below for the record.

 

Jerningham Road SE14

For our final shelter sign in this sequence, we remain in the Borough of Lewisham but move to nearby Ladywell Station, where a large sign advertising 'Shelter for 700' points to the direction of the nearby railway arches.

Ladywell Station SE13

For our final collection of shelter signs, we remain south of the Thames - just but move back towards the centre of London, to the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey. The St John's, Neckinger and Lockyer Estates, all located within the borough close to Jamaica Road all have signs pointing to shelters located at the base of the various blocks. The shelters themselves are still extant but firmly sealed so as to prevent access. To show all of these shelter signs would be somewhat repetitive as they all look rather similar but reproduced below is the sign pointing towards Shelter A7 on the St John's Estate in Druid Street, SE1.

Shelter A7, Druid Street SE1

There are other shelter signs elsewhere in London that I am aware of but have yet to capture on film and no doubt there are others out there that I don't know about. Rest assured, they will appear here as and when they are photographed.

Unpublished Sources:

Author's private research

Logging the Blitz

The Blitz Hotel (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

Perhaps one of the lesser known aspects of the Civil Defence services during the Second World War but a vital one none the less was an administrative one, carried out as and when the bombs fell by a group of now anonymous senior air raid wardens or council officials, usually tucked away in the basement of a town hall at the end of a network of landline telephones and messengers. As each raid developed, every bomb that dropped, each incident as it developed, was logged and as the reports came in, the controllers would ensure that the correct response to each developing incident was despatched to the scene, whether this be the recognised emergency services such as the fire, police or ambulances, the seemingly mundane but equally essential  services such as the local gas board officials to switch off the supplies where gas mains had been severed by bombs, or the melancholy task of arranging mortuary vans to remove the unfortunate victims of war.

London Civil Defence organisation

The Civil Defence organisation had been established in 1938 as a response to the Munich Crisis and a brief explanation is required to give the reader a better understanding. The country was divided into twelve civil defence regions, each of which was placed under the control of a Civil Commissioner. London was designated Region 5 and was placed under the command of a veteran of Captain Scott's ill-fated Antarctic Expedition of 1912 and subsequently a First World War hero, Admiral Sir Edward Evans - "Evans of the Broke" as he had become known. Evans was to serve in his role as Civil Commissioner for the majority of the war and threw himself into the role with the energy and enthusiasm that had typified his Royal Naval service.

London Region was responsible for the 28 Metropolitan Boroughs of the erstwhile London County Council, or LCC as it was known, together with the City of London plus the County Boroughs of Croydon, East and West Ham and the remaining Urban and Rural District Councils in Essex, Middlesex, Kent and Surrey out to the boundary of the Metropolitan Police District. These authorities were collected into groups of between 5 and 11 councils and placed under the overall control of one of them. Therefore, that selected borough had two controls within it, one local and one group. The inner ring of LCC Boroughs were numbered Groups 1 to 5, three north of the Thames and two south. The outer ring were numbered 6 to 9 and two counties, Middlesex and Surrey, were further sub-divided into 6A to 6D for Middlesex and 9A to 9D for Surrey.

A typical 'chain of command' - this one is for Westminster

Each council was run by a Civil Defence Controller (usually the Town Clerk/Chief Executive) who was responsible for Civil Defence matters and the control of incidents through the network of ARP Wardens who acted essentially as incident officers, patrolling the streets often during the height of an air raid, pinpointing incidents and co-ordinating rescue efforts on the spot. Fire, ambulance and rescue services were supplied by the LCC but were under the operational control of the Controller. A copy of the organisation for London Region is shown for easy reference, as is a copy of a typical 'Chain of Command' for one London borough - on this occasion Westminster but which was echoed across the capital.

A typical incident report sheet (author's image)

Fortunately for today's historian, the majority of London boroughs kept their Incident Logs after the war, although some did dispose of them in the 1960s and 70s, in what today seems like a terrible piece of historical vandalism. Neil and I have spent many hours sitting in local authority archives transcribing these records and although we still have a few to go, between us we have so far gathered about half of the various London boroughs' records.

Reading these logs today, it is amazing to think that they were written at the moment that history was being made. The actual presentation of the logs varies from borough to borough; for example the Greenwich Log has been transcribed at the time into a series of A4 sized notebooks, whilst the neighbouring borough of Woolwich's log is still as it was written at the time with each individual development of an incident written on a separate report sheet. In this way, a major incident could require upwards of twenty such sheets, each updating the incident as it developed.

The other striking thing about reading these logs today is the matter of fact way that major incidents were noted. Whilst this professionalism cannot be faulted, one cannot help but wonder what feelings were going through the minds of the officials concerned whilst writing up and recording these reports, especially on those occasions when they were reporting on incidents in their own immediate neighbourhoods, or perhaps even seeing a report of their own homes being destroyed. Reproduced above is a typical report sheet from the Borough of Woolwich, which reports a fairly minor incident but which gives the reader the general idea of how an incident was written up.

Sometimes, these reports can today appear ridiculously terse; for example the terrible incident on 17th April 1941 that saw the destruction of Chelsea Old Church and the tragic loss of life of Canadian firewatcher Yvonne Green and four of her colleagues is reported simply "Para Mine - heavy damage, casualties, water and gas mains gone." Obviously, there would have been more detailed incident sheets written at the time but this precis still somehow captures the horror of the incident, which was recorded more fully in the April edition of this blog. In other boroughs, the reports go into more detail, some of which even seventy years on, are heartbreaking. For example, the Woolwich report of an incident in the 'Little Blitz' on 2nd March 1944, lists the four fatal casualties by name, including six week old baby Joyce Bowskill - a life cruelly ended before it had properly begun and which had even this fairly hardened researcher having to stop work for a while in order to reflect.

Devastation in Heavitree Road (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

The onset of the terror weapons in 1944 kept the recorders busy and in the south east London boroughs especially, the casualties started to mount again. A Woolwich report of an incident at Heavitree Road, Plumstead on 16th June 1944 lists seven fatal casualties and laconically describes "houses in Heavitree Road heavily damaged." A local photographer recorded the scene and it must be said that the writer of the report was a master of understatement.

Throughout all of the horrors of the London Blitz, a sense of humour prevailed, even amongst the Wardens and Civil Defence personnel who were very much in the front line and saw some terrible things in the course of their duties. When the Wardens' Post 'EE1' in Milward Street, Woolwich was rendered uninhabitable following a nearby V-1 strike in August 1944, the wardens, who must have endured a fearful shaking up when the flying bomb detonated, still saw fit to re-christen their devastated place of work 'The Blitz Hotel' as the accompanying photograph at the head of the page shows.

In August 1944, the British public may have been forgiven for thinking that despite the onset of the V-1s, the end of the war was in sight. Unfortunately, they had another seven months of V-2 rockets to endure, which brought yet more misery to the people of London but which were faithfully recorded by the London boroughs. The final incident shown in the Woolwich Incident Log is on 19th March 1945 was a rocket which fell on one of the piers servicing the Woolwich Arsenal, which itself had suffered terrible damage during the Blitz of 1940. This rocket exploded on the pier itself, causing 37 'slight' casualties, no doubt mainly cuts and shock but mercifully no fatalities. The last V-2 of all fell on Kynaston Road, Orpington on 27th March 1945, killing Mrs Ivy Millichamp in her home. With this one final fatal casualty, London at last had seen it's last attack from the German bombs which had started way back in August 1940.

Unpublished Sources:

Civil Defence Incident Logs for Metropolitan Boroughs of Chelsea, Greenwich & Woolwich and City of Westminster