by Hitler's Revenge Weapons- The Final Blitz of London (retail) (epub)
At 10.40 on that 16 June, AA guns in Folkestone, Sussex, scored their first success against the V1s, and the gunners manning the AA belt to the south east were elated by the number they believed they had hit that day, only to have many of their claims rejected on the grounds that the engines had merely cut out, as designed, when they reached their target area. Beamont was far from amused when a message from on high stated that the fighter pilots could not claim ‘kills’ against the V1s which could not evade them, Bee arguing that they faced grave danger when attempting to ‘gun down’ a target in which 1,800lb of Amatol explosive could blow up in their faces. Indeed, in the first six weeks of the campaign, eighteen of the attacking aircraft were either destroyed or badly damaged in this way, five pilots and a navigator being killed. Beaumont also took the opportunity to complain volubly that his fighter pilots were being shot at by over-zealous AA gunners. The gunners, from General Pile downwards, seemed unrepentant, blaming the pilots for flying into a gun defended area (GDA), all this resulting in an air of hostility between the two UK defenders, which would take more than simple co-ordination measures to heal the rift.
The increasing value of the AA defences could not be denied, not only for bringing down the missiles, but also in helping maintain the morale of those on the ground. Most welcomed the guns, putting up with the risks and the noise, but others became more strident in their complaints, this in some cases resulting in the batteries being moved elsewhere – to the detriment of others. Those in Sussex believed they were having more than their fair share of the flying bombs and the damage caused by the guns spewing hot, jagged shrapnel on those below. Vibration caused by heavy guns firing close to ancient and fragile houses also resulted in serious damage, eighty-one houses in Portslade, Brighton, said to have been damaged in this way, and many residents were known to have left their homes between Camber and Rye Harbour, which hosted the biggest concentration of AA in the country.
As the intensity of operations increased in the summer of 1944, so did the effectiveness of the guns, given improvements in the radar, a new proximity fuse code named ‘Bonzo’, and the continuous practice enjoyed by the gunners. The AA screen on the coast destroyed sixty-eight bombs on one day in August, while the Americans did even better with their 90mm guns and the fighter pilots were excelling themselves in the air. These achievements were raising the defenders’ morale sky-high, but there was a price to pay for this seemingly unending activity, with both the gunners and fighter pilots becoming very tired. They pressed on, driven by inevitable rivalry between all those involved, with the gunners steadily forging ahead, if a little sore that they were not receiving the adulation bestowed on the heroes in the skies. The balloon barrage claimed its first V1 on 20 June 1944, fortunately at no cost to those on the ground.
The mood at the War Cabinet Meeting on 16 June was sombre; this was not like the ‘pinprick’ of three days earlier, and the portends for the future were grim; the public was being kept largely in the dark as to the nature and likely extent of the new threat, but the truth could not be kept from them for much longer. The military chiefs, who had been led to believe that a major V1 assault would not begin for a further couple of weeks, had been suddenly ordered to reinforce and redistribute their defensive assets as best they could, while competing with the imperatives of the invasion forces now on the other side of the Channel. So it was with the offensive forces involved indirectly in the air defence of the homeland, with General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces in Europe, having to divert some of his resources to attack the V1 launch sites in northern France. Lord Cherwell, having now accepted that the flying bomb was a reality, commented that attacks on V1 supply dumps serving ski sites thought to have been abandoned was wholly nugatory, and would risk valuable aircraft against those serving as heavily protected decoys, but this advice may have fallen on deaf ears, because the sites were bombed anyway.
The Spitfire XIV squadrons of RAF West Malling were next to join the defenders and it was from there that an Australian pilot, Flying Officer Ken Collier, was credited with finding an arguably less dangerous way of bringing down a V1. On the evening of 23 June, Collier found his quarry at 2,500 feet but, having failed to arrest its deadly progress towards London before running out of ammunition, he flew alongside his target, wingtip to wingtip, and having checked he was not over a built-up area, he succeeded in tipping the tiny aircraft on its back, sending it spinning into open countryside. There was no question as to the veracity of this story, paint marks on his Spitfire’s wing having been conclusive, and many other pilots attempted, with varying degrees of success, to emulate this courageous act. On 1 July the Spitfires were joined at West Malling by the Mustangs of No.316 (Polish) Squadron.
Despite their successes, both Air Marshal Hill and General Pile felt that their respective fighter and AA defences could do better, and the debate on the best, collective way to down the V1s raged on between their staffs, each inclined to criticise the other. It seemed blindingly obvious that the conflict between the two systems stemmed primarily from overlapping operating areas, and that they should each be given their own ‘playground’, leaving the balloons as a last resort. Eventually they agreed that all the AA available should be deployed along a coastal belt, with their now highly efficient guns using automated gunlaying radars and firing variable time-fused shells, maximising the value of Anglo-American microwave early warning equipment, with a clear field of view over the sea. Well ahead, towards the threat, the fighters would remain the first line of defence, with a second sector allocated to them over land, between the gun belt and the balloons. A mixed gathering of senior officers and experienced specialists from the two British services unanimously approved the plan on 14 July 1944, but without air staff or political representation. Sensibly, the protagonists rushed the plan to the Crossbow Committee on the same day, where Duncan Sandys decreed that this was simply an operational matter, well within the remit of the two commanders. The Air Ministry did not see it that way and refused to accept any responsibility for the outcome, but in effect they had been presented with a fait accompli, and there can rarely have been a more rapid re-deployment of such magnitude, in part owing to the mobility of the big guns and their Pile Platforms. It also seemed to have been completed without the Germans’ noticing. Initially, the V1 ‘kill rate’ under the new plan was poor, but dramatic improvements were on the way.
An RAF Tempest chases a V1 heading for London at low level (top right). (Medmenham Collection)
Squadron Leader Bohdan Arct, officer commanding the Polish fighter squadron, had a particular hatred for the dreaded doodlebugs, imagining that their hideous cackling pulse-jet engine sounded like the laughter of wicked witches, airborne on their broomsticks, simply laughing at their intended victims. He was also contemptuous of the AA gunners, who did not seem to be able to distinguish between the very different silhouettes of the V1s and his Mustangs, too many of the latter suffering damage as a consequence. The pent-up fury of the Polish pilots, bent on revenge against the Germans for the atrocities they had committed on their beloved country, served them well in the air and, by the end of July, they had downed fifty V1s, before moving from West Malling to Friston, on the coast near Eastbourne, to carry on the fight from there. By the end of the campaign, No.316 Squadron had been credited with 300 victories against the V1s.
A British 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun, on a mobile ‘Pile Platform’ in Southwold, the East Coast, in 1944. (Author’s Local Collection)
On 26 July 1944 Herbert Morrison , the Minister for Home Security, commissioned a review into the current state of the integrated defences, and how they might adapt to a combination of flying-bomb and rocket attacks. His ‘experts’ suggested that each rocket might result in thirty deaths, with many more injured, thus creating a degree of panic and a rush to escape from the capital (some 230,000 had left already), leading to serious political, social and domestic consequences, and he took these concerns to the War Cabinet. True to form, L
ord Cherwell felt that such concern was precipitous, believing now that the rocket’s warhead was likely to be much less than first thought, and that its guidance system might react to electronic countermeasures.
Morrison would prove to be right on the first premise but wrong on the second; the V1 attacks were now continuous, causing frustrations and perpetual loss of a sleep, in addition to the casualties and destruction, all combining to encourage more people to leave London. Mothers with children under the age of five were departing in large numbers and the railway stations were crowded with ‘harassed, irritable and thoroughly uncivil crowds’. On 29 July twenty people had to be treated in hospital after being crushed in a rush at Paddington Station, prompting the Home Office to lay plans for a mass evacuation, should this be necessary in the event of an additional rocket attack.
Meanwhile, the two Tempest V squadrons of 150 Wing were excelling themselves, flying some fifty sorties a day from Newchurch and, by 23 August, they had destroyed 632 doodlebugs, ‘Bee’ Beamont himself amassing a score of thirty. Another ‘ace’, Squadron Leader Joe Berry, is thought to have held the record for destroying V1s in the air at night, bringing down seven on the night of 23 August alone. These night operations were particularly hazardous, exemplified by the loss of a promising literary figure, 20-year-old Flight Lieutenant James Farrar, who perished when his Mosquito was believed to have collided with its quarry.
The Meteor jets of 616 Squadron joined the anti-Diver operations for the first time in August, and on 4 August, Flying Officer Dixie Dean had the distinction of being the first jet pilot to bring down a V1. With a top speed of 485 mph, the Meteor was 65 mph faster than the Tempest, and 616 Squadron was soon scoring well. While the majority of the civilians on the ground had nothing but praise for the pilots involved, human nature explained some of the criticism of those who brought their targets down on the homes of victims below. Some towns escaped very lightly, Tunbridge Wells being one, escaping all but six of some 2,000 V1s which passed overhead on the way to London.
Privy to the deliberations on the potential rocket threat to England, those responsible for passive defence measures in the United Kingdom were now becoming increasingly concerned about the high probability of an excessive burden on the hard pressed civil defence organisation, particularly in London and south-east England. Given that offensive action and active defences could never prevent some, if not many, V1s and V2s reaching their target areas, passive measures would have to pick up the pieces, restore some degree of normal life and allow contributions to the war effort to continue. That was the purpose of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Committee, which met first in 1924, primarily to establish the principles on which a civil defence organisation could be based, and on which local councils could develop their own contingency plans. The government became more involved in the mid-1930s, creating an ARP department in the Home Office to provide additional guidance and instructions, a role formalised in 1938 with legislation as a resurgent Germany again threatened peace. Four basic components came under the umbrella of the ARP: the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), the Light and Heavy Rescue Services, the Decontamination Services (given the use of poison gas in the First World War) and the Air Raid Wardens – of whom there were more than a million ‘front-line troops’. These services were organised within twelve Civil Defence Regions, sub-divided into groups, each to preside over a number of districts at the local working level. It was at that level that every attempt was made to co-ordinate all ARP actions and assist the many small groups of wardens operating in their assigned sectors, sometimes perforce without adequate communications, specialist forces or support equipment – simply relying on their own initiatives.
During the Blitz of 1940/41, the work of the fire and rescue services had been made more difficult by the continuing bombing, and the blackout necessary to deny the German bomber crews help in finding their targets; even lighted cigarettes were believed to give enemy pilots some clues, and streets would ring to cries of ‘Put that light out!’ Such extremes might not have been so important as the V1s rained down in 1944 but street lamps remained off and vehicles continued to have their lights shrouded, sometimes making vehicular movement very difficult, as attempts were made to prevent German reconnaissance aircraft assessing the damage caused by the flying bombs. Such would also be the case, but even more worrying, in the event of a V2 offensive.
The wardens’ invaluable work is worthy of comment, and the author, sometimes acting as runner at his father’s ARP post in Goffs Lane, Cheshunt, can do so from experience. The often very small, hastily-built brick shelters, some with concrete roofs to offer some protection from the bomb, could, at a pinch, accommodate four people, albeit with only two bunk beds among a mass of defence material. There were assorted protective garments, including gas capes and masks, tin helmets, a GPO and field telephone, first aid and decontamination kits, fire extinguishers, buckets of water and sand, long-handled shovels to remove incendiary bombs, lamps and torches, a radio, hand-held warning klaxons and maroons (large but largely harmless fireworks), and ear plugs. The walls were covered with local maps, myriad instructions on the most likely exigencies, and posters reminding everyone to ‘Carry Gas Masks’, ‘Dig For Victory’, ‘Beat the Squander Bug’, ‘Switch that Light Off!’, warnings that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ urging everyone to ‘Buy War Bonds’ and to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. The tasks the wardens might face, often as ‘first responders’ at a scene of devastation and misery, were too numerous to recall, suffice it to say that no two incidents were the same, some involving fire, collapsed buildings and unexploded bombs, casualties dead and buried under debris, broken gas and water mains, and no immediate help to hand. It went without saying that Air Raid Wardens had to be ready for anything, and for that reason realistic training began in earnest in 1939.
That, however, was easier said than done. Much of what follows is attributed to Edward (Ted) Carter, Chief Warden in the Waltham Holy Cross Urban District (in the author’s area), just north of London, throughout the war. Ted’s diaries underline the difficulties of replicating bomb penetration, blast and fragmentation damage, in perfectly serviceable, built-up areas. Casualties could be made very lifelike, but craters, burst water and gas mains, and the disruption they might cause, had to be simulated by those who staged the exercises. There were some splendid examples of individual initiatives, enthusiasm and determination, improvisation and make-do-and mend, although initially some very willing volunteers had difficulty getting used to the twenty-four-hour clock, and this resulted in ‘some strangely wonderful timing’, with emergency services arriving before a (paper) bomb had dropped. Communication breakdowns were easy to organise, as were outbreaks of fire, although these were inclined to get out of hand, given the use of readily available inflammable materials and training adjuncts. Ted Carter remembers a particular smoke-producing candle giving off such billowing clouds of sulphurous smoke as to induce hacking coughs among the wardens, casualties and spectators, which brought more than one exercise to an early end. On another occasion, those staging a fire were delighted with their efforts involving paraffin-soaked straw, smoke candles and practice incendiary bombs in a derelict cottage – until they realised that one of their number was still inside. Fortunately, this rather frightened man was small enough to be able to dive through an upstairs window, onto a bed of rubbish below, but he was not in a very good mood! Enthusiasm could be a mixed blessing. In the same area, over keen handlers of a newly acquired stirrup pump, demonstrating how to tackle a (non-existent) fire, filled the Upshire Village Hall with water – much to the dismay of those in charge. Their audience of ‘first aiders’ were so enthralled by this spectacle that they forgot all about their ‘fatal and near-fatal casualties’ nearby, who remained unreported and unattended to, eventually getting up and walking away. With so many ‘casualties’ unimpressed by their survival prospects, volunteers became increasingly hard to find. On another occasion, a volunteer unused to driving in the blackout with
shrouded headlights on the minor roads in Epping Forest, had to ask the mock casualties languishing in his makeshift ambulance trailer to dismount and help him manhandle their vehicles back on to the correct road. Surprise exercises, by design, caught many off guard, such as one which began with several explosions and a fire at a derelict house in Sewardstone Street. The local wardens, quickly on the scene, wondered if they faced ‘the real thing’ when they were greeted with all too realistic ‘blood-chilling screams’ and actors who had made the most of their injuries, but they soon had the situation under control. Generally, no-notice incidents were unpopular, not solely because they would catch out the unprepared, but because they could bring normal life and important war work to a temporary halt. All that said, Ted Carter rightly claimed that, however imperfect their ARP exercises might have been, they taught many valuable lessons, which helped improve their reaction to live situations when they occurred. Some surprise tests might have been considered a little unfair, when there was no air raid alarm or raid in progress at the time, but that was also good practice for when the V2 rockets arrived without warning. Indeed, all these rehearsals, together with the live events staged by the Luftwaffe’s bombers, in bringing all the military services and emergency services together in a joint reaction to diverse incidents, would serve the country well when it came to the combined onslaught by flying bombs and rockets. In the end, the damage and casualties inflicted by the V1s and V2s around the author’s home were relatively light, compared with that in other areas of Greater London, but stories of them and others in the next chapter serve to illustrate the splendid, often courageous, work of the wardens and the ARP services in general.
With the Allies yet to break out of Normandy, and the imminent threat of another ‘blitz’ on London, more of the key players in the capital were beginning to side with Churchill on the possible need to at least threaten Germany with a major gas attack, Allied preparations for which were proceeding. Fortunately, in late July, the Allied forces began to make better progress on the ground, and again, a decision on the gas question was deferred. However, the rocket problem would not go away and Home Secretary Morrison raised the issue of evacuation again at the Rocket Consequences Meeting on 3 August, suggesting that the more vulnerable residents should leave the capital as soon as possible. Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin countered with his concern that this might cause panic with the inevitable loss of a large part of his essential labour force. In the event, it was decided that the Londoners should ‘stay put’, urged to take every reasonable precaution to protect themselves, while the authorities dusted off their evacuation plans – just in case.