THE WORLD WAR II BOMBING

FELTHAM HANWORTH & BEDFONT

of

Colin Clegg & James Marshall

based on

A MISSING RECORDS RECOVERY PROJECT BY THE FELTHAM HISTORY GROUP

THE WORLD WAR TWO BOMBING

of FELTHAM HANWORTH & BEDFONT

Colin Clegg & James Marshall based on A MISSING RECORDS RECOVERY PROJECT BY THE FELTHAM HISTORY GROUP

Navigation around the contents on the CD can be achieved by using the: i) Vertical Scroll Bar on the right, ii) Page Number Panel at the bottom iii) Bookmarks on the left (3rd tab down) iv) Page thumbnails on the left (4th tab down) v) Links throughout the pages

Cover: INCENDIARIES IN A SUBURB by HENRY CARR R.A. 1941 (with permission Imperial War Museum)

CONTENTS
APPENDIX CONTENTS ON CD ONLY ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION Brief Chronology of World War Two 1 GERMAN PLANNING & RECONNAISSANCE German Aerial Photography Main German Bombing Force 2 AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS AND CIVIL DEFENCE IN FELTHAM Air Raid Sirens Barrage Balloons Searchlights & Anti-Aircraft Guns Shelters Gas Masks or Respirators Evacuations 3 THE RAIDS IN DETAIL High Explosive Bombs Incendiary bombs 4 INDUSTRIAL TARGETS General Aircraft & Hanworth Air Park Feltham Railway & Marshalling Yards Feltham R.A.S.C. Ordnance Depot Minimax Gresham Transformers Aston Martin 5 V REPRISAL WEAPONS V1 Bombs (Doodlebugs or Buzzbombs) V2 Rockets V3 Gun 6 FELTHAMS WARTIME EXPERIENCES IN CONTEXT Targeting, Navigation & Bombing Accuracy 7 VICTORY & NEW BEGINNINGS Celebrating Survival From London Air Park to London Airport Awaiting the New Bibliography ii iii v v 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 9 10 11 12 12 13 13 17 20 20 22 24 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 30 31 31 32 33 34

APPENDIX CONTENTS ON CD ONLY

A The bombing of Feltham Urban District (F.U.D.) during World War II: The story of a missing records recovery project. B The bombing of F.U.D. during World War II: An introductory outline. C Summary of bombing incidents and raids, by date. D When and where bombs fell on F.U.D. during World War II (detail). E List of bombing incidents in F.U.D. causing serious damage to property, and/or fatalities, by date F List of fatalities in bombing raids on F.U.D. during World War II: names by date of incident. G The wartime bombing of England, 1939 1945: background notes taken from published sources; with a note on Evacuation from Feltham. H Miscellaneous Wartime Newspaper Cuttings & Posters I Personal accounts of F.U.D. in wartime and bombing incidents in WWII
1. Ted Ashford - Railway Terrace in wartime: bombs and incendiary bombs; the Ellington Road bombing, 1943; Mulberry Harbour construction work near Weybridge. 2. Les Bawn - The Hanworth Close V1; air raid shelters; searchlights and local home defence posts; German PoWs at Kempton Park; Lings trotting races. 3. Thomas Blanchfield - A near miss: the bombing of a family home in Bedfont Lane, January 1941. 4. John Bullen - The Hanworth Close V1; a German land mine explosion in Hanworth. 5. Edward (Mickey) Cartwight - The day war broke out; a daylight air raid on Feltham; Anti-aircraft guns at Bedfont Recreation Ground. 6. Vera Matthews nee Clegg - A lesson in the school air raid shelter. 7. Colin Clegg - Mainly about pigs, rural life on the Grosvenor estate 8. Bill Cole - The outbreak of war in the Elephant and Castle, SE1; Watching dog-fights over Kent and being machine-gunned at Dover: family days out in WWII; The Blitz in SE1, my family moves to Feltham after being bombed-out; Wartime in Feltham. 9. Gordon Drewett - Swimming in the ARP emergency water tank; a bombing raid on Hanworth, 29-30th November 1940; Air raid shelters; The Hanworth Close V1 and a German land mine; Lord Haw Haw and the church clock; Lings trotting races. 10 Feltham Congregational Church - Minutes of - Bomb damage to the church and to Victoria Road, 1944. 11 Chris Hanks - Wartime in Feltham: memories of Guildford Avenue (Grosvenor Estate). 12 Sydney George Hill - My mothers work as a cook at Felthams British Restaurant and at General Aircraft; Timber Woods, test pilot; Saturdays at the cinema and more dangerous amusements; flying bombs in Heston. 13 Barrie Lambert - My early years in wartime Hanworth. 14 Maureen Maxwell - The Ellington Road bombing, 7/8th October 1943. 15 Eddie Menday - Feltham during World War II. 16 David Olive - An air raid in Hanworth, 29/30th November 1940; the bombing of Gresham Transformers, 24th March 1944; bomb collecting a dangerous hobby; The Hanworth Close V1. 17 Robin Rendell - The Northumberland Crescent V1; the Rendell family become evacuees a train journey. 18 Sylvia Seaney - Memories of a railwayman. 19 Ken Smith - The Hanworth Close V1 and other air raid memories. 20 Dave Wiseman - Feltham - The War Years; flying sweets, carrying incendiaries; the RASC railway line and the big gun; Balsa wood from fighters to models; pantry partition; and a burst appendix

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ILLUSTRATIONS
Cover - Incendiaries In A Suburb by Henry Carr RA, 1941 Reproduced by kind permission of The Imperial War Museum Fig 1 - Feltham Urban District, Coat of Arms Fig 2 - Plotting base from Feltham Burrows map c.1962** Fig 3 - Luftwaffe Map, 19th May 1939 Fig 4 - Area of Luftwaffe map in Fig 2 (inner box) in context of a post-war map and later developments** Fig 5 - Luftwaffe photograph, 2nd Sept 1940 Fig 6 - View through the nose cone of a Heinkel 111 Fig 7 - Channins Hotel, Hounslow Road, Feltham; WW 2 Civil Defence HQ. (James Marshall) Fig 8 - A World War II Auxiliary Fire Service team at Hanworth Air Park (Hounslow Library Local Collection) Fig 9 - ARP Post No. 2 Swan Road, Hanworth (Hounslow Library Local Collection, courtesy of David Olive) Fig 10 - Collection of ARP & Volunteer memoribilia Fig 11 - Motor driven fan siren for air raid warnings. Fig 12 - Barrage balloons deployed* Fig 13 - Sound locator, part of an Anti-Aircraft Searchlight Unit* Fig 14 - Anti-Aircraft searchlight and crew* Fig 15 - Anderson Shelter. Fig 16 - Morrison Shelter. Fig 17 - The Civilian Respirator or Gas mask* Fig 18 - The Mickey-Mouse gas mask, with two windows (Colin Clegg) Fig 19 - Map of Feltham showing WW2 bomb incidents causing most severe damage to property and fatalities** Fig 20 - Ellington Road, Lower Feltham: the result of a 1000kg bomb dropped during the night of 7th/8th Oct 1943 Courtesy of The National Archives; HO 192/401 Fig 21 - Ellington and Hamilton Roads** Fig 22 - High Explosive bombs on Feltham Urban District, 1939 1945** Fig 23 - Incendiary bomb and its effects* Fig 24 - The stirrup hand pump in operation* Fig 25 - Incendiary bomb cooling down* Fig 26 - Control of incendiary bomb with scoopfuls of sand taken from the Redhill container shown front right* Fig 27 - Extinction of incendiary bomb by placing in Redhill container* Fig 28 - Minimax fire fighting equipment advertisement. Fig 29 - Minimax cone fire extinguisher Fig 30 - Minimax label Fig 31 - Fire Precaution instructions leaflet - see Appendix H Fig 32 - Fire Precaution newspaper cutting - see Appendix H Fig 33 - Incendiary bomb areas in Feltham Urban District 1939 1945** Fig 34 - The Feltham Tram Fig 35 - Hawker Fury bi-planes (Hounslow Library Local Collection). Fig 36 - General Aircraft Hamilcar Glider (Hounslow Library Local Collection). Fig 37 - Spitfire built with funds raised by public at local War Weapons Week events (Hounslow Library Local Colletion) Fig 38 - Hanworth (London) Air Park Fig 39 - Hanworth Air Park, local bomb incidents 1939 45. Including the V1 on Danesbury Road/Florence Road** Fig 40 - Part of the damaged roof at the General Aircraft works as a result of the raid on the night of 29th/30th November 1940 (Hounslow Library Local Collection) Fig 41 - Part of the damaged factory at the General Aircraft works as a result of the raid on the night of 29th/30th November 1940 (Hounslow Library Local Collection)
We have had one or two pictures of local bomb damage in the librarys Local Collection for many years. Now, for the first time, we are able to assign probable dates to them. Pictures like this are of real local historic interest. But, unless there is record of the date when the event recorded by the photographer actually happened, a lot of their value is lost. After many years, our research has enabled us to restore missing value to these dramatic images.

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Fig 42 - Feltham Marshalling Yards (Hounslow Library Local Collection). Fig 43 - Unexploded bomb being removed from the Hounslow Loop Line near Syon Lane on 7th October 1940 (Source: Southern Railway archives (Hounslow Library Local Collection) Fig 44 - Feltham Marshalling Yards & railway line total bomb strikes 1939 - 45** Fig 45 - Bomb crater just east of Feltham Marshalling Yards. Source: Southern Railway Archives (Hounslow Library Local Collection) Fig 46 - Felthams RASC Ordnance Depot, interior (Hounslow Library Local Collection, courtesy of Mr. Cartwight) Fig 47 - Removal of RASC Depot branch line, 1965. (Barrie Matthews) Fig 48 - RASC Depot bomb strikes, 1939 45** Fig 49 - RASC Depot branch line seen from the High St crossing looking North to junction with main line Fig 50 - Minimax advertisement showing Minimax Corner Fig 51 - The Minimax Donkey. (Chris Hanks} Fig 52 - Minimax Corner bomb strikes, 1939 45** Fig 53 - Gresham Transformersl bomb strikes, 1939 45** Fig 54 - Aston Martin works bomb strikes 1939 45 ** Fig 55 - V1 in flight. Fig 56 - V1 on crash trajectory Fig 57 - V1 being tipped by the wing of a Spitfire (Attributed in the original work in the following way. Imperial War
Museum - picture scanned by Ian Dunster 13:04, 17 September 2005 (UTC) from: Weapons & War Machines compiled by Andrew Kershaw and Ian Close - Phoebus - 1976 - ISBN 0-7026-0008-3 and credited to: Imperial War Museum. This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain, because: it is a photograph created by the United Kingdom Government and taken prior to 1 June 1957. - but see note below)

Fig 58 - The Close, Twickenham Rd, Hanworth; Ordnance Survey Middlesex Sheet XXV2 1934 (Crown Copyright). Fig 59 - Creswell Road off Swift Road in Hanworth. (James Marshall) Fig 60 - V1 incidents in Feltham Urban District** Fig 61 - Map showing the density of bombing over the London Region 1939-1945 (Source: The LCC Bomb Damage Maps, reprinted by The London Topographical Society as publication no. 164, 2005.) Fig 62 - Greater London map extract showing relative positions of Feltham Urban District & Twickenham Fig 63 - VE Street Party Northumberland Crescent 1945. Fig 64 - VE Street Party Guildford Avenue (combined with Hanover Avenue residents) 1945 Fig 65 - VE Street Party Guildford Ave 1945 Fig 66 - Avro Lancaster bomber Fig 67 - BOAC Lancastrian Fig 68 - Avro Lancastrian airliner, London Airport from Bath Road 1946 Fig 69 - Feltham High Street in the early 1950s Fig 70 - Feltham High Street in 2008. (James Marshall) Fig 71 - Feltham - model of new centre looking west *For further information about the ARP illustrations go to: http://www.nbcd.org.uk/arp/cigarettecards/about.asp **ALL Street maps courtesy of Burrows Communications Ltd.

A Note on Copyright
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 works retrospectively and states that the copyright of a photograph will be owned by the photographer, even though, when it was taken, the copyright could have belonged to the person who commissioned it, according to the laws then in place. Efforts have been made to contact potential Copyright holders of the unattributed photographs listed above. In the absence of success in identifying and locating them, or of any reply from those contacted, we will continue to include the images until advised otherwise, at which time we will carry out the required response. This work is primarily a digital resource, being printed on demand, so no stocks are held and any changes can be implemented immediately. It is also a non-profit making venture, subsidised by the authors, with any profits going to further research in the local history of the Feltham area.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank: Ted Ashford; Les Bawn; Thomas Blanchfield; John Bullen; Edward Cartwight; Gordon Drewett; Chris Hanks; Barrie Lambert; Maureen Maxwell; Eddie Menday; David Olive; Sylvia Seaney; and Ken Smith, for sharing with us their memories of Feltham and District during World War II and their experiences of local bomb incidents. Our thanks are extended equally to: Bill Cole, Sydney George Hill and Robin Rendell for allowing us to publish extracts from their personal memoirs, published and unpublished. This publication began with work at The National Archives, Kew. That research was undertaken by: Bill Cole, Brian Indge and James Marshall of the Feltham History Group, with the help of Gordon Kirby J.P. of Feltham Magistrates Court.

PREFACE
This publication has been developed from a PowerPoint Presentation created by James Marshall (Local Studies Librarian, Hounslow Library) in 2007 to accompany a talk entitled: The Bombing of Feltham in World War II A Missing Records Recovery Project by the Feltham History Group The initial talk was well received by a large audience, which resulted in further invitations. This enthusiastic reception led to the idea of bringing the material to a wider audience, resulting in this publication, which is presented in TWO PARTS. PART ONE consists of an expansion of the content in an attempt to place the then Feltham Urban District Councils experience in the general context of World War II, especially relative to the Home Front. To this end interviews were carried out with those who lived in the area through the events described, with reports being received from as far away as Australia. Excerpts of these, and the maps of the recovered records, form the core of the work. PART TWO consists of an Appendix, the main aim of which is to provide the interested reader with the evidence supporting the subject matter, including, most importantly, details of the researches undertaken by James Marshall and members of the Feltham History Group. Hounslow, Brentford and Chiswick already had well-recorded wartime bomb listings, but Feltham and district had none. Visits to the National Archives at Kew by James Marshall and members of the Feltham History Group provided the raw data to enable a basic record of events to be reconstructed. In addition the Appendix contains the full transcripts of the original interviews carried out by James Marshall, and other reports submitted; extracts of which illuminate the first part so vividly (all of these are in blue). Further details, or references, are also provided where thought to be appropriate. Both parts are available as PDF files on one CD, and Part One is available as a full colour wire bound print-out on demand. SPECIAL NOTE: With any historical work, there is a need to reflect on the problems associated with the concept of historical truth. Even when there appears to be overwhelming evidence for past events in the form of independent sources of objective evidence, some would still claim that there can be no such thing as historical truth. That, despite our best efforts, our knowledge will always be provisional; our truths, at best approximations. Furthemore, even if facts are agreed upon, they are open to differing interpretations. If this is not understood, there is a risk of a new history being created. These problems exist even in this relatively simple project, where errors may have occurred in the original reporting of wartime events (e.g. the earlier raids of 1940 were poorly reported), and new ones introduced during the relatively simple tasks of copying data and information on maps. This is particularly true of the map of incendiary incidents on page 22. In this regard the evidence of events presented here will indeed be an approximation to the truth, but they will be as close as can be reasonably expected, given the conditions under which the original reports were first recorded, the time that has passed, and the facilities available. However, whatever its limitations, it is certain that as a result of this project, the history of the World War Two bombing of Feltham, Hanworth & Bedfont will be better understood, and made more accessible to a much wider audience (including future generations) than would otherwise have been the case. Also any research, including historical, is always an unfinished work in progress, and the project remains open for continual input and improvement, and lays no claim to being the final word on the subject.

INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1 - Feltham Urban District Council Coat of Arms

The coat-of-arms of the former Urban District of Feltham symbolises its history up to the 20th Century. The sword refers to the old sword mill, and the Army Ordnance Depot. The two black palets indicate railway lines and indicate Felthams importance in the Southern Railway system. Bedfont is represented by a peacock, a reference to the well-known ornamental yew trees dating from 1704 in Bedfont churchyard; and the Eagle, a reference to the Roman Road. Hanworths connections with Henry VIIIs Queen Anne Boleyn and their daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, are represented by the Tudor Rose. Wings represent Hanworth Air Park and Felthams links with the new frontier of aviation. J.A. Whitehead, a wartime bi-plane builder, turned the great park surrounding Hanworth Park House into an airfield during the First World War, and left Feltham a legacy of industrial sheds and factory buildings. During and after the First World War, Feltham changed from a large country village supplying London with much of its vegetables and fruit from its famous horticultural enterprises, (albeit with gunpowder and sword mills on the local rivers) into a town with modern factories, a major army ordnance depot, railway marshalling yards, a well-used airfield and many new suburban streets. During the course of the 1930s the population soared 125% to reach over 20,300. On the western fringes of London, there was much that would attract the attention of the Luftwaffe when World War II broke out. There was no map that was perfect for the purpose of plotting the information gathered at the National Archive. The Burrows Pointer Map from the early 60s was chosen, as it provided an uncomplicated and fairly simple outline to work on, and because there was not much to choose from, that might be preferred to it. The biggest disadvantage was, of course, the presence of postwar streets: but the amount of building that went on in Feltham in the second half of the 1930s made the 1935 edition of the 6-inch map an equally (possibly even more) unsuitable choice. As a result references to some (post-war) streets are made for comprehension of location and do not necessarily indicate that the street exised in the years between 1939 and 1945.

Fig 2 - Plotting base from Feltham Burrows map c.1962

Brief Chronology of World War II With emphasis on Great Britain, the Home Front, & the aerial campaigns
1939 Mar Germany invades Czechoslovakia Aug Germany & Russia sign pact Sep 1st Germany invades Poland Civilian evacuations begin in London Around 140,000 hospital patients discharged early to clear beds for anticipated air raid casualties Sep 3rd BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY British Expeditionary Force leaves for France Oct 17th First German bombing raid - on Rosyth Naval Base and Forth Bridge 1940 Jan Food rationing begins Apr Germany invades Denmark & Norway (crossing neutral Sweden) May Churchill becomes PM Evacuation of British & Allied troops from Dunkirk Jun Italy declares war on Britain Germans enter Paris Britain Stands Alone Jul Battle of Britain begins Vichy French State established Aug Attacks on RAF Airfields to destroy Britains fighter plane defences Sep Switch to Blitz on London begins Sep 15th Turning point in Battle of Britain in favour of RAF Oct 12th RAF completes victory in Battle of Britain - planned invasion of Britain postponed indefinitely Nov12th Ribbentrop England is beaten, it is only a question of time when she would finally admit her defeat. Nov14/15 Night bombing of Coventry 1941 Mar Battle of the Atlantic begins with German U-boats attacking supplies May Break in bombing of Britain prior to German invasion of Russia Jun Germany invades Russia Sep Siege of Leningrad begins In UK as many civilians killed as those in armed forces up to this point Dec Japan attacks Pearl Harbour USA enters the war 1942 May First thousand bomber British air raid (against Cologne). Aug First all-American air attack in Europe. Massive German air raid on Stalingrad. Sep More UK servicemen killed than UK civilians at this point Oct British Army gains first victory over Germans at El Alamein in North Africa Dec Germans encircled at Stalingrad War turning in Allies favour 1943 Jan Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies. Mar Battle of Atlantic climaxes against German U-boats. May Germany & Italy surrender in North Africa Aug UK female suicide figures 32% lower than in 1938 Sep 70% of adult British population in war work, more than in Germany Italian surrender announced. 1944 Jan Siege of Leningrad relieved (up to 650,000 civilian casualties in 900 days) Mar First major daylight bombing raid on Berlin by the Allies. British drop 3000 tons of bombs on Hamburg June 6th D-DAY - ALLIES LAND IN NORMANDY V1 Flying Bomb attacks on London begin Aug Paris liberated Vichy regime French State ended Sep 8th First V2 Rocket falls - in Chiswick 1945 Jan Russians cross German frontier Feb Dresden destroyed by bombing Mar Allies cross the Rhine Mar 29th Last enemy action on British Soil when V1 lands in a field near Datchworth, Herts Apr 30th Russians take Berlin. Hitler commits suicide May 4th GERMANY SURRENDERS May 8th VE DAY VICTORY IN EUROPE Total 25,000 divorce petitions filed (10, 000 in 1938) 1940-45 Total members of UK armed forces killed 264,444; 277,077 wounded

1 GERMAN PLANNING & RECONNAISSANCE

Fig 3 Luftwaffe map 19th May 1939 (covering an area approx. 1.75 x 1.125 miles)
Translation from top left to bottom right above map. Feltham Secret GB Beginning of the war Longitude Latitude Magnetic variation Translation from top left to bottom right below map. A. GB748 Aircraft factory Airkraft Ltd. 1) 5 Workshops approx 20,000 sq m 2) 2 Administration building approx 800 sq m surface area built on 20,800 sq m Area altogether approx 62,000 sq m B. GB 1079 Airport. London Air Park 3) 5 Workshops (Hangars) approx 5,000 sq m 4) 1 Repair Hangar for aircraft 1,500 sq 5) 4 Fuel stations 6) 6 Airport buildings approx 2,500 sq m surface area built on 9,000 sq m Not possible to expand this site.

Drawn up 19.5.39

William Roys original OS Baseline 1704 (27,404.72 = 5.2 miles) The origin of all Ordnance Survey

To Heathrow OS TQ 077767

Staines Road a Roman road

mapping

A
E

River to Bushy Pk Roy Grove OS TQ 137709 To M3 (1971)

Fig 4 Inner box shows area of Luftwaffe map in Fig 3 in context of a post-war map and later developments

Showing key targets marked on that map: A - General Aircraft B - Hanworth (London) Air Park and other targets of significance dealt with later: C - Minimax D - Railway Marshalling Yards E - RASC Depot Additional features of interest: Original O.S line red (the origin of all accurate mapping) with OS co-ordinates of either end, M3 feeder purple Waterways blue.

German Aerial Photography

The German Luftwaffe was photographing towns, cities and military establishments many months before war was declared on September 3rd 1939. Much of the photography was taken under the guise of civil flights prior to 1939, including those of their giant airship the Graf Zeppelin II (the predecessor of which had visited Hanworth Air Park in 1931 and 1932). On the "espionage trip" of 2 - 4 August 1938 the main goal was to secretly collect information on the English Chain Home radar system (a network of long range earlywarning radar stations). When war broke out and the bombing started in 1940, the Luftwaffe continued to photograph before, during and after raids.

A B C

Fig 5 Luftwaffe photograph 2nd Sept 1940

Key Features A - Railway Line clear B - Grosvenor Park clear C - Town centre cloud covered D - Hanworth Air Park cloud covered E - Hanworth Water Works clear

Main German Bombing Force

The HEINKEL HE 111 This was a fast medium bomber, designed and built in the early 1930s as an airliner to subvert the Treaty of Versailles. Air support tactics used successfully in the Spanish Civil War from 1938, and in the Polish Invasion of 1939, led to the Heinkel 111 being the main German bomber, at least during the early stages of World War II. Its distinctive "Greenhouse" nose making it the symbol of the German bomber force. Its successful use in Spain and Poland (against virtually no opposition) partially explains why the development of a heavy, four engine conventional bomber for strategic bombing campaigns, was neglected by the Germans. This was a blunder that contributed to the Luftwaffe's failure to bomb England into submission during the course of 1940, when the strategic switch from attempting to destroy the RAF on the ground, to the Blitz of London was undertaken.

Fig 6 - View through nose cone of a Heinkel 111

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Enemy Bombers
You could easily recognise a German plane from an English one. The German engines had a kind of a droning sound while the English ones had more of a roar. A standard phrase during the war when there were aircraft overhead was Is it one of ours or one of theirs? A question that would always be answered by listening to the different engine sounds, rather than being able to recognise aircraft silhouettes I remember standing in the back garden of our home in Winslow Way and looking up into the sky and counting 39 German aircraft, all flying in formation and heading south - back to northern France and the continent. There was one lone English fighter plane chasing after them. I often wonder what happened to that fighter plane.

2 AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS AND CIVIL DEFENCE IN FELTHAM

Channins Hotel on Hounslow Road in Feltham was the wartime HQ for the districts Civil Defence. This pair of semi-detached Victorian villas was built in the 1870s and were originally numbered as 27 and 29 Hounslow Road, Feltham. Number 27 was named Uplands and number 29 was named The Firs. Their first residents were Mr. Angel a retired builder who may have built the pair; and Mr. Thomas Claude Hamilton JP who bought the land and financed the building of the houses. In 1891 the census shows an artist Mr. Frank Watkins living in Uplands and a Cotton Broker with five children and three servants living next door at The Firs. In the early 20th century Mr. Pritchett, the co-owner of the Highfields ivory works, lived in Uplands. The Ivory works was in business in Feltham, between about 1895 and 1910. The properties were re-numbered in the 1930s and are now numbers 39 and 41 Hounslow Road, Feltham. Between 1926 and 1933 this pair of houses became St. Marthas College, a private girls school. At the outbreak of war in September 1939, Middlesex County Council took over the basement floor of both houses for use as a wartime Reporting Centre and as co-ordinating offices for local Civil Defence activities. By 1941 the Civil Defence Reporting Centre occupied both of these properties in their entirety and the girls school had left Feltham. Feltham Urban District Council contributed part of its Highways Depot at Ashmead Road to the districts Civil Defence. The site housed 6 Light Rescue teams; 2 Heavy Rescue teams; 4 Decontamination squads and 4 Repair squads; over 100 men in all. The teams took turns. Some sleeping and messing on site around the clock, others on call at home and available at short notice. Feltham Motors, in the High Street, was home to a squad of 20 Stretcher Bearers and Ambulance Drivers.

Fig 7 Channins Hotel on the Hounslow Road, Feltham, WW2 Civil Defence HQ.

Fig 8 A World War II Auxiliary Fire Service team at Hanworth Air Park. These part-time fire fighters would have been members of the General Aircraft workforce. It was only in August 1941 that the Government nationalised the Fire Service, reforming the countrys fire brigades.

Fig 9 ARP Post No. 2, Swan Road, Hanworth.

M.C.C. Air Raid Precautions Department Feltham establishment (projected 1940)

Officer-in-charge (Male) Plotting Clerk & Chart Writer (Male or Female) Message Clerk (Female) Clerk for Heads of Services (Female) Record Clerk (Female) Message Supervisor (Female) Telephonist & relief x 11 (Females Indoor Messenger (Male) Total over 3 shifts = 54; 3 M & 15 F per shift

Fig 10 - Collection of ARP & Volunteer memoribilia

Air Raid Sirens

When it was thought a district was threatened by an air raid, motor driven fan sirens, either on tall posts or affixed to buildings, sounded a tone that rose and fell regularly between one high and one low . The All Clear was a single continuous tone. Throughout the war this was a very familiar sound in Feltham. From the last quote below it would seem that the sirens continued to be tested after the end of the war, and they had not lost their power to arouse old fears,

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Sirens
Whenever the sirens went we would all dash out to the shelters. We were in and out of those shelters all the time during the Blitz. The night that it happened I went to bed about 10 oclock in the evening. No siren had sounded that evening and there was no siren in the night. But I heard the whistling noise that the bomb made as it was falling. It was the same everywhere; if the air raid siren went when you were on your way to school you had a right to turn around and go home and take shelter with your parents. You were supposed to be less than half-way to school when you did that. But the rule was stretched as far as the school gates. If you hadnt gone through the school gates when the siren went, then you could go home. I sometimes went home and didnt hear the all-clear sound, so I stayed there and never went back to school that day. Fig 11 Motor driven fan siren, with the typical wailing sound. I can remember coming home from Cardinal Rd school and hearing the sirens go. I am unable to explain why there would have been sirens in 1946 but it took me just a few minutes to run from the railway crossing, down the back alley, and home. To be truthful I don't remember if they had stopped by the time I reached 'safety' but it was a scary journey home.

Barrage Balloons
Along with searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, and fighter planes, Barrage Balloons were an important element in the co-ordinated scheme of defence against air raids. Each balloon was filled with hydrogen (along with a self-filling compartment of air) attached to a steel cable which could be let out or winched in to the required height. The cables acted as a serious hazard to low level raiding aircraft (up to 5,000 feet (1500 m), forcing them to fly higher and into the range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire. Anti-aircraft guns could not traverse fast enough to attack aircraft flying at high speed at low altitudes. Balloons were deployed around London, being increased particularly against the V-1 flying bombs in June 1944, which usually flew at 2,000 feet (600 m) or lower (although from late June 1944 some had wire-cutters on their wings to cut the balloon cables, as did some bombers). Many V1s are officially claimed to have been destroyed by balloons across the south of England. The phrase the balloons are up was in common usage in Feltham during the war, as balloons protecting airfields including Hanworth were regularly deployed.

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Barrage Balloons
We had a lot of Barrage Balloons all around us to protect the planes in Hanworth Airport, but I had never seen any planes get caught in them. In the sky above us Barrage Balloons floated serenely, their sole purpose in life to deter the German aircraft from coming too low on their bombing raids. They were huge inflated monsters like huge grey elephants with three tails hanging down grotesquely behind them. They floated high in the sky, tethered by a stong metal hawser to a winch on the ground. They did deter enemy aircraft to an extent, till they realised that the poor defenceless things posed them no danger and that a burst from their guns made them into an awe-inspiring sight as they spiraled in flames, like a giant torch, to the ground. Nevertheless, they drifted above us for years till eventually the advent of the Doodlebugs or pilotless flying bombs suddenly turned them into a death trap and put the people living beneath them at risk. Looking North from Grosvenor Park a line of Barrage Balloons went up across the railway line to the North which always told us when an air raid was expected.

Fig 12 Barrage Balloons deployed

Searchlights & Anti-Aircraft Guns

Searchlights had a range of over 5 miles in clear weather. They were powered by a generating plant, and located the incoming enemy by a sound locator which indicated direction and height when the bombers were still too far away to be seen. The associated Anti-Aircraft guns had a high rate of fire and were capable of tracking fast moving aircraft. There was a large one stationed in Bedfont, known locally as Big Bertha. Strike rates were increased with the development of the radio proximity fuse for the shells, which meant that shells did not have to achieve a direct hit to cause damage, but would explode when the fuse detected the presence of a target. Even without hitting any enemy aircraft, the anti-aircraft systems (ack-ack batteries) disrupted precision bombing. By Spring 1944 140, 000 Home Guard serving on ack-ack batteries

Fig 13 Anti-Aircraft Sound Locator

Part of a searchlight unit used to direct the beam on to a target when approaching aircraft were not visible and could only be heard

Fig 14 Anti-Aircraft searchlight and crew.

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Searchlights & Anti-Aircraft Guns
Being children, at times it all seemed like a game; apart from when the sirens sounded and the anti-aircraft guns started firing. It was hard to distinguish between bombs falling and anti-aircraft guns. as we went round the corner of Swan Close a huge mobile (anti-aircraft gun) was pumping shells at the bombers.The brass cases were a danger themselves, flying out as we squeezed by. Bedfont Recreation Ground became the home of an anti-aircraft unit with its searchlight and bunkers, and a very large gun, known as Bedfonts Big Bertha which rattled the area when it was fired Bedfont Recreation Ground off Hatton Road had 4 heavy and Anti-Aircraft Guns set on it. These are reputed to have shot down a German bomber that crashed in Bushy Park. The General Aircraft Factory had twin Lewis machine guns at the front of the hangar, pointing out over the airfield to shoot at German parachutists, in case they should land on this great open space. There were also Oerlikon AA canons at the Airfield Gate, near the Airman Public House. There was a searchlight behind the Swan public house on some of Pages nursery land. I remember that a van arrived with a soldier in it; he was looking for the searchlight and asking the way to it. We boys had been warned about nosey parkers like that and we wouldnt tell him anything at first. In the end he got out of the van and opened it up and showed us the enormous light bulb that he was delivering to the searchlight unit. Then we decided that it was all right to trust him and we told him where to go. Park Road had a Home Guard machine gun nest that was intended to cover the open ground at Hanworth Air Park against German paratroopers landing there. You can still see it if you know what to look for. Its remains are on the left, opposite the old Rectory house. She remembers seeing German planes, with crosses on the underside of their wings, quite low and the German planes were fired upon by machine guns that were mounted on the roof of the 50 Shilling Tailors shop at the northern end of Feltham High Street. There were anti-aircraft guns in Chertsey Road and half of the road was blocked off. It was manned by the US Military.

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Shelters
Anderson Shelter Anderson shelters constructed of corrugated steel panels were 6 ft (1.8 m) high, 4 ft 6 in (1.4 m) wide, and 6 ft 6 in (2 m) long, and designed for up to six people.The shelters were buried 4 ft (1.2 m) deep in the soil and then covered with a minimum of 15 in (0.4 m) of soil above the roof. The earth banks were typically planted with vegetables and flowers. They were issued free to all householders who earned less than 250 a year, and those with a higher income were charged 7. Morrison Shelter Morrison Shelters or Table Shelters had been distributed by the end of 1941. They were constructed from steel and set up inside the house, where they provided a safe haven, and a working surface. Many preferred these, as they found the Anderson Shelters too damp

Fig 15 Anderson Shelter

Fig 16 Morrison Shelter

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Shelters
I remember that as the crisis between Europe and Germany became more serious, surface shelters were erected round Feltham Green, in Grosvenor Park, and throughout the district. There was a wire fence between our back gardens and the school grounds but lots of people cut holes in the fence so that they could use the school air raid shelters at night. These shelters were all made of cast concrete slabs and were all above ground surface shelters. They had four rooms, you could go in at either end and get from one room to the other by a hole about 3 feet square cut into the concrete partition between them so that you could escape from either end in an emergency; but you couldnt get from the pair of rooms on one side into the pair opposite the central partition was complete. When we were at school and there was an air raid on lessons would continue in the school air raid shelters between Hanworth Road Junior School and Cardinal Infants School. Wartime schooldays in Feltham were still very short with frequent trips to the air raid shelters., where we continued our lessons. At Cardinal Road I went down into the shelter where Mrs Thomas was waiting for her class. I was the only one to attend that day, and had the great treat of having the one box of crumbly crayons all to myself. Normally two classes shared a shelter, one at each end. There was a duck-board path down the centre, with duck-board seats running along both sides. At each end there were steps which turned at right-angles from a platform to the entrance. Anderson Shelters were brought to Railway Terrace in the summer of 1939. They had to be dug into a trench in the garden and you bolted the pre-fabricated iron sheets together. My father got some railway sleepers and had them cut short so he could lay them across an extended shelter-trench to roof it. This meant our shelter was a bit bigger than, and not as cramped as some. We had Anderson (air-raid) shelters in the garden, about 20 feet from the back of the house. The pair of shelters were together. The water level in the gravel pit was 12steps-down, so the shelters werent too wet inside. There were no lights in the air raid shelters, they were awful places. The exhaust from the paraffin heaters would blacken your face; you could hardly believe the dirt when you woke up in the morning, after a night in one of those shelters. Every night, through the autumn and winter of 1939-40, we would sleep in that air raid shelter. My grandmother always made us cocoa and my uncle was a farm worker who grew potatoes and hed bring us potatoes to cook in their jackets. But, although I can look back on it with some nostalgia, I wouldnt like to have to do it again. The shelter was dusty and cold and always damp - damp concrete has a smell all of its own. We had a Morrison Air Raid Shelter. It was like a huge iron table. We erected it in our back downstairs room against the centre wall of the house. It had a thick steel mesh on all four sides. At one end the mesh lifted off and we all crawled in with our Thermos flasks and a sandwich or five, the ever-present gas mask, the dog and we spent our nights in relative comfort. We had this type, mainly I suppose, because we had had such faith in our old deal kitchen table that had saved us when a bomb landed on our buildings in the Elephant and Castle. But we had now added a thick black curtain all the way round the shelter. We knew just what damage flying glass could do. The family home was equipped with protection against an air raid which consisted of a steel plate which was placed over the kitchen table and when the sirens were sounded it was time to retreat under the shelter.

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Gas Masks or Respirators

After the experiences of the First World War, fears of widespread gas attacks on the civilian population were so great that in 1936 plans to distribute gas masks to the whole population were agreed, and production begun. Respirators came in various forms including the Civilian, the Civilian Duty for those who would have to work in a gas environment without being able to seek refuge in a gas-free shelter, and the Service for those in action or in dangerous Civil Defence conditions. The Micky Mouse Gas Mask was so called due to its having two eye pieces instead of a one-piece window

Fig 17 Above The Civilian respirator or Gas mask. Fig 18 Right The Mickey-Mouse gas mask, with two eye pieces

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Gas Masks
There was an air raid warning on the day war broke out. Our neighbour, was terribly afraid that we would all be gassed by the Germans. He was a deeply religious man and was always saying that Armageddon was about to be visited upon us. The siren was a false alarm, but Mr White rushed around trying to block up his chimneys in case the gas should come in that way. He panicked my mother into trying to cram a growing 18 month old child (me) into a gas tight babys box (that had probably been issued during the 1938 Munich crisis of the previous year) and was now far to small for me! My mother still remembers me screaming in protest. Quite often whilst on the way to school the sirens would sound for an air raid and we would go into the nearest air raid shelter, we always carried a gas mask with us in a small cardboard box over our shoulder and we would be in trouble if we got caught without it. I remember the rubbery smell of my Mickey Mouse gas mask, but over the years my memory had tricked me into remembering that it was a childrens mask which indeed had a likeness to Mickey Mouse with a mouth and a tongue. It was only as an adult that I realised that I was remembering the nose-flap breathing indicator between the eyes as a tongue. I cannot remember ever carrying it about with me in a cardboard box, as one is supposed to have done, and which others remember doing so.

Evacuations
The original limits of the London Evacuation Zone were those of the London County Council boundary. In West London these ended at the Hammersmith / Chiswick border. Brentford and Chiswick Borough petitioned the Government and had the limit extended to cover their Borough, on the grounds that the factories along the Great West Road were likely to attract strategic bombing attacks. However, Hounslows children were not evacuated, other than by private arrangement, until the V1 bombardment began in 1944. Then there was considerable government organised evacuation from Hounslow to the Midlands and the North, out of range of the V1s. There was a similar reaction to the V1 bombardment in another neighbouring area, the Borough of Twickenham, from where about 7,000 children and their carers were evacuated by the end of July 1944. There were no such evacuations from Feltham U. D., either earlier in the War, or during this later period of the V1 attacks, presumably as the casualty figures were considered too low for that measure to be necessary. F.U.D.C. sought partial inclusion, at least for priority groups; then faced local civic pressure for (still unrealised) inclusion following the 20th August V1 incident - by which time, although unbeknown to them of course, the threat was passing.

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3 THE RAIDS IN DETAIL

Initially, in early 1940, Hitler concentrated on the bombing and strafing of RAF Fighter Command airfields in order to gain air superiority to cover the sea-borne invasion of the British Isles. It is claimed that the first bombing raid on civilians in London, on August 24th, 1940 was accidental, with fog causing a bombing raid on the oil refineries at Thames Haven in the estuary to miss its target. There is even a suggestion that one of these misdirected bombs landed on 153 Tudor Avenue, Hampton. A retaliatory raid by the RAF on Berlin on the night of August 25th 1940, caused little damage. Analyses vary, but in September 1940 Hitler switched the main bombing effort from the RAF bases to London, and the Blitz began, which was to last for about 9 months, until June 1941 when Hitler invaded Russia. The dire situation of the UK during this time when we stood alone cannot be overestimated, as is shown in a Memorandum of the Conversation Between Hitler and Molotov of the USSR, in the Presence of the Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, and others, on November 12, 1940 in Berlin, which is paraphrased below. The Reich Foreign Minister expressed the firm conviction of Germany, that no power on earth could alter the fact that the beginning of the end had now arrived for the British Empire. England was beaten, and it was only a question of time when she would finally admit her defeat. It was possible that this would happen soon, because in England the situation was deteriorating daily. If, however, the British did not make up their minds in the immediate future to admit their defeat, they would definitely ask for peace during the coming year (1941). Germany was continuing her bombing attacks on England day and night. Her submarines would gradually be employed to the full extent and would inflict terrible losses on England. Germany was of the opinion that England could perhaps be forced by these attacks to give up the struggle. If, however, England were not forced to her knees by the present mode of attack, Germany would, as soon as weather conditions permitted, resolutely proceed to a large-scale attack, and thereby definitely crush England. This large-scale attack had thus far been prevented only by abnormal weather conditions. The question of whether America would enter the war or not was a matter of complete indifference to Germany. As to the political situation, the Reich Foreign Minister remarked that now, after the conclusion of the French campaign, Germany was extraordinarily strong. The Fhrer said there was no military problem at all. This the English had not yet understood, because apparently there was some degree of confusion in Great Britain, and because the country was led by a political and military dilettante by the name of Churchill, who throughout his previous career had completely failed at all decisive moments and who would fail again this time. Because of the extraordinary strength of their position, the Axis Powers were: not, therefore, considering how they might win the war, but rather how rapidly they could end the war which was already won. (Ed: BUT significantly the report finishes with) In view of a possible air raid alarm the talk was broken off at this point and postponed until the following day, the Fhrer promising Molotov that he would discuss with him in detail the various issues which had come up during the conversation. The bombing of Feltham and district during World War II can be divided up into the following periods 1. Raids between the night of 24th/25th August and the 7th October 1940: 20 HE bombs on or very close to Feltham Urban District. 2. The Big Blitz period, between 7th October 1940 and 28th July 1941: 22 night bombing raids, including the districts heaviest raid on the night of 29/30th November 1940; and 19 bombs dropped by daylight raiders between the 8th October and 21st December 1940. 3. Night bombing, 7th/8th October 1943: 1 bombing raid, including the Ellington Road incident. 4. The Little Blitz period of night bombing, from 4th January 1944 to 24th March 1944: 5 bombing raids. 5. V1 Flying Bombs, June August 1944: 4 incidents. These attacks, together, resulted in a total of 42 civilian fatalities. Felthams first experience of bombing occurred on the same night that London was attacked for the first time, almost by accident, by a raid that had strayed from its industrial targets along the Thames estuary as described above. Hitlers call for vengeance upon the cities of Britain began a change of direction in German bombing from airfields and industrial targets that enabled Britain to defend itself against invasion, to night bombing raids against London and other cities and towns. Black Saturday, the 7th September, began an intense period of bombardment for London that continued without respite until the end of 1940 and did not end until May 1941. German bombers returned to Feltham on 10th October 1940 and bombs were dropped on the district on 12 further nights during October, November and December 1940. Eight raids in Feltham between January and May 1941 were followed by an isolated raid in late July. Germany had invaded Russia on 22nd June and the Luftwaffes priorities were shifting eastwards. The long lull in the German assault on Britain lasted for a little over two years. By late 1943 the Luftwaffe was again making occasional hit-and-run raids on Britain. These could have tragic consequences on the ground, as the Ellington Road incident shows. At this time British intelligence was also receiving news of Germanys newly developed V-weapons and believed that their use against London was imminent. The government made plans for Feltham and other communities on the southern edge of London, to have their barrage balloon defences increased to meet this new threat. The V1s and V2s were not ready for use until late June and September 1944. But German bombing was stepped-up between January and March 1944 The Little Blitz. Feltham found itself on the fringe of four raids between January and March 1944 and received 25 high explosive bombs and hundreds of incendiaries on the night of 24th/25th February.

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Fig 19 Street map of Feltham Urban District showing WW2 bomb incidents resulting in the most severe damage to property (boxed in red) and fatalities (boxed in black). See Appendix for details.

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Bombing incidents
And it landed right on the two shelters in our gardens at the back of the house! Well, the roof of our house was blown clean off!! And the house itself was lifted and shifted 10inches off its foundations. But it didnt collapse! A piece of our Anderson shelter was blown so high into the air that it fell down at Feltham Station people went along to stare at it! I remember them carrying me out and seeing the huge hole, already full of water, where our shelters had been., Its a strange thing that we werent in our shelters the night of that air raid. And thats how come I lived to tell you the story.. Most nights we would go and sleep in our shelter at the bottom of our garden that my dad had built. He was a bricklayer and he built it deep down so we would be safe. One night we were down there and its a night I will never forget, talk about a cat with nine lives. The warning went and in no time at all, we could hear bombs dropping, I must have just dropped off to sleep, the next thing I remember is my dad running into the shelter telling us to get out quick and make our way down to the shelters in Hanworth recreation ground. We didnt know till later that we had been sleeping only 10 yards away from an unexploded bomb in next doors garden. Although our shelter was underground dust was everywhere. When the all clear went we could see flames and smoke coming from over the back of us from Devonshire Road. We found out later a bomb had a direct hit on a house and damaged other houses in the street, but lucky enough no-one was hurt they were all in the shelter.

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Fig 20 Ellington Road, off Chertsey Road in Lower Feltham.

The crater in the foreground is the result of a 1000kg bomb that was dropped during the night of 7th and 8th October 1943 (No.25 on map). All the houses in Ellington Road numbered 33-47 were destroyed, or were so badly damaged that they had to be demolished. A family of four, who lived at number 45 Ellington Road, were all killed. No.10 on the map is 14 Hamilton Rd hit on 29/30 Nov 1940.

Fig 21 Ellington and Hamilton Roads

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Memories of the Ellington Road bombing incident.
We lived in Denison Road, there was my Mum; and me; and my two sisters. Mother didnt like going down the garden to use the Anderson Shelter when there was a raid on, so we sat under the stairs or under the big table in the kitchen. We were there that night when the bomb came down, the whole house shook and all the windows rattled. I think it was a German aircraft that should have been bombing London, but it had become a bit lost and dumped its bomb load. My grandma and my aunt both lived in Railway Terrace at the other end of Feltham High Street. They both ran all the way down the town to us, as soon as they heard that a bomb had fallen in our part of Feltham. They didnt stop to dress, except perhaps to put a coat on, I remember that they were still wearing their night clothes and bedroom slippers with fluffy bobbles on the uppers and they had come all the way down the High Street like that. They were very anxious to know if we were alright. They stayed with us for 3 hours, arguing that we should all go back to Railway Terrace with them. But mother didnt want to leave the house and in the end they walked all the way back to Bedfont Lane in their night clothes and slippers, just as they had come. The next afternoon, our Uncle, who was in the ARP, walked us round so that we could see the big crater that the bomb had made. The two Allen girls died with their family, we went to school with them at Feltham Hill School and were friends with them. We went to their funeral too. I think Mr. Allen was home on leave from the Army when the bomb fell and he was killed with the rest of his family. People said it was probably better that way better than being abroad and receiving a telegram to say that your whole family had been killed and you had been left alone in the world. I went to see the grave in Feltham Cemetery a while ago. I was sorry to see that it had sunk a lot on one side, its a big grave. Its a shame that it is not regularly looked after.

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Fig 22 Total (263) of High Explosive bombs falling on Feltham Urban District 1939 - 1945
In the above summary map covering the whole of the war certain concentrations of High Explosive bombing can be seen, but it is not easy to relate these to specific strategic targets. Lower Feltham was the area which suffered the most, but it was of no strategic importance whatsoever. The stategic sites are dealt with later.

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Incendiary bombs
An incendiary bomb or device did not explode with any force, but by using a magnesium fuse ignited its contents of thermite (a mixture of aluminium powder and iron oxide). The intense heat generated fires in any combustible material. Of all the weaponry used against civilians, the incendiary bomb was the one against which they could protect themselves most effectively. Only 30 - 40 cm (12 - 18 inches) long, and weighing about 1 kg (2.2 lbs), they were dropped in large baskets of up to 100 devices. The individual bombs, being light, were easily blown off course.

Fig 23 Incendiary bomb and its effects

Fig 24 The stirrup hand pump in operation

Fig 25 Incendiary bomb cooling down with a stirrup hand pump operated by another person out of picture

Fig 28 Minimax Fire Fighting equipment advertisement.

Fig 26 Control of incendiary bomb with scoopfuls of sand taken from the Redhill container shown front right.

Fig 27 Extinction of incendiary bomb by placing in Redhill container which could hold the incendiary bomb indefinitely, and be carried safely.

Fig 29 - Minimax cone fire extinguisher

Fig 30 - label close up

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RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Incendiary Bombs
An incendiary bomb fell on Macs shop in the Railway Terrace. It didnt do all that much damage, but it was enough to make him give up the shop he was getting on by then. The shop was boarded up after that, we didnt find any left over sweets; but we made a bit of a den of the place. Two incendiary bombs went straight through, the scullery roof of No.16 Railway Terrace one night. And the lady living there slept right through the whole palaver. One of my uncles was at home on leave at the time and he kicked her door in and put the bombs out, she never woke! This particular night the warning went and German planes came over and started dropping flares and incendiary bombs all around Hanworth, the sky was lit up, it was like daylight. Flares overhead lit the area like day light, and then the incendiary bombs came next! Next morning when we came out of our shelter there was debris all over the place, me and my mates use to go looking for bits of bombs and bullets and burnt out incendiary bombs. One morning after a local raid, while walking to school, eyes open for shrapnel. I found an unexploded bomb in the ditch opposite our house. I found the fin a foot or two away. It looked like an incendiary bomb, but much larger. The fuse holes were just blackened. What a find! Off came my coat and I wrapped it round the bomb. I sneaked off back home to hide it from Mum, till Dad came home. I was surprised I did not get told off, but he took it to the post to get it emptied for me. (They actually did this in those days.) He brought it back in the morning! This time I did get told off! The bomb had contained high explosives; later one of the wardens gave me 10 shillings for it! (This was a lot of money in those days). Across the railway line from Hanover Avenue was a large commercial piggery which was hit by incendiary bombs one night. The night sky was lit as if by a giant bonfire, and I can remember the pigs squealing and screaming, as neighbours crossed the still live electric rail with buckets of water and stirrup pumps in a vain attempt to contain the blaze. We were always looking for souvenirs of the war such as shrapnel (parts of shells or bombs) and one day we took a short cut to school which meant jumping across the electrified railway lines as we often did, then crossing the allotments. During the night there must have been an incendiary raid and hundreds of small bombs weighing about 5 pounds each were dropped by the German planes. They contained phosphorous which burned fiercely for a while and then exploded sending burning phosphorous everywhere. The allotment ground was soft where it had been dug over, and the devices had not gone off, so we got very excited about finding them. We pulled up six each (there was myself, and three friends), which made a total of 24 bombs in all, found some string and rope and tied them up and made our way home dragging them through the streets. How no one saw us I dont know, as it was a trip of about a mile. When we got home we put the bombs down the bottom of our respective gardens and when the parents got home and found them, all hell broke loose. The Air Raid Police were called in to evacuate the houses while the bomb disposal squad took the bombs away, and we were never allowed to take any more souvenirs home. If there had been an air raid the night before we would look for shrapnel (fragments of bombs and shells ). On some occasions we would find small incendiary bombs that had plunged into soft ground and failed to go off we would take these to school or give them to the Air Raid Warden, usually followed by a lecture about leaving them where they were and then telling a grown up. One night there (at Hanworth Air Park) a hangar was set alight with incendiary bombs. We salvaged what we could and eventually found my tool box in the middle of the aerodrome. The draughstmen were working on drawings for a new plane but they were all lost.

Fig 31 - Fire Precaution instructions leaflet - see Appendix H

Fig 32 - Fire Precaution newspaper cutting - see Appendix H

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Fig 33 Incendiary bomb areas in Feltham Urban District 1939 1945

Incendiary bomb areas are difficult to record in any detail as they were dropped in large clusters, but just indicate areas where incendiary devices were dropped e.g. although part of the Grosvenor Estate is covered, there were no properties damaged by incendiaries there. X marks the location of the spectacular piggery fire, control of which was attempted by residents of Hanover Avenue carrying buckets of water and stirrup pumps across the railway line.

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4 INDUSTRIAL TARGETS General Aircraft & Hanworth Air Park

The buildings of the First World Wars Whitehead Aircraft factory in Hanworth Air Park, were occupied in the 1920s and early 1930s by civil engineering companies such as Aston Martin cars, and the Union Construction Company builders of Londons Feltham electric tram and of underground railway rolling stock for the newly extended Piccadilly Line. In 1934, General Aircraft a pioneering builder of British small-tomedium size civil monoplanes moved in, and by 1937 with national rearmament a high priority, they were assembling Hawker Furies. However, when war broke out in 1939, these bi-planes were quite unequal to the needs of front-line service.

Fig 34 The Feltham Tram.

Fig 35 Hawker Fury Bi-planes.

Having produced the Hotspur, the first military glider, they developed the Hamilcar Glider, and the Hamilcar Power Assisted Glider,which were designed to carry airborne assault troops, field guns, jeeps and other small military vehicles. Hundreds of these gliders were landed behind enemy lines on D-Day and during the Arnhem campaign. The company also handled large contracts connected with the production and repair of the Beaufighter, Blenheim, Hurricane, Wellington, and other types of aircraft. They became the main repair works for the Spitfire, playing a vital role in the repair and reconditioning of Spitfires during the Battle of Britain. The presence of Hanworth Air Park, next to Felthams General Aircraft factory at the end of Victoria Road, meant that fighter aircraft requiring an overhaul, or with only minor damage, could be flown in from front-line airfields by taxi-pilots (often women) and flown away again, to resume active service, as soon as they had been repaired. They also undertook conversions which enabled the Hurricane (as the Sea Hurricane) to be catapulted from the decks of merchant ships. By 1945 about 4,000 workers were employed there.

Fig 36 General Aircraft Hamilcar Glider Fig 38 Hanworth (London) Air Park

Fig 37 Spitfire
Built with funds raised by public at local War Weapons Week events and throughout the early years of the war. Fig 39 Hanworth Air Park bomb incidents 1939 - 45 Including the V1 on Danesbury Rd/Florence Rd (star top left), which destroyed the Aston Martin works in Victoria Road.

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Fig 40 Part of the damaged factory roof at the General Aircraft works as a result of the raid on the night of 29th/30th November 1940

In the distance is Hanworth Air Park. The view is from Feltham looking towards Mount Corner, Hanworth. The night of 29th/30th November 1940 was probably the worst night of bombing that Feltham experienced during the Second World War.

Fig 41 Part of the damaged factory at the General Aircraft works as a result of the raid on the night of 29th/30th November 1940

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Feltham Railway & Marshalling Yards

Feltham Marshalling Yards were built at the end of the First World War using German POW labour, the 32 miles of track being completed in 1922. They were an important sorting centre for wagonload freight in transit between Southern and South Western England and the rest of the country. All the main lines from London to the north and west were accessible from Feltham, via the North London Line from Kew Bridge junction, through Acton and on to other railway goods yards at Old Oak Common, Neasden, Willesden and Cricklewood. In peacetime, as well as during war, a high proportion of rail freight is moved at night, when the railway lines are free of their daily passenger traffic. So freight wagon marshalling yards are at work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Feltham Yards, along with its engine shed and wagon repair works, probably employed between 200 and 300 railwaymen. Bomb damage to a railway line can look dreadful. But the crater can be quickly filled with aggregate and ballast and the railway track re-laid over it. It was very difficult to completely knockout a railway. In fact, it was hard to put a busy railway line out-of-action by bombing it for more than a few hours, or perhaps a day at most. In peacetime, floodlights are used at night to illuminate a hazardous working environment. During the war, working under blackout conditions and marshalling exceptionally high levels of wartime traffic, wagon sorting was a challenging task, fraught with additional difficulties. At best, the work had to be done under greatly reduced levels of night lighting. When an air-raid alert was sounded, even these reduced levels of light had to be turned off. Throughout a red alert noise had to be kept to a minimum: steam whistles could not be used to give warning of a moving train and the engine crews had to do their best to ensure that locomotive safety valves did not lift, resulting in a tell-tale plume of steam being noisily blown-off into the cold night air. One night, one of the humps was hit by a bomb and its railway track was blown into the air and clean over the signal box that stood beside it. On another night a 500 kg. bomb fell and did not explode; it halted all movement throughout the yards until the Bomb Disposal Squad could make it safe and take it away. A parachute mine, dropped at 3am one morning, destroyed 150 railway wagons, but by 9am the same morning the yards were working normally again. The Southern Railway marshalling yards at Feltham played a crucial role in transferring and assembling the arms, munitions, petrol and military ordnance that made the Allied invasion of Europe possible in 1944.

Fig 43 Unexploded bomb (UXB) being

removed from the Hounslow Loop Line near Syon Lane on 7th October 1940. A bomb like this, lying unexploded between the railway tracks of a railway marshalling yard, could bring all traffic movement in railway yards such as those at Feltham, to a halt, at least until the Bomb Disposal Squad could make this UXB safe and remove it.

Fig 42 Feltham Marshalling Yards.

Fig 44 Feltham Marshalling Yards & railway line total bomb strikes 1939 - 45

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Fig 45 Bomb crater just east of Feltham Marshalling Yards

This bomb fell during the raid on the night of 29th and 30th November 1940

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Feltham Railway & Marshalling Yards
My grandmother made cocoa for everybody! She made it for the wardens as they were searching for this unexploded bomb! She would make it for the railwaymen on their way to the Marshalling Yards, whose trains would be held at the main line signal, along side Railway Terrace, waiting for a path over the down line and into the yards. We knew a lot of the local train crews; they lived in the Southern Estate housing off the Bedfont Lane, which was built for them by the railway in the early 1920s. I remember a land mine fell (Ed: these descended on parachutes) on the marshalling yard and caused goods traffic to back-up, at a halt, all over the local railway lines for miles around. The Feltham Railway Marshalling Yard was filled with wagons and vans of all sorts, and was working day and night. If, at night, the lights were to be seen, then there was an all clear, but if the marshalling yard lamps were turned-off one could expect an air raid that night. He was a goods train driver for the Southern Railway. He drove a steam train out of Feltham Marshalling Yards, and I know he often took supplies into the army depot, crossing Feltham High Street on the special line that ran near to the Red Lion public house. He also did runs to Eastleigh and Southampton, working, sometimes, all night and through the following day. After he died before reaching retirement age, a letter was found from the Railway Company, thanking him for volunteering for driving ammunition wagons. Another war time memory of him was arriving home from the railway just in time to sit down for his Christmas Dinner with the family; and off again, back to his engine. How he loved those steam trains. My route to school was along a footpath next to the main railway line and when the troop trains passed through carrying the American soldiers they would throw packs of chewing gum and sweets out of the windows to us, a real treat as sweets were rationed for us. (this was along the back alley running to the Grosvenor Estate, parts of which still survive)

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Feltham R.A.S.C. Ordnance Depot

Felthams Royal Army Service Corps Depot was opened on ground surrounding Feltham House in 1914. Feltham House, dating from the mid 1700s, became the Officers Mess, but it is now disused and neglected. Feltham Ordnance Depot, as it was known, was involved in all matters of supply for the Army, handling about 800,000 different items, from tanks to clothing repair units. It was busy enough to have its own rail-spur running from the Waterloo-Windsor lines, west of Feltham Station. The rails, which crossed the High Street at Browells Lane, were in use until the mid-1960s. Despite its size and strategic importance, the Depot appears to have escaped severe damage except that to two houses in the Married Families Quarters, despite the fact that a V1 hit was recorded on the night of 19/20 July 1944. An Open Day in September 1946 was well attended by local people. The Depot ceased its main activities in 1971, continuing in a much reduced form as the Defence Geographical Information Centre.

RASC DEPOT

Fig 46 Felthams RASC Ordnance Depot interior

Fig 48 RASC Depot bomb strikes 1939 - 45

The V1 strike (19/20 July 1944) is marked with a red star. The Depots proximity to Hanworth Air Park is evident, as is its branch railway line. The relatively low number of recorded incidents is surprising when compared to surrounding areas, especially Lower Feltham, and raises questions of bombing accuracy.

Fig 47 Removal of RASC Depot branch line 1965 looking towards railway station
Showing remains of The Steps of the pedestrian crossing. The line to the Depot ran off to the right of the photograph.

Fig 49 RASC Depot branch line seen from the High St crossing looking North to junction with main line
Showing Mr Sharpes Newsagents to the left of the photograph.

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Feltham RASC (RAOC) Ordnance Depot
My Aunt was called up for War Work at the Depot (RASC Feltham). That was hit by a doodlebug one day and there was a big fire. On the particular night (Ed: 19/20 July 1944) that this story took place, my father was at home and we were all under the shelter when we heard an explosion which sounded close. Immediately afterwards the whole skyline was lit up. A bomb (a V1) had hit the RAOC depot in Elmwood Avenue and drums of paint and fuel were exploding continuously. Naturally, before realising what had happened, we thought we were in the centre of a concerted bombing raid with all the explosions, but that was the only hit of the night.

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Minimax
For a company which made such a contribution to our war effort, it is interesting that Minimax was a German owned company, founded in 1902 in Berlin, where the legendary cone-shaped fire extinguisher was developed. By 1906 Minimax was the main worldwide manufacturer of fire extinguishers - with foreign companies in Europe and the USA. It came to Feltham in 1910, taking over one of the first aircraft factories in England. The parent company remains German owned to this day, but the British subsidiary having been expropriated as enemy property and sold-on into the hands of British capital ownership, has long been swallowed-up first by Pyrene, and then by Chubb UK. Even more intriguing is the fact that the Secret Service HQ from 1924 to 1966 at 54 Broadway, London, known as the Broadway Buildings(nearest Underground St Jamess Park), had a fake plaque outside for Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company. A strange choice, as the Germans, more than anyone, would have known that it was not. In addition to the famous fire extinguishers, Minimax developed a portable fresh water distiller, known as the K.M. Capable of producing 5 pints of fresh water per hour from sea water, it was issued to all British Merchant Ships, and to those of the Allies, and increased survival times in life-boats from 14 to 60 70 days. By 1945, 15-20,000 had been produced. The factory had its own Home Guard Section, and the strongest National Savings Group in West Middlesex.

Fig 51 The Minimax Donkey

Mascot and morale booster

Fig 52 Minimax Corner bomb strikes 39 - 45

There were no direct hits on the factory, but the line of bomb strikes just to the NE of its site is interesting, and seem to have been aimed at it.

Fig 50 Minimax advertisement showing Minimax Corner

Demolished in the early to mid-1980s, with only the ornate front doorway propped up incongruouosly outside the new development.

(NB Both the National Physical Laboratory and the North Feltham Trading Estate were post-war developments.)

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Gresham Transformers Ltd

Started in 1939, in a converted cow shed, and two pig styes of a disused dairy farm in the district, by the end of the war Gresham Transformers Ltd. had grown to occupy spacious and well equipped works at Twickenham Rd, Hanworth. They produced Constant Voltage Transformers, the first of which were used in the Battle of Britain. In March 1944, the factory was almost completely destroyed by a direct hit from a 1000 lb High Explosive (H.E.) bomb. Production was soon resumed, and they went on to produce equipment for combating radio-controlled rockets, and for the first Pathfinder Transmitters.

Fig 53 Gresham Transformers bomb strikes 1939 - 45

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
Gresham Transformers
At 14 years of age, I left school in July and shortly after went to work at Gresham Transformers in Hanworth, making these huge things for fitting in our Bombers. Raids were a nightly occurrence and during one night, we received a near miss from a 500 lb bomb doing a little damage to our factory. The last piece of repairs was done and off we went for the weekend. What a shock Monday morning, coming into work to find a direct hit had been made on the winding shop were I worked. I used to make up sleeving along with two lovely ladies and dear old Alf who used to sweep up and tidy in general. It was Dots turn, with Alf, that night, to stay on after work to take their turn in fire watching. Lucky for Dot, she had gone to the other end of the factory, when the bomb had hit! Poor Alf did get blown into pieces! Can you imagine? At 14 years old, I went round with Dot and Marge, picking up pieces of Alf and putting them in a bucket. I remember walking a few hundred yards from my house to see the bomb damage which happened the night before on Greshams Factory and the destruction of a few houses in a row called Glebe Cottages in Twickenham Rd, Hanworth.

Aston Martin
At the outbreak of war, Aston Martins works were at the end of Victoria Road, near to the Northern edge of Hanworth Air Park, in two former bi-plane factory buildings, next to the General Aircraft works. The company ceased car production and began the manufacture of aircraft components, including for the Wellington, Spitfires, and Mosquitoes. In 1941 the offices and records were completely destroyed by a direct hit from a bomb, but output was not affected. Later, however, a V1 flying bomb completely destroyed works buildings covering about 15,000 square feet. Fortunately there were no casualties, as the danger signal gave the staff time to take shelter. (See also Bomb Strike Maps for Hanworth Air Park, and RASC Depot.)

Fig 54 - Aston Martin works bomb strikes 1939 - 45

Including a V1 indicated by a red star

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5 V REPRISAL WEAPONS V1 Bombs (Doodlebugs or Buzzbombs)

The German V1 pilotless flying bomb started development in 1942. The explosives were in the nose. Its primitive pulse jet engine made a deep, rattling, stuttering noise, sometimes likened to a poorly maintained motorcycle.

Fig 55 V1 in flight
It had a wingspan of about 5m (17.5 ft), and a length of about 8m (25 ft)

Fig 56 V1 on crash trajectory

Fig 57 V1 (left) being tipped into a crash dive over open country by the wing of a Spitfire The first to do this, Terry Spencer DFC, downed 8 V1s in total. He died Feb 8th 2009 aged 90

The V1s were launched from ramps scattered over a crescent of Northern France between Calais and Le Havre and were designed to fly straight and level, towards London, at 400mph at an altitude of around 2000 feet, until they had covered the pre-set distance to its target. Once that distance had been recorded by on-board instrumentation, detonations locked the rudder and elevators, causing the V1 to enter into a crash dive which caused the fuel supply to fail and the engine to stop. Later this problem was overcome and the engine continued to a powered impact. They said that those Doodlebugs would glide for a bit after their engines cut out; this one didnt. Although many were destroyed by Barrage Balloons, fighter planes, and anti-aircraft guns, the threat was not eliminated until mid-September 1944, when launching sites in Northern France and much of Belgium had been taken by the Allied armies. People learned to count the five-second silence between the stuttering engine cutting-out and the explosion on impact. The first of these flying bombs landed on farmland, near Swanscombe in Kent, in the early hours of 13th June 1944. Between June and September 1944, when the last of the Pas de Calais launching sites fell to the Allies, over 8000 flying bombs had been launched at England, of which 2,419 landed in Greater London, killing about 6,000 people and injuring about 18,000. Croydon suffered the greatest number (141) of V1 hits in the the London area, which would look like a guidance error rather than specific targeting. Feltham Urban District took four hits: 1. Northumberland Crescent, Bedfont, on the night of 18th/19th June 1944; 2. The RASC Depot, Feltham, on the night of 19th/20th July 1944; 3, Danesbury Road and Florence Road, Feltham, on the night of 1st/2nd August 1944; 4, The Close, Twickenham Road, Hanworth, on 20th August 1944. The first three of these flying bombs destroyed 21 homes, seriously damaged a further 80, caused a serious fire at the depot and hospitalized a dozen residents with serious injuries. But the last of these four incidents proved to be the worst of Felthams war. Ten people were killed outright, four more died of injuries, and nine others received serious injuries when a flying bomb made a technical direct hit upon a surface built, communal, street air-raid shelter in The Close, off Twickenham Rd, Hanworth on the 20th August 1944.

Fig 58 The Close, Twickenham Rd, Hanworth

The Oriel Estate in Hanworth was built after construction of the A316 Country Way expressway and motorway feeder road massively widened the road lines of the former Twickenham Road through Hanworth. It occupies the site of the road-end and the turning circle of what was once The Close, a 1930s cul-de-sac.

Fig 59 Creswell Road off Swift Rd.

Part of the Oriel Estate in Hanworth. The top end and turning circle of the former The Close once occupied the left hand side of this picture.

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Northumberland Crescent, Bedfont, night of 18th/19th June 1944

Danesbury Road / Florence Road, night of 1st/2nd August 1944 The RASC Depot, on the night of 19th/20th July 1944

The Close, Twickenham Road, Hanworth, on 20th August 1944

Fig 60 V1 incidents in Feltham Urban District

RESIDENTS REMEMBER
V1 Flying Bombs (Doodlebugs or Buzzbombs)
My Aunt was called up for War Work at the Depot (RASC Feltham). That was hit by a doodlebug one day and there was a big fire. On the particular night (19/20 July 1944) that this story took place, my father was at home and we were all under the shelter when we heard an explosion which sounded close. Immediately afterwards the whole skyline was lit up. A bomb (Ed: the V1) had hit the RAOC depot in Elmwood Avenue and drums of paint and fuel were exploding continuously. Naturally, before realising what had happened, we thought we were in the centre of a concerted bombing raid with all the explosions, but that was the only hit of the night. I saw a flying V1 rocket whilst I was in the back garden with my mother in Hampton Road (now Hampton Road East) in Hanworth. My mother grabbed my wrist and we ran inside the house. The crash happened a few seconds later and we went into the street and the owner of the small shop opposite a Mrs Morriss called out and pointed its landed in my back garden. I believe it actually fell a little further back of her place and landed near the Longford River (Ed: The Close, Hanworth 20th August 1944).

The V2 Rockets
Hitlers last terror weapon used against London was the V2 Rocket. It was much larger than the V1, with a length of 14m (46), and a weight around 6 times that of the V1. The V2 was the first ballistic missile achieving sub-orbital space flight, reaching speeds of up to 4000mph, rising to a height of 50 miles, taking under 5 minutes to cover 200 miles, and impacting at up to 3000 mph. Unlike the V1s there could be no warning of the approach of a supersonic V2. There was absolutely no defence, except to destroy their mobile launchers, and/or manufacturing bases and supply lines. By mid-September 1944 Northern France and much of Belgium had been liberated by the Allied armies. Launching sites in the Pas de Calais would have maximized the range of Hitlers newest terror weapon, but instead, the Nazi rocket battalions had to fall back upon German occupied Holland and launch the V2s from The Hague. The first one to fall in England landed, infamously, in Staveley Road, Chiswick, in the early evening of September 8th 1944. The explosion of the rockets 2000lb warhead killed three people and completely demolished six houses. Between early September 1944 and the end of March 1945 1,115 V2s were launched against England and 517 landed in London. No V2s fell in Feltham. One of the nearest V2 incidents happened on 22nd February 1945. The rocket fell on market gardening land beside the Bath Road in Hounslow West, near Henlys Corner, at the junction of Bath Road with the Great West and Great South West Roads. 1000 houses were blast-damaged and the bomb crater was 36 feet wide and 10 feet deep, but there was only one serious injury.

The V3 Gun
Dover was shelled from the North coast of France by conventional long range guns, but the V3 Gun was designed to fire rocket projectiles at a rate of 300 per hour. Intended to reduce London to rubble, it was not perfected before the proposed firing site across the Channel was damaged by Lancaster bombers dropping Tallboy bombs, and captured by Allied Forces after D-Day, despite The New York Post of Sep 14th 1940 carrying the headline LONDON SHELLED BY 90 MILE GUN - quoting informed German sources.

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6 FELTHAMS WARTIME EXPERIENCES IN CONTEXT

53 58

Fig 61 - Map showing the density of bombing over the London Region between 1939 and 1945

This divides Greater Londons local authority districts into 9 gradations. The Urban District of Feltham (No 53 outlined in black) fell into the 8th (or second lowest) gradation. These districts experienced between 50 and 99 Bombs Per 1000 Acres of area, throughout the war. Twickenham (with Whitton, Teddington and The Hamptons) (No 58 outlined in red) sharing a boundary with Feltham, was in the same category; as was Heston and Isleworth (including Hounslow). Brentford and Chiswick received between 150 and 199 Bombs Per 1000 Acres (6th gradation). Parts of Inner London, the City and the Docks experienced a bomb fall of over 600 Bombs Per 1000 Acres. Nationally about 43,000 civilians died in the Blitz, with 450,000 injured, and more than a million homes destroyed or damaged.

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Targeting, Navigation & Bombing Accuracy

Despite some spectacularly accurate examples, such as the Dam Busters raids with Lancaster bombers, generally bombing accuracy was not very precise. The inaccuracy increased dramatically when under fire, with increasing altitude (which resulted from the former), and bad weather. Incendiary bombs which were light enough, and parachute mines, could be blown off course by any wind. These considerations create problems when trying to determine which sites were being aimed at from the pattern of bomb strikes. Closer examination of local detail reveals some significant differences between neighbouring areas in the London area map.

53 58

Fig 62 - Greater London map extract showing positions of Feltham Urban District (53) & Twickenham (58)
Twickenham (with Whitton, Teddington and The Hamptons) outlined in red sharing the boundary to the South East, is in the same category as Feltham UD, but in fact suffered many more casualties and damage, despite being of far less apparent strategic importance than Feltham.

Feltham UD Total Official fatalities 41 Fatalities on night of Nov 29/30 1940 11 Bombing incidents on night of Nov 29/30 1940 76 Properties totally destroyed 150 V1 hits 4 V2 hits 0

Borough of Twickenham Total Times greater 161 x 3.93 61 x 5.55 374 x 4.92 654 x 4.36 27 x 6.75 1

An informed guess is that this disparity may be related to the relative proximity of the two areas to the River Thames. The Thames was an important navigation feature for any aerial attack on London. German bombers navigated to their targets using radio beams. Initially two beams were transmitted; one from N Germany, and the other from S. Germany, directed to intersect over the target. The bombers would fly along one beam, until with another radio, they started to hear the identifying tones of the other beam. When the steady on course sound was heard from both radios the bombs were released. This system was counteracted by transmission of bogus radio beams crossing the German beams, causing the German bombers to drift to the left of their line. More sophisticated systems requiring scarce new radio equipment were limited to small Pathfinder groups, which dropped flares on the targets to guide the main bomber force. This system provided night-time raids with a similar accuracy to day-time raids. This was harder to counter, but defence measures were eventually developed which caused bombs to be dropped kilometres short of their targets. Conversations with a WW2 RAF Navigator Instructor, confirmed that initially the accuracy of bomber navigation, particular at night, could be several kilometres out over the distances involved, even without the added complication of British counter-measures. With all these difficulties combined, the simple visual sight of the River Thames would play a major role in determining their position. Looking at a map, and considering that counter measures tended to result in estimated positions being short and to the left of the intended target, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the loop of the river forming the Southern boundary of the Borough of Twickenham could well have been mistaken for other loops to the East. The WW2 RAF Navigator Instructor agreed that this interpretation was entirely plausible. These discussions could also help explain how strategically important targets such as Hanworth Air Park, the Feltham Railway Yards, the RASC Depot, and Minimax Corner escaped relatively lightly. However, the same disparity in V1 & V2 strikes (notwithstanding the small sample size) undermines the above analysis, as these flew along a pre-determined launch path. Also, the Germans claimed that 90% of the V1s would strike within a 10 km (6 miles) radius of the target, with 50% within 6 km (3.7 miles), and this range of accuracy would not discriminate between many sites in Feltham UD and the Borough of Twickenham. So the mystery remains.

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7 VICTORY & NEW BEGINNINGS Celebrating Survival

Victory in Europe was celebrated in many ways by the civilian population which had suffered so much under the German bombing campaigns. The most immediate were informally organised and popular street parties for the children. Kerb stones were painted red, white and blue. Lamposts were bedecked with red, white and blue bunting, and Union Jack flags. Tables were set out in rows, and everybody brought a chair. The food was simple but beautifully prepared, and as far as the children were concerned it could not have been better. There was a wonderful spirit of neighbourliness and friendship throughout the war, and in the immediate postwar euphoria. This was sadly to be lost with the gradual increase of material affluence that followed the years of post-war austerity.

Fig 63 VE Street Party Northumberland Crescent 1945

Fig 64 VE Street Party Guildford Avenue

(combined with Hanover Avenue residents) 1945

Fig 65 VE Street Party Guildford Ave 1945

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From London Air Park to London Airport

Due to its location, Hanworth (previously London Air Park) was never in contention as a candidate for a large modern airport. In November 1936 the Air Ministry had bought Heston Airport to develop in order to replace Croydon as the main London Airport, but in 1944 the Air Ministry also bought the Fairey Aviation Aerodrome at Heathrow for supposed development into a RAF Bomber base. However, from the start, the intention was to develop a civilian airport using emergency war-time powers to overcome problems of land requisition and planning. Its development even raised concerns, expressed by Churchill, that it would divert manpower from preparations for D-Day. Nevertheless, the immediate post-war period saw the development of London Airport at Heathrow which was formally opened on the 31st May 1946. With both Hanworth and Heston having been closed in the interests of Air Traffic Control. The original buildings consisted of army tents, and Nissen huts (pre-fabricated corrugated iron semi-circular cross-sectioned huts designed initially for troop accommodation in WW1 but used widely since), and the air liners were converted bombers. The main heavy bombers of RAF Bomber Command were the four-engined Avro Lancaster which first saw active service in 1942, and the Handley-Page Halifax. The Avro Lancaster was primarily a night bomber, but it was also used in daylight precision bombing, including the "Dam Buster" raids of 1943 on Germany's Ruhr Valley dams. In 1943, Avro converted a Lancaster bomber for civil transport duties with Trans-Canada Airlines. These Lancastrians featured a lengthened, streamlined nose and tail cone. Range was increased by two long-range fuel tanks fitted in the bomb bay (with regard to bomber conversions, it is chilling to reflect that the Germans had already converted a bomber for the delivery of atomic bombs). In 1945, BOAC accepted the first of 30 British-built Lancastrians. Since they had limited capacity yet were fast with a long range, they were most suited for transport of mail and VIP passengers. After initial proving flights to South America, BOAC used them from 31 May 1945, for flights between England and Australia. It was also a Lancastrian which made the first airborne circumnavigation of the globe. Lancastrians also played a crucial role in the Berlin Airlift between June 1948 and May 1949, when the Russians blockaded the Allied sectors of the city, and their civilian populations had to be supplied with food and medical necessities. Lancastrians were used as a British passenger and mail transport aircraft through to the 1950s. Lancastrians were also used for tests of various turboprop and jet engines. One powered with Rolls-Royce Nene turbojets is credited with the first international passenger jet flight from London to Paris on 23 November 1946. The Avro York was a similar conversion from the Avro Lancaster bomber with a redesigned fuselage. It was used as a transport aircraft in both military and airliner roles between 1943 and 1964.

Fig 66 Avro Lancaster bomber

Fig 67 - BOAC Lancastrian

Fig 68 Avro Lancastrian airliner London Airport from the Bath Road 1946

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Awaiting the New

The people of Feltham Urban District survived the war in fine spirits, but few could have anticipated the changes seen as a result of the decades of post-war development, which would change the nature of the town far more than all the bombing.

Fig 69 - Feltham High Street in the early 1950s

Fig 70 - Feltham High Street in 2008 from a similar perspective

Fig 71 - Feltham - model of new centre looking west

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BIBLIOGRAPHY The National Archives:

HO 192/401 Bomb Incident Report Ellington Road, Feltham on 7/8.10.1943. HO 193. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39. Bomb incident plots on large, six-inch scale maps, weekly cumulations with nightly tracing overlays, for grid squares 53/18 NE -Feltham, Bedfont and Hanworth (part of) and 53/18 SE - Hanworth (part of) and Kempton Park. HO 198.18 24 and 45 (Bomb Incident Report Sheets). HO 207.608/609 Feltham U.D.C. and Middlesex County Council arrangements and facilities for ARP work in Feltham and district: correspondence, reports etc.

Hounslow Library Local Collection:

Feltham U.D.C. Record of War Damage Registers, 2 vols. Feltham and District Collection - photographs and other images. The Middlesex Chronicle (Hounslow) weekly newspaper microfilm.

Other Printed/Published Sources:

At Her Majestys Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britains Intelligence Agency, MI6; Nigel West; Naval Institute Press, Greenhill Books; This is the source of the remarkable reference to the intriguing fact that The Secret Service HQ from 1924 to 1966 at 54 Broadway, London, known as the Broadway Buildings(nearest Underground St Jamess Park), had a fake plaque outside for Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company. A strange choice, as being a German owned company before WW1, the Germans, more than anyone, would have known that it was not. Doodlebugs and Rockets; Ogley; 1992. Imperial War Graves Commission, Roll of Civilian War Dead 1939-45. Luftwaffe Bomber Aces: Men, Machines and Methods; Mike Spick; Greenhill Books; 2001. London County Council Bomb Damage Maps; reprinted by the London Topographical Society as publication number 164, 2005. Memories of a Bedfont War Baby; by Robin Rendell; Heritage Publications (Hounslow Library) 1999. Operation Sea Lion; Egbert Kieser; Cassel; 1997. V-1 Flying Bomb 1942-52; Steven J Zaloga and Jim Laurier; New Vanguard 106, Osprey Publishing; 2005. War on the Line: the Story of the Southern Railway in World War II; Bernard Darwin; 1946 and Middleton Press 1984. When the Bombs Fell; by Paul Barnfield; Borough of Twickenham Local History Society, paper number 80, 2001.

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