Ghosts of Wartime London

Shrapnel damage in London Street, Paddington

From time to time in the past, I have published various photographs showing some of what clues remain to be seen in London of it's wartime past; the last of these collections appeared in August 2013 so with the start of our regular scheduled walking season just around the corner, it is probably time for some more. Unless stated otherwise, all of the photos shown in the article were taken by the author and may not be reproduced without my express written permission.

Honourable Scars in London Street

Shrapnel scars can be seen all over London, sometimes in some unlikely and out of the way places and an instance of this can be found in London Street, Paddington, alongside the railway station. I haven't had the chance to examine the incident log for the locality as yet but the area was heavily bombed during the First Blitz of 1940/41, so these pockmarks almost certainly date from this period. 

In nearby Sussex Gardens, we can see another reminder of the London Blitz, this time at the Parish Church of St James's, the crypt of which, in common with many churches in the capital, was used as an air raid shelter, in this case one capable of accommodating some two hundred people. The church also housed an Air Raid Wardens' Post and in October 1940, was severely damaged by a Parachute Mine which fell in nearby Barrie Street. The top sixty feet of the spire was destroyed and many of the stained glass windows were damaged or destroyed. Notwithstanding all of this damage, the church never closed, either as a place of worship or as a shelter from Hitler's bombs.

The replacement Baptistry Window includes a panel that features ARP Wardens and searchlights panning the London sky in recognition of the church's role during the Blitz.

Detail from the Baptistry Window at St James's Sussex Gardens

Another reminder of the Blitz located at a church is located at Christ Church in Blackfriars Road and takes the form of a cross inset into the lawn at the rear of the church. The helpful explanatory plaque tells us that on the night of 16th/17th April 1941, the church was struck by incendiary bombs and in the ensuing fires, the blazing cross atop the spire fell onto the grass and reputedly etched the shape of the crucifix into the lawn, where it is now marked by white paving slabs; a simple but effective memorial to the second heaviest raid of the Blitz, which became known to Londoners simply as "The Wednesday."

The mark made by the burning cross at Christ Church, Blackfriars Road

During the Blackout, all manner of street furniture including kerb stones, lamp standards, bollards and even trees were painted with black and white stripes so as to provide a measure of a visual aid during the blackout. Surviving examples of these are now extremely rare but some can still be seen at the old Woolwich Arsenal site in southeast London on the steps of one of the surviving buildings.

White painted "Blackout" steps at Woolwich Arsenal

In my previous articles on surviving relics of wartime London, quite a few shelters have been mentioned but one that didn't get published last time around is this shelter, located at West Kensington Underground Station. This station is located on the District Line and as many Londoners will know, this is one of the earlier parts of the system, constructed using the 'Cut and Cover' system of tunnelling, which leaves the lines relatively close to the surface and therefore not suitable like the deep level 'tubes' for use as Air Raid Shelters. Indeed, West Kensington Station is actually on the surface, so the shelter at this station had to be purpose built. This shelter is not visible to the public and can only be viewed by appointment, so I was extremely lucky to take this shot a number of years ago. 

Entrance to the shelter at West Kensington Station

A more unusual reminder of wartime London can be found at the erstwhile Blewcoat School in Caxton Street, Westminster. Opened as a school in 1709, the building remained in this use until 1920, when it was taken over by the National Trust and used by them until quite recently as a gift shop. Now in use as a wedding shop, during the wartime years, the building saw somewhat more mundane use as a warehouse and was latterly used by the US Army for storing field equipment. Like all military establishment, however lowly, sentries were posted and an indication of the levels of boredom encountered whilst guarding a warehouse can be seen today in the shape of bayonet marks made by the sentries in the brickwork beneath the window frames. There is also other graffiti of the period that survives but you will have to come along on my Westminster at War walk in order to view this!

Bayonet marks left by bored US Army sentries

We close this brief look at wartime remnants by taking a look at the Greenwich Foot Tunnel which was constructed between 1899 and 1902, opening to the public in August of that year to provide a free and reliable method of commuting from south of the Thames to the then busy docks and wharves on the Isle of Dogs. Whilst the main part of the tunnel is obviously quite deep beneath the Thames, either end runs at a more shallow depth beneath the foreshore and in 1940, during a low tide period, the northern end of the tunnel was pierced by a bomb. The hurried repairs were formed from a thick steel and concrete inner lining to the existing tunnel which substantially reduces the diameter for a reasonably short distance and this repair can still be seen to this day.

Bomb damage repairs to Greenwich Foot Tunnel

There are many more reminders to be seen of our Wartime past and next time we shall take a look at some of the memorials and monuments to this period in our history.

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

Armistice Day 1940, The London Blitz and Taranto

Bomb Damage in Greenwich (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

In last week's post, we concentrated on one of the many fallen servicemen of the Second World War, in this case one of those commemorated on the memorial plaque of Ickenham Cricket Club in Middlesex as part of the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, which this year coincides with the actual day of the original Armistice Day; the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, which in 1918 marked the end of fighting in the First World War.

As we have not concentrated solely on the Blitz in London for some time, perhaps this weekend of remembrance is a good time to do so. Study of a cross section of the Civil Defence (ARP) Incident Logs from across London reveals that the Luftwaffe was no respecter of Armistice Day and that the Blitz on London continued regardless.

The 10th November was a Sunday in 1940 and in London the sirens sounded the alert shortly after 7pm, part of the nightly routine of attending to your daily business, grabbing a bite to eat if there was time and then descending into the shelter, not knowing whether your house or place of work would still be there in the morning, or indeed whether one would even see the morning.

It seemed to be a particularly bad night in the Borough of Greenwich; a Public Air Raid Shelter in Armada Street, Deptford suffered a direct hit from a High Explosive bomb causing three fatal casualties. There were also nine seriously injured shelterers, including three children who were taken to the Miller Hospital. The street level shelters were particularly vulnerable, offering some protection against flying shrapnel but being no more resistant to a direct hit or even the blast from a near miss than the average house. As if this wasn't bad enough, a private air raid shelter at the nearby Rodney Iron Foundry also suffered a direct hit from a HE Bomb, this time with the loss of six lives, presumably employees of the foundry, with a further thirty nine casualties, of whom twenty one were serious. Elsewhere in the borough, the Bugle Horn pub in Charlton Village was hit in the early hours of the 11th November and whilst there were only three slight casualties, part of this historic old inn was destroyed, although happily rebuilt after the war.

Moving westwards across the capital, Westminster, the seat of government, was not immune from the Luftwaffe's attentions that night. Browsing through the Incident Log, one sees famous names such as Dickins & Jones, Swan & Edgar as well as the Army & Navy Stores in Victoria Street all suffering from HE bomb hits or the effects of blast. Well known street names also feature; Duke Street, Buckingham Palace Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road as well as many others all received direct hits from either HE or Incendiary devices. Even the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square was not spared, although in this instance the bomb did not explode and was later safely removed by those brave men of the Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Squad.

South of Westminster, in Camberwell, most of the bombs recorded seem to have fallen harmlessly on open ground, such as Alleyn Girls' School Playing Fields which saw another HE bomb, although the Nunhead Allotments received what would today be called a 'Friendly Fire' incident when an unexploded Anti-Aircraft Shell made an unwelcome appearance. Although on this occasion causing no casualties, these shells could sometimes be just as deadly as the German bombs and study of the Incident Logs across London record many instances of fatal casualties being caused by these shells, which on the basis of "What goes up, must come down" fell indiscriminately having missed their intended targets. Indeed, the Bethnal Green Tube Station Disaster of March 1943, in which 173 people were trampled to death in a stampede, was caused by people panicking at the sound of what at the time was thought to be the explosion of a bomb but what was in fact, the guns in nearby Victoria Park opening fire.

In Southwark as in Camberwell, the raid on this night was relatively light, with the main problems being caused by two Unexploded Bombs in Collinson Street and although one of these did subsequently explode, it was after the area had been cleared and there were no casualties.

Moving north to Stoke Newington, the bombers concentrating on this borough seem to have been loaded with a batch of substandard bombs, with no fewer than twelve unexploded HE devices being successfully dealt with by the Royal Engineers across the borough. In neighbouring Finsbury, the bombs were slightly more effective, with a HE Bomb falling at the junction of Whitecross Street and Banner Street causing a gas main to ignite but mercifully with no recorded casualties.

HMS Illustrious in 1942 (Australian War Memorial)

Although the nights of 10th/11th November and 11th/12th November 1940 did not see particularly heavy raids, the bombs fell far and wide across London, Poplar, as always seemed to suffer. The eastbound District Line at Bow Road Station was blocked for some hours by a HE Bomb and a further bomb fell outside the Wellington Arms Public House in Wellington Way, although the Log does not record any human casualties resulting from these incidents.

Although Londoners were not to know it, the Blitz which had begun on September 7th 1940 was approaching a temporary lull; bad weather was beginning to affect the ability of the Luftwaffe to launch effective attacks and the results of the attrition resulting from the Battle of Britain had also had it's effects on the Germans. They were in today's parlance suffering from Battle Fatigue and although they were to return with a vengeance on the night of 29th December and again during the spring of 1941, for now at least, the attacks were beginning to wane.

Fairey Swordfish of the RN Historic Flight (Peter Noble)

It was not all one way traffic though. The British were beginning to fight back and following on from the decisive victory gained by the RAF during the Battle of Britain during the summer and autumn of 1940, the 11th November was to see a major British victory over the Axis Powers, this time involving a handful of obsolete biplanes issuing a shattering blow to the Italian Fleet. At 2040 on the evening of 11th November 1940, the first of some twenty one frail looking Fairey Swordfish aircraft took off into the darkness over the Mediterranean from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious bound for the Italian Naval Base at Taranto. The object was to cripple the Italian Fleet which at that time, numerically at least, was threatening the superiority of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The Swordfish biplanes achieved total surprise and for the loss of two aircraft and their crews, one battleship - Conti di Cavour - was sunk and two others - Littorio and Caio Duilio - damaged so badly that they were out of action for over a year. The Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, a man not easily given to praise, signalled to HMS Illustrious "MANEOUVRE WELL EXECUTED" which was fulsome indeed coming from such a perfectionist. 

As a result of this action, the Italian Fleet, always somewhat in awe of their British opponents, never seriously threatened them again, although there were to be scares in the ensuing years. Rather more ominously for the Allies, the action at Taranto was studied very closely by the Japanese. Although they were not yet in the war, they based their plans for a pre-emptive strike on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and armed as they were with much more modern aircraft and many more of them than the venerable Swordfish, the results when the attack took place in December 1941 were devastating indeed.

Clearly, Armistice Day was in abeyance for the duration.

Published Sources:

Engage The Enemy More Closely - Correlli Barnett, Hodder & Stoughton 1991

The Illustrious & Implacable Classes of Aircraft Carrier - Neil McCart, Fan Publications 2000

The War at Sea - ed. John Winton - Hutchinson 1974

Unpublished Sources:

Civil Defence Incident Logs for the Metropolitan Boroughs of Camberwell, Finsbury, Greenwich, Poplar, Southwark , Stoke Newington and the City of Westminster