Royal Arsenal History related Story Archive
Contributed by John King
People in story: Neville Doyle
Location of story: Woolwich Arsenal
Background to story: bombing raid in the Arsenal in 1940
Contributed: April 2017
Royal Arsenal History Comments by Ian Bull. (highlighted in orange)
People in story: Neville Doyle
Location of story: Woolwich Arsenal
Background to story: bombing raid in the Arsenal in 1940
Contributed: April 2017
Royal Arsenal History Comments by Ian Bull. (highlighted in orange)
Wartime Woolwich by Neville Doyle, Part 1
The parents of WDAS member John King worked in the Arsenal during WW2; as, from June to September 1940, did a friend of his, Neville Doyle, then aged 19. John said WDAS would be interested in his memories - the following is mildly edited from of a couple of letters.
An early wartime recollection is of numerous trains full of soldiers returning, I assumed, from Dunkirk which I saw from my digs which backed onto the Great Western main line in Burnham, Bucks.
From there I moved to Woolwich in June 1940, to work in the Design Department at the Royal Arsenal. This was in a quite a large building, probably three or four storeys high, and had an impressive entrance up a flight of steps. The floor where I worked was the main
drawing office and we covered guns, bombs, shells, and so on. We normally entered by the main gate, and walked in a vaguely north- easterly direction past various other buildings to a point maybe half way between the river and the Plumstead Road.
==========
Mr Doyle has gone to work in the Arsenal's 'Central Offices', then
building A75 and now Building 22. At that time it did have four
floors above ground level. The description of the walk from the main
gate to the Central Offices is completely correct as is the assumed
location between Plumstead Rd and the River. Mr Doyle's sense of
direction is faultless throughout.
==========
My digs were on the left-hand side of Wellington Street going away from Beresford Square in a house that did not face the street but was at right-angles to it – it had a walled garden triangular in shape tapering up to the entrance gate. It was a large house, probably early Victorian, or even earlier [by Love Lane, about where the library entrance is in the Woolwich Centre]. It was the home of Mr & Mrs Peto and their son of school age. I was one of a number of chaps
having bed & breakfast there. Mr Peto was a former RSM, or similar rank, in the Royal Artillery. He and my brother, who had been in the TA for many years and, after call up shortly before the declaration of war, had just been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the RA,
enjoyed a long chat. (A typical provincial, he had asked a policeman somewhere in central London the way to Wellington Street in Woolwich. He was told to go to Woolwich and then ask!)
The rest of the street was, I think, a bit of a mixture, and I know I used to eat at a café a bit lower down on the opposite side of the road. I don’t recall any houses or shops higher up on our side.
Beresford Square was used as a market place and I remember there seemed to be a glut of plums on sale. They were delicious Victoria plums, and I was told that transport difficulties had prevented their normal transport from the Kent area, so I enjoyed much fine fruit at
a very low cost. Every Friday lunch-time I joined the rest of my section in a little pub called “Dirty Dick’s” somewhere along the main street, as far as I can remember.
I spent much of my time finding my way around and I enjoyed the very cheap tram tickets that allowed a whole day on various tram routes. One place I went to was the Imperial War Museum, and I particularly wanted to see their old 1914-18 war planes. These were in the
basement which was closed to the public, but the attendant very kindly let me go down to see them. Some were hanging from the ceiling. I know they had a Short Seaplane as used at the battle of Jutland, but this seems to have disappeared as I can find no trace of
it in books on preserved aircraft.
The Ferry was always interesting; the boats were, of course, the old paddle steamers. Just downstream of the of the ferry pier on the North Woolwich side there were a number of barges tied up. I sometimes went to the West End via North Woolwich. There was a
railway line with very old coaches and although divided into compartments the divisions did not go up to the roof - presumably to discourage any unseemly behaviour. Another route was by bus, or trolley bus, via a bridge at the point where two docks joined up.
I had a friend from the North working as a civil servant and he lived in some sort of YMCA hostel near the Imperial War Museum. Together we went to a very popular show at the Victoria Theatre - it was something about the “Lambeth Walk”. I never saw him again after the
raids started. Another place I went to was the Queen’s Hall for a promenade concert with a colleague who was very musical. I saw my first bit of action when I caught the trolley bus from near the Arsenal gate, through the Plumstead area to Welling, and watched
an air battle far overhead. It was impossible to identify the aircraft without binoculars, but one went down, an Me109, making a long drawn-out noise. It crashed in the Woolwich area, and later people in an adjacent house were charging 6d to see the wreckage - probably for the Spitfire fund or something similar. It was my intention to go to there and pay my 6d, but I didn’t know the way to the road mentioned in the Press, and other things must have
intervened. The next action I saw was out in Kent after a train ride from Grove Park to Sevenoaks. It was fairly quiet in Woolwich although the guns opened fire one night. I think I slept through that. Another night I was with my musical colleague who had digs in a council [Progress] estate of quite attractive country cottage type houses on the left of the road
to Eltham. And the guns opened fire and something came whistling down, but I don’t recall any explosions. The first bomb site I went to was Charlton Church. This was quite awesome, as the church had collapsed at the back into some sort of park or garden. From our position in the Arsenal we could see all the fires in the Silvertown area. However, the real action started with a daylight raid on 7th September 1940, which started at about 4.55pm.
The damage was extensive and there were a number of casualties. Our building was
straddled by a stick of bombs; one fell in the road at the east side, but failed to explode, the next went through the roof, came out lower down and exploded in the courtyard, the third blew up the railway lines on the west side opposite the main entrance.
=============
This describes the Central Offices perfectly. It was and remains a
long quadrangular structure. The bomb that has passed through the
building has exploded in the central Courtyard. There were railway
lines in the road on all four sides of the building and 1950s
photographs show that those on the Western side were fully repaired
after their bombing.
=============
They were digging for an unexploded bomb when we returned for work on the Monday morning. It would have been impossible to work in our building, and within a day or two we had been moved to Middle Park School, Eltham. I never went back to the Arsenal, and moved to
Chislehurst as there was a convenient bus in that direction. So my stay in Woolwich was for barely three months.
(John King’s mother was in the Arsenal the day of the raid but not his father, who was at an out station.)
Clarifications by Mr Doyle to Wartime Woolwich, Part 1, in the May &
June Newsletter
Para 6 – “Just downstream of the of the ferry pier on the North
Woolwich side there were a number of barges tied up.” These were
sailing barges.
Para 8 - The plane that crashed in the Woolwich area must have been
the ME109E shot down by Sergeant Stokoe of 603 Squadron on Saturday
31st August 1940, and according to The Blitz – Then & Now it
crashed into the gardens between Anne Street and Robert Street,
Plumstead at 6.20pm.
Para 9 – “The first bomb site I went to was Charlton Church.” This
was St Paul’s, a daughter church of St Luke’s by the junction of
Charlton Lane and Fairfield Grove – it was bombed on 4th September
1940 and not rebuilt, but later replaced by a block of flats in St
Paul’s Close.
Para 9 – “From our position in the Arsenal we could see all the fires
in the Silvertown area.” This relates to the aftermath of the air-
raid of 7th September described in Para 10 (& the Recollections
above), the position being by the river near the air-raid shelter
used by Mr Doyle and its neighbour that had had a direct hit.
Wartime Woolwich by Neville Doyle, Part 2
Mr Doyle responded to a request in The Times for personal experiences
of the London raids, but his contribution was heavily edited - they left out the matter of the flashing light which he was hoping would result in some expert opinion.
Recollections for “The Times” in the July & August Newsletter
Before the war normal office hours included Saturday morning, but to assist the “war effort” we in Woolwich Arsenal worked every alternate Saturday afternoon, hence my presence on 7th September 1940. It was a beautiful day and as far as I can recall there was not a cloud in
the sky. It would have been quite a relief when 5 o’clock arrived to escape into the sunshine, but this was not to be. At six minutes to five, plus or minus the odd minute, the air raid warning sounded. I was part of a small group detached from the main office, and our shelter was a simple brick structure not many yards from the river at the western end of the Arsenal.
============
There were very many, probably hundreds, of brick air-raid shelters
built throughout the RA on the surface. There are maps which show
them and I think there's one in the Greenwich Heritage Centre and I
have such a map myself. One shelter location fits Mr Doyle's
description nicely, but see my comment below.
============
With my colleagues we relaxed in the sunshine with the other people allocated to this particular shelter, which was of some use, I suppose, against blast and bomb splinters. Air raid warnings were not unusual at this time, but we soon realised that this was the real thing. Away to the east we could see aircraft approaching, and as they were being fired at by our A-A guns they were obviously hostile. They were a loose formation of about ten or fifteen aircraft heading straight towards us and when the leading plane was at an angle of 45 degrees, say, above ground level, it flashed a light. Whereabouts on the aircraft it was positioned I cannot say, but we all saw it.
===========
Presumably the aircraft that flashed a light was the only one in the formation fitted with the 'Knickebein' wireless direction system that informed German aircraft of the precise moment that bombs should be released.
See....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams
===========
“They’r lighting up the fuses” said the loud voice of someone completely ignorant of the subject. As soon as the leading aircraft the same voice said “We’re alright now – they’r directly overhead”. Until this time the average man had assumed that bombs dropped straight down vertically from their point of release under the aircraft but, thanks to the popular Press, he had learnt that as the bomb had the same velocity as the aircraft its path to earth was a
long steepening curve (approximating, perhaps, to a parabola). Unfortunately the aircraft had released their bombs when the light flashed (with perhaps a radio signal at the same time), and as soon as our “expert” stopped speaking we saw and heard a ragged line coming towards us in giant strides, as it were. We all rushed to the shelter. I was No 8 in the scrum, and noted a big splash on my right as the nearest bomb in line with us went into the river.
===========
As the aircraft will be coming from the East Mr Doyle is heading Westwards towards his shelter and he can see the river to his right. Only one shelter on the map I have here is feasible as his
destination and was next to the gate leading into the quadrangle within the Greenwich Heritage Centre. That location is over 300 yards from the Central Offices and there were half a dozen shelters nearer to his place of work. Perhaps the nearest shelters were allocated to
the most senior staff?
===========
There was a short interval, and assuming the raid was over we emerged from the shelter only to see a sky full of aircraft heading our way and, apart from the guns, there was no opposition. Once again we retreated into our shelter.
It is a fact that we do not hear a bomb that hits us. In our inexperience we were tensing up and mentally crouching down every time we heard the long drawn-out whistle of a bomb dropping miles away. Those coming closer sound like an express train, but when a bomb landed within a few yards of our shelter and blew up a wagon- load of proof shot we wondered what it was that was clattering down on our roof.
Inside the shelter there were wooden benches, but we didn’t sing or play musical instruments. Nobody spoke – we were all rather pale of face – my colleague, normally a very amusing character, offered me a cigarette, which I smoked, although not a habit at that time. There
was one chap lying on the floor under a bench with his fingers in his ears – perhaps the chap who said “We’re alright now”.
I had a look outside. Nobody else moved. It was a pretty grim spectacle. There were fires at the far end of the Arsenal in the area known as the “Danger Buildings” and assumed to be full of highly explosive material.
===========
Mr Doyle was wise to be concerned but needn't have been too worried.
Given Mr Doyle's likely location by the River the only Danger Buildings within his sight were not as dangerous as they had been in the First World War for the High Explosives plant had closed in 1919 never to reopen. I do not know whether the extensive Composition Establishment to the West of the explosives plant was in use in World War Two, it certainly would have been dependent on materials brought from other Ordnance factories. [The Composition Establishment filled shells with explosive and fused them.]
Between the Composition Establishment and the manufacturing area were the Danger Buildings nearest to Mr Doyle, the Cap and Detonator factory. There was certainly a potential for danger but the quantities of explosives used were really quite small.
===========
On the north side of the river it was nothing but flames and black smoke from North Woolwich westwards through Silvertown and beyond. Burning barges were being towed out to sea.
When the “All Clear” sounded and we re-emerged from our shelter I told anyone who would listen to get as far away from the Arsenal as they could before dark as the bastards would be back again to heap more bombs on the burning buildings. I think most of them had gone
before I finished speaking. However, my fatal curiosity got the better of me and I made my way to our main office, a large imposing building, of perhaps 3 or 4 storeys with a central courtyard, when I should have made for the main gate. It was empty except for one person, a colleague called “Taffy” Williams. We recounted our experiences, and I no doubt told him to get away as soon as possible. He had sheltered under the building which, apparently had been hit by a stick of bombs. One fell on the east side and disappeared without exploding, the next came in through the roof and went out lower down to explode in the courtyard, smash a lot of glass and crack the walls, the third fell outside the main entrance and blew the railway lines up in the air.
===========
See comment above re. Central Offices.
===========
As we chatted there was a noise. We wondered what it was, and then an army officer appeared shouting “Volunteers wanted”. “Taff” and I looked at each other, I was not feeling the least bit heroic, nor I suspect was “Taff”. Well, what can you do? (or as one says nowadays,
what could one do?). Very reluctantly we followed in his footsteps down the stairs to join a little group waiting outside and we moved off eastwards in the direction of the “Danger Buildings”. Wondering what we had volunteered for I asked the chap on my right. “People
trapped in a shelter” was the short reply. I passed this information on to “Taff” trudging on my left. I must confess that instead of sympathy I felt rather annoyed with these poor people for getting themselves trapped. I was not looking forward to a night of digging
away in the middle of the “Danger Buildings” surrounded by fires and explosions with the Luftwaffe circling overhead and dropping bombs at their leisure. These depressing thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a change of direction as we followed our leader through a left
turn, so that we now marched in a northerly direction towards the river. At the river we did another left turn to proceed in a westerly direction.
===========
Again, Mr Doyle's sense of direction is faultless.
===========
As is well known one thing that never goes like a military operation is a military operation.
Before long we were back at the spot where I had sheltered earlier in the day. Not too far away was a solidly constructed underground air raid shelter of very thick concrete. Unfortunately it had received a direct hit. I doubt there were any survivors. Bodies were brought in one at a time, through a crack in the concrete just big enough. There was nothing we could do. I stood there awaiting orders.
===========
I've no idea where that shelter might have been.
===========
One of our uniformed security men seemed to be in charge. He saw me and waved me away, probably saying something like “b…… off !” He must have thought I was watching it all for fun. So, without so much as a “Thank you” I left. I think “Taff” must have gone on his own
initiative. As I came through the main gate it was quite eerie. About three quarters of the sky, from the north side of the river and right across Woolwich was covered by smoke, from the fires on the north bank of the Thames, and there was a weird flickering effect
reflected from the flames. A few groups waited outside the gates, and I assumed they were waiting for someone who had not arrived home at the normal time. Fortunately, they were few in number, but they did remind me of scenes at colliery gates after a disaster of some sort. As for getting as far away as possible my bed & breakfast was in Wellington Street, just up the road.
This, of course, was the first big raid on London, and I must say that I expected them to become a daily event. However, Woolwich survived the night as the German bombers must have had plenty of other fires to provide them with aiming points.
Contributed by Greenwich Heritage Centre
People in story: Len Thynne
Location of story: Woolwich
Background to story: Civilian Force
Contributed on: 02 June 2005
People in story: Len Thynne
Location of story: Woolwich
Background to story: Civilian Force
Contributed on: 02 June 2005
I started my apprenticeship (1938) in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich in the carriage Department. (RCD). I had done a spell in the ‘New Fuze’ factory E81, then as a store boy in the RCD. It was good groundwork for what was to come. It was 1940 and I was in the second year of my engineering apprenticeship at Woolwich Arsenal. I was 17 years old. It was the year of the Battle of Britain and a fellow apprentice named Ted Spencer, who suggested that we cycled to the RAF fighter station at Hornchurch (not far from the north side of the Woolwich Free Ferry). To get to the airfield meant going across a cabbage field, there was nobody guarding the aircraft. Because the spitfires and hurricanes were placed on the perimeter we were able to climb into the cockpits, the pilots had left goggles and gauntlets etc. in the open, I repeat nobody was protecting the aircraft!
On the next visit, the Canadian troops were guarding the airfield, but they were complaining about being here to fight the Germans!
The next thing I heard about the Canadians was the battle for Dieppe! This attempt to land in France was a total disaster. This Dieppe raid was in 1942.
My early days in the Arsenal ‘Royal Carriage Department’ were spent erecting the 9.2-inch coastal defence gun carriage. Early in the War riveting was used to join all the parts of the carriage together. If you can imagine the noise in a confined space of the riveting hammers! It was not long before electric arc welding became the means of joining steel to steel. Labourers were recruited to do this work.
I attended the Woolwich Polytechnic to study for the English National Course (ENG). Because of the air raids in the evenings we had 3 two-hour classes on Sundays, mathematics, mechanics and drawing.
Most evenings were taken up learning St. John First Aid. Doctor Remington (Woolwich Police Surgeon) was our tutor. Timbercroft Infants School for the Wartime was used as a First Aid Post (FAP) and an Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) station. It will be remembered that the School children had been evacuated to the country — away from the bombing of the main towns.
My first introduction to the First Aid Post was when an alert was on, both AFS and FAP had squads on call, but those not on duty were playing a badminton match against each other in the main hall on the AFS station. I received two pass certificates in St. John First Aid.
We slept in two-tiered bunks in the classrooms. In the hall of the First Aid Post, on some Saturday evenings, a fireman named Duffield would play the piano so that we could have a dance. His signature tune was “I don’t want to set the world on fire”.
The only person I know who is alive today is Olive Tarr, last living in Meopham. We never took any photos for memory sake. Pity.
It was 1942 when we were asked to be Light Rescue Squad Volunteers. We were issued with dark Blue Battledress Type of Uniforms by the Woolwich Borough Council and were taught to drive some old pre-war London taxis, which had been retrieved from the Crystal Place dump. They were the Beardmore type with the gate change of gear; their main trouble was that the batteries were worn out. They were used to stow rescue equipment and I used one to carry injured people from a bombsite at Smithies road, Abbeywood to St. Nicholas Hospital, a VI had killed 6 people on 18th June 1944. On Sunday mornings we would practice, on Barnfield gardens bombsite, the method of lowering a stretcher with a volunteer strapped to it from the roof. This was to practice our knots and use of a tripod.
The two women in charge of the Timbercroft Lane FAP were Miss Wright and Miss Little. They were both qualified nurses. There was a daytime staff, who were mainly nurses and contentious objectors (C.O.s.) — these were people who refused to join the armed services because of their religious beliefs. In the evening we were on standby for first aid or stretcher bearing. We slept in the classrooms — in bunks one above another. We played badminton and Harold Tarr (Hank) became good enough to represent Kent, and he was the local men’s singles champion. He was also an engineering apprentice in the Woolwich Arsenal.
Although there were many bombing incidents in the Plumstead Area, the worst casualties were caused by the land-mine that dropped on Alabama Street; it was 20 March 1941. At 8.45 in the evening we were at a First Aid lecture, given by Dr. Remington, the classroom being used was at the corner of Flaxton Road and Timbercroft Lane. When the window frames and curtains were blown in we knew we were needed. My aunt Nancy Thynne was killed in this incident. It was the night she decided not to use the Town Hall Air-raid shelter that she bought it. It is distressing to know that not a piece of her was found. I was on the scene within minutes of the explosion as a first aider and stretcher bearer. There were people calling for help from the houses on the right going up Cardiff St. The firemen were putting the fire out in the house opposite (their job was to ignore calls for help), luckily, although the house was demolished, the occupants had been found sheltering under the staircase and were unhurt. They were sent to a rest centre. On proceeding to the site of the explosion, what with the calls for help, the smoke, dust and general confusion, the person we had on a stretcher with a sever leg injury had a delay because the ambulance driver did not know where his ambulance was! The number killed was 23, and injured 42.
During the course of the War some of the First Aid Squad got called up. There was one chap who was in the RAF and he would look in of an evening and mention that he was on a pathfinder flight the previous night over Berlin. We never saw him again!
Uncle Tom was killed by a V2 rocket, he was a painter and decorator and was working on a house in Duncroft (a road off Swingate Lane). 13 killed, 87 injured. It was the 26th February 1945.
During the course of my apprenticeship I worked in the “Heavy Gun Shop”, this was where Naval guns were manufactured. I was asked if I would enter the breech end of a 15-inch gun barrel on a “skate board” type to remove some burrs where the chamber meets the rifling. I was pulled into the gun by means of a rope attached to the “skate board” from the muzzle end. When I had performed this task I had to be pulled out of the Gun! When George Pine called out “Its time to go to lunch” leaving me stuck up the middle of the gun. I am pleased to say it was just a workshop prank, but not for me.
Another occurrence was when the newsreel crew photographed a young lady taking the place of “Jarvo” Hyde, the skilled turner at the lathe, appearing to be the operator for propaganda purposes. Guns I worked on in the light Gun Factory were 4 inch Mk21, Naval Gun 5.5 field gun and the 25 pdr.
An incident I recall: It happened midweek in the Arsenal. A bomb had dropped on the tailor shop, the girls who did the sewing had decided to work through the raid (they were on piece-work), and consequently there were a number of casualties. We pit a rather big girl on to a stretcher and carried her to the nearby “Edith Cavil” First Aid Post. I asked as to where I should take her. The reply was “at the back with the rest of the stiffs”. I had not noticed that her fingers had been cut off and no blood was seen.
It was Saturday 1st July 1944 at midday at the Light Gun Factory. Bob Wiltshaw and I had a look outside No. 1 bay when we heard a VI (buzz bomb) overhead. It exploded on an air raid shelter near the pipe fitters shop. About 30 yards around the corner the thick roof had collapsed on the people inside, many were killed. I saw a fellow with his brains exposed. We used doors as stretchers - it was carnage.
This week (6 July 2004) I was speaking to Harry Tarr who was working in D42 (storehouse) when a bomb dropped nearby, severely injuring him and killing 23. He remembers a locomotive being thrown on top of a factory. He was transferred to Blackburn.
It was a seemingly nice quiet day on Saturday 9 September 1941, so we had decided I. E. Alec Bradley and two young ladies, to go to the West End to see a film, it was called “Champagne Charlie” with Tommy Trinder. Halfway through the show we understood there was a bombing raid and we could move back in the stalls to be under the circle for better protection. Little did we know that this was the day the Germans were going to try and fire and blast London off the map. We got a train from Charing Cross but at Maze Hill we were told the railway line had been blown up, so we started walking. The others all lived in different directions; I managed to get to Woolwich Common, but was told not to go farther because of an unexploded bomb. Later I chanced it, walking through the length of Plumstead Common with a continuous rain of incendiary bombs falling.
The lady living in No. 26 Ravine Grove was killed by a dud AA shell going straight through the Anderson Shelter. I lived at No. 30. The AA guns must have been pointing in the same direction because the top of Lakedale Road attracted a lot of falling shrapnel.
Towards the latter part of the War we were moved out of Timbercraft School to the council yard in Chestnut Road, and stayed there until the end of the War, as a Volunteer Light Rescue Squad (unpaid) for the borough council.
On the next visit, the Canadian troops were guarding the airfield, but they were complaining about being here to fight the Germans!
The next thing I heard about the Canadians was the battle for Dieppe! This attempt to land in France was a total disaster. This Dieppe raid was in 1942.
My early days in the Arsenal ‘Royal Carriage Department’ were spent erecting the 9.2-inch coastal defence gun carriage. Early in the War riveting was used to join all the parts of the carriage together. If you can imagine the noise in a confined space of the riveting hammers! It was not long before electric arc welding became the means of joining steel to steel. Labourers were recruited to do this work.
I attended the Woolwich Polytechnic to study for the English National Course (ENG). Because of the air raids in the evenings we had 3 two-hour classes on Sundays, mathematics, mechanics and drawing.
Most evenings were taken up learning St. John First Aid. Doctor Remington (Woolwich Police Surgeon) was our tutor. Timbercroft Infants School for the Wartime was used as a First Aid Post (FAP) and an Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) station. It will be remembered that the School children had been evacuated to the country — away from the bombing of the main towns.
My first introduction to the First Aid Post was when an alert was on, both AFS and FAP had squads on call, but those not on duty were playing a badminton match against each other in the main hall on the AFS station. I received two pass certificates in St. John First Aid.
We slept in two-tiered bunks in the classrooms. In the hall of the First Aid Post, on some Saturday evenings, a fireman named Duffield would play the piano so that we could have a dance. His signature tune was “I don’t want to set the world on fire”.
The only person I know who is alive today is Olive Tarr, last living in Meopham. We never took any photos for memory sake. Pity.
It was 1942 when we were asked to be Light Rescue Squad Volunteers. We were issued with dark Blue Battledress Type of Uniforms by the Woolwich Borough Council and were taught to drive some old pre-war London taxis, which had been retrieved from the Crystal Place dump. They were the Beardmore type with the gate change of gear; their main trouble was that the batteries were worn out. They were used to stow rescue equipment and I used one to carry injured people from a bombsite at Smithies road, Abbeywood to St. Nicholas Hospital, a VI had killed 6 people on 18th June 1944. On Sunday mornings we would practice, on Barnfield gardens bombsite, the method of lowering a stretcher with a volunteer strapped to it from the roof. This was to practice our knots and use of a tripod.
The two women in charge of the Timbercroft Lane FAP were Miss Wright and Miss Little. They were both qualified nurses. There was a daytime staff, who were mainly nurses and contentious objectors (C.O.s.) — these were people who refused to join the armed services because of their religious beliefs. In the evening we were on standby for first aid or stretcher bearing. We slept in the classrooms — in bunks one above another. We played badminton and Harold Tarr (Hank) became good enough to represent Kent, and he was the local men’s singles champion. He was also an engineering apprentice in the Woolwich Arsenal.
Although there were many bombing incidents in the Plumstead Area, the worst casualties were caused by the land-mine that dropped on Alabama Street; it was 20 March 1941. At 8.45 in the evening we were at a First Aid lecture, given by Dr. Remington, the classroom being used was at the corner of Flaxton Road and Timbercroft Lane. When the window frames and curtains were blown in we knew we were needed. My aunt Nancy Thynne was killed in this incident. It was the night she decided not to use the Town Hall Air-raid shelter that she bought it. It is distressing to know that not a piece of her was found. I was on the scene within minutes of the explosion as a first aider and stretcher bearer. There were people calling for help from the houses on the right going up Cardiff St. The firemen were putting the fire out in the house opposite (their job was to ignore calls for help), luckily, although the house was demolished, the occupants had been found sheltering under the staircase and were unhurt. They were sent to a rest centre. On proceeding to the site of the explosion, what with the calls for help, the smoke, dust and general confusion, the person we had on a stretcher with a sever leg injury had a delay because the ambulance driver did not know where his ambulance was! The number killed was 23, and injured 42.
During the course of the War some of the First Aid Squad got called up. There was one chap who was in the RAF and he would look in of an evening and mention that he was on a pathfinder flight the previous night over Berlin. We never saw him again!
Uncle Tom was killed by a V2 rocket, he was a painter and decorator and was working on a house in Duncroft (a road off Swingate Lane). 13 killed, 87 injured. It was the 26th February 1945.
During the course of my apprenticeship I worked in the “Heavy Gun Shop”, this was where Naval guns were manufactured. I was asked if I would enter the breech end of a 15-inch gun barrel on a “skate board” type to remove some burrs where the chamber meets the rifling. I was pulled into the gun by means of a rope attached to the “skate board” from the muzzle end. When I had performed this task I had to be pulled out of the Gun! When George Pine called out “Its time to go to lunch” leaving me stuck up the middle of the gun. I am pleased to say it was just a workshop prank, but not for me.
Another occurrence was when the newsreel crew photographed a young lady taking the place of “Jarvo” Hyde, the skilled turner at the lathe, appearing to be the operator for propaganda purposes. Guns I worked on in the light Gun Factory were 4 inch Mk21, Naval Gun 5.5 field gun and the 25 pdr.
An incident I recall: It happened midweek in the Arsenal. A bomb had dropped on the tailor shop, the girls who did the sewing had decided to work through the raid (they were on piece-work), and consequently there were a number of casualties. We pit a rather big girl on to a stretcher and carried her to the nearby “Edith Cavil” First Aid Post. I asked as to where I should take her. The reply was “at the back with the rest of the stiffs”. I had not noticed that her fingers had been cut off and no blood was seen.
It was Saturday 1st July 1944 at midday at the Light Gun Factory. Bob Wiltshaw and I had a look outside No. 1 bay when we heard a VI (buzz bomb) overhead. It exploded on an air raid shelter near the pipe fitters shop. About 30 yards around the corner the thick roof had collapsed on the people inside, many were killed. I saw a fellow with his brains exposed. We used doors as stretchers - it was carnage.
This week (6 July 2004) I was speaking to Harry Tarr who was working in D42 (storehouse) when a bomb dropped nearby, severely injuring him and killing 23. He remembers a locomotive being thrown on top of a factory. He was transferred to Blackburn.
It was a seemingly nice quiet day on Saturday 9 September 1941, so we had decided I. E. Alec Bradley and two young ladies, to go to the West End to see a film, it was called “Champagne Charlie” with Tommy Trinder. Halfway through the show we understood there was a bombing raid and we could move back in the stalls to be under the circle for better protection. Little did we know that this was the day the Germans were going to try and fire and blast London off the map. We got a train from Charing Cross but at Maze Hill we were told the railway line had been blown up, so we started walking. The others all lived in different directions; I managed to get to Woolwich Common, but was told not to go farther because of an unexploded bomb. Later I chanced it, walking through the length of Plumstead Common with a continuous rain of incendiary bombs falling.
The lady living in No. 26 Ravine Grove was killed by a dud AA shell going straight through the Anderson Shelter. I lived at No. 30. The AA guns must have been pointing in the same direction because the top of Lakedale Road attracted a lot of falling shrapnel.
Towards the latter part of the War we were moved out of Timbercraft School to the council yard in Chestnut Road, and stayed there until the end of the War, as a Volunteer Light Rescue Squad (unpaid) for the borough council.