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Autumn 1944, and London was under attack from space. Hitler's 'vengeance' rocket, the V-2, was the world's first ballistic missile, and the first man-made object to make a sub-orbital spaceflight. Over 1400 were launched at Britain, with more than 500 striking London. Each hit caused devastation. The 13 tonne rocket impacted at over 3000 miles per hour. There was no warning; the missile descended faster than the speed of sound and survivors would only hear the approach and sonic booms after the blast.
Left: Occasionally, craters are still visible, as here on Leyton Marsh. Right: Often, whole blocks were obliterated, as can still be seen in this aerial image of Brockley.
It took half a year for Allied forces to neutralise the threat. In that time, some 9000 Londoners lost their lives to the V-2. As with the Blitz, South and East London took the brunt of the onslaught, with Woolwich, Ilford, Barking, Greenwich and West Ham each receiving over 20 hits. Some did make it into the central areas, however. V-2 explosions devastated Selfridges, Speakers' Corner and Holborn. That isolated Caffe Nero near the mural on Tottenham Court Road stands on the still-undeveloped site of a blast that killed nine. More seriously, 110 people were slaughtered at Farringdon when a rocket hit a packed market building on 8 March 1945. The worst death toll of all came on 25 November 1944, when 168 people lost their lives after a direct hit on Woolworths in New Cross.
These famous tragedies are well documented, but over 500 rocket strikes, many with significant death toll, remain obscure. We've mapped out some of the impact sites above, with more to follow when we can access further information. Make sure you zoom in and check satellite view. Commonly, an area hit by a V-2 is now covered with a car park or 1960s housing estate. These areas are usually devoid of mature trees, and still stand out over 60 years on.
Notes on data sources
Records for the area then-governed by the London County Council (LCC) are most readily available thanks to Flickr uploads of war damage maps by Yersinia (see also the London at War group). Further out, we've used various web sites, books and eye-witness accounts to plot additional impacts. Least information is available for those eastern boroughs mentioned above that were most badly hit. If you have any information about V-2 strikes in these (or other) areas, let us know in the comments.
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What a great map! I hope you don't mind, but I took it, exported as KML and built rocketstrikes.iamnear.net, to help people discover the history around them.
Cheers Tom. And an excellent use by you of Fire Eagle. Great work.
And a bloody great example of the internet-in-action. Speedy!
Great work, Matt and Tom.
Anybody interested in the V2 rocket attacks over London should read Gravity´s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, which takes such an attack as its opening scene and spirals out into a several hundred-page story from there, concerning (among other things) a secret Army plan to utilise a American GI whose ejactulations as he works his way around the loose women of London are capable, it is believed, of predicting the landing sites of the missiles. It´s fiction, sure, but Pynchon is reknowned as a master and obsessive over detail and there´s plenty about the science behind the rockets and the affect on the population of the day. Were the guy not a well-known recluse he´d probably rank as one of the world´s foremost experts.
You're the second person to recommend that book to me, Dean. I'll have to check it out.
Osman Road, South Tottenham, N.15 - 19:52 on Saturday 21 January 1945.
My Great-grandparents were involved in this incident and although not killed, died not much later.
I remember being taken to the grave of whole family from Osman Road who were wiped out.
I have a shot of the area in the 1960s; http://www.flickr.com/photos/isarsteve/2345409592/
On another point. I'm a Londoner and have lived in Berlin for many years. I would just like to mention that the RAF & the USAF were killing more than double the amount of civilians, women & children every day in German Cities at the same time.
So would just ask for a bit of restaint, when talking about slaughtered civilians.. It was war and war is not nice.. The Germans were responsible for the war, but it was the British who declared war on them..
I don't like one-sided stories...
Thanks for sharing, Steve. The map is both fascinating and horribly sobering. Remember, we're a website about London. Our interest here is about what happened to our city and how it developed post war. I'm pretty confident that most of us are sickened by conflict wherever its effects are felt, be it Europe 1945, Israel 2009.. or - insert warzone here -
I got the date wrong above: It should have been Saturday 20 January, sorry!
The next V2, same evening, Saturday 20 January 1945 at 22:49 Cowslip Road, South Woodford, E18..
I consider reading Gravity's Rainbow to be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. Others may not feel quite so strongly. But yes, if you're looking for a book about a rocket, that is the book about a rocket.
Thanks for the two additional locations, Steve. I've added them to the map. The Cowslip Road strike seems quite evident with a row of older houses interrupted by a newer development.
For the record, another reader left a comment in the Tips section - another place where you can see a crater. Here I've reproduced the tip to keep everything in one place:
A V2, not on your plotted map, landed in a field just south of Lower Bedfords Road, Rise Park, Romford.
About 30 years ago I dug up a fair bit of corroded aluminium shrapnel from the rear garden of one of the bungalows and was told that the building had been lifted partly out of the ground by the blast, however as it had a concrete raft foundation, it had dropped back down and survived with repairable damage.
If you look on your map, (having reset it to satellite mode and zoomed in) you can still see what appears to be the crater mark in the field behind the bungalows (look south of Lower Bedfords Road, about ten properties east of Helmsdale Road and slightly to the north of a line extended from the direction of Nevis Close).
Incidentally, also bigging up Yersinia's photostream of the LCC war damage maps. Comparing this map to those, I think I can say it was a bunch of V1 rockets that landed in a big ring around where I live... which might explain all the shards of dulled-edge glass I keep digging up in the garden. I wonder if they just gave up replacing window glass in the end.
There were many more V1's - 114 in the old Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham, compared to only 12 V2's. And a fair amount of bomb damage from earlier in the war, too.
The maps bring out just how widespread the Blitz damage was, going far beyond the traditional Blitz areas of the City and East End. It's a pity they only cover the LCC area - the damage spreads far beyond this.
You don't seem to have added the Osman Road V2 onto the map.. Any problems?
The street is now called Osman Close, N.15
There were also V2's on Sydney Road, N.8 (date unknown) and Tottenham Lane/Ribblesdale Road N.8 on 10 November 1944.
Steve: There is an Osman Road vaguely in the Tottenham area, so I assumed that was it. I've moved the marker to Osman Close. Thanks for the correction.
I also added the other two you mention. The Sydney Road footprint is clearly evident in the different style housing.
This article from the 24hour Museum shows original bombing 1944, April 18-19th, maps for walthamstow, which I found whilst trying to source a reference for the Hoe Street / High Street corner site, which was WW2 bomb damage, but possibly not a V2.
In the current edition of our (very) local newspaper, The Archer, there's an article entitled 'The day Abbotts Gardens was bombed' recounting a V2 landing in Abbotts Gardens, East Finchley, London N2 at 5.18pm on 15 Nov 44 killing 5 people. It's a first hand account by a David Smith who has clearly done a good deal of research to supplement his own memories - it seems he still lives in the road. No.s 107-113 were destroyed. He gives a good account of the sound of a hit, has documentation (Air Raid Damage report for Occurrence No. 568) and lists the 5 deceased, ages 5, 14, 39, ? and 64. But it's not yet on your map.
You can find the article referred to above in #18 at The Archer Jan 09 - download p12
Thanks for the addition, ArkAngel. I've added it to the map, along with a link to The Archer article. I'm not familiar with the area, so am not sure where the precise impact site was. However, I've guessed based on where the fewest mature trees are visible. If you know better, please let me know.
My grandfather died of injuries after a V-2 landed opposite 94 Fentiman Road blowing the front of the house in. (It landed between Meadow Rd and Carroun Rd. where the flats are now) - I will ask my mum if she knows the date.
Thanks for the comment, Richard. I think the Fentiman Road incident may have been a V1 (flying bomb) as opposed to a V2 (supersonic rocket).
http://landmark.lambeth.gov.uk/display_page.asp?section=landmark&id=108
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yersinia/3074802422/sizes/l/
V1s were also hugely devastating, but I've not included them on this map (too many).
I walked round to Abbotts Gardens on the weekend (inspired by a combination of your map and The Archer piece) and can confirm your guess for placement is spot on
Enfield , Gordon Hill on this day 25th January 1945 , a V2 landed between gardens at top of Gordon and Lavender Hills, approx 7.30 am in the Morning , RIP Elizabeth Hayes (Great Aunt) plus twenty others . Crater can still be seen on Google earth as dark shape in back Gardens of rebuilt houses One survivor, rescured from the back of the house (no 111) lived onto to be a hundred spending the rest of his live at Worthing in Sussex.
Thanks Alan, that's a wonderful contribution and the most northerly impact now on the map.
My Grandparents George C Streeter and Agatha E Streeter were the proprieters (as listed in the 1943 phone book) of the Prince of Wales, 144 MacKenzie Road, that got hit by a V2 at 21:25 on Boxing day 1944. they were the only survivors in the pub in which 68 people died. the blast blew them behind the counter which protected them, the pub was "heaving to he rafters" as a nearby pub had run out of beer. my grandmother got a lot of glass in her arm and both were affected by the blast.
My cousin recounts the story of how they lost everything and went to a centre where they were given clothes and food. Following this they moved to live with relatives in Hastings here they turned up on the door step in very strange attire including a red berret, and stayed there until their deaths much later in life.
Many people lost their lives in the blast many more were injured 56 seriously and 202 slightly. Pretty much the whole block was destroyed.
many kids were sat on the steps outside while their parents celebrated christmas inside, they also lost their lives.
Some of those killed include:-
OSBORNE, HILDA aged 29 of 115 Mackenzie Road. Daughter of J. Sorrell, of 46 Highbury Hill; wife of George Sidney Osborne (H.M Forces). Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
PARIS, MABEL aged 49 Wife of Charles Henry Paris, of 171 Liverpool Buildings. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
PEACOCK, CLARA aged 34 and William aged 34 of 16 Hollingsworth Street. Daughter of Louisa, and of the late John Tower; wife of William J. Peacock. Both died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
SORRELL, VIOLET ELIZABETH aged 32 Wife of Frederick James Sorrell, of 28 Goulding Court, Turnpike Lane, Hornsey, Middlesex. Died at Mackenzie Road 26/12/1944
NEWELL, WILLIAM HERBERT aged 47 Husband of Ellen Margaret Newell, of 13 Arundel Square. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
NEIGHBOUR, EMILY MINNIE aged 19 W.L.A. Daughter of James and A. Neighbour, of 57 Bemerton Street. Died at Mackenzie Road.
MORRIS, ETHEL FLORA aged 23 of 115 Mackenzie Road. Daughter of William J. Gardner, of 4 Mackenzie Road; wife of William Morris. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
MITCHELL, FREDERICK GEORGE aged 11 of 19 Ringcroft Street. Son of the late Ernest John Mitchell. Died at Mackenzie Road.
MITCHELL, ERNEST JOHN aged 38 Islington Decontamination Service; of 19 Ringcroft Street, Holloway, London. Son of Mrs. E. Mitchell, of 60 Mackenzie Road, Holloway. Injured 26 December 1944, at Mackenzie Road; died at Grovelands Hospital.
MILLS, ROBERT JOHN aged 13 of 16 Crown Mansions, Liverpool Road. Son of Robert John and Elizabeth Hannah Mills. Died at Mackenzie Road. 26/12/1944
MILLS, ELIZABETH HANNAH aged 50 of 16 Crown Mansions, Liverpool Road. Wife of Robert John Mills. Died at Mackenzie Road.
MILLS, ROBERT JOHN aged 45 of 16 Crown Mansions, Liverpool Road. Husband of Elizabeth Hannah Mills. Died at Mackenzie Road.
RAMSAY, JOHN HERBERT aged 51 Husband of Lilian G. Ramsay, of 90 Rhodes Street. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
RANSON, MAUREEN VIOLET aged 12 of 25 Chillingworth Road. Daughter of Frederick Ranson. Injured 26 December 1944, at 25 Chillingworth Road; Islington N7 at back of the pub died at Royal Northern Hospital.
REYNOLDS, LULU ELIZABETH aged 35 Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Harding, of 109 George's Road, Holloway; wife of Arthur Reynolds, of 184 Deansbrook Road, Burnt Oak. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
ROWLANDS, HENRY CHARLES aged 49 of 535 Liverpool Road. Husband of Betty May Rowlands. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
E SAYERS of 152 Mackenzie Road. Died at 152 Mackenzie Road. 26 december 1944
SIDNEY, EMILY aged 60 of 7 Alexander Road. Wife of Wallace Sidney. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
SIDNEY, WALLACE aged 60 of 7 Alexander Road. Husband of Emily Sidney. Died at Prince of Wales, Mackenzie Road.
I am very interested in the V2 strikes, as my wife's grandfather escaped death from one of these on Jan 14 1945 by about an inch! I am adding a piece we have unearthed in tracking down his personal history. He (apparently) wrote this letter to the paper the day after his lucky escape. In another account, published in the 1970's, a different survivor reported the strike as hitting St. Paul's Church, Ripple Road, Barking. I also note that the parish records of this church cease in 1945, and I wonder whether the church was subsequently demolished. Not knowing the area I would welcome comments on this.
January 1945 Copy of a letter published in the Stratford Express
"LOCAL TRADESMAN'S NARROW ESCAPE FROM DEATH BY ENEMY ACTION"
"On Sunday evening 14th instant whilst very cold, waiting in a long, overdue Bus Queue, talking to a lady, relating to the effects of a "Rocket", which fell during morning service, on to a nearby Church, where many casualties and some deaths were caused, without the slightest noise or warning, we were all thrown to the ground, by "Blast" from another "Rocket", which had fallen on another Church premises near us.
"The noise and Scene are indescribable, but as soon as I recovered from the shock, and discovered I was safe and uninjured, I arose to find that my clothes, even to my overcoat was buttoned up, and my Hat on my head, and my walking stick still in my hand, just as I had fallen down, but not so those near me. A lady next was practically stripped of all her clothes, and all in a heap, and next her was a girl, evidently killed instantaneously. On the other side a gentleman, evidently with a broken back, for whom I made a rest for his head, with a piece of wood and two bricks. By the light from the Electric Lamps, which had been switched on by the "Blast" in the shops. I scrambled over Brickwork, Masonry, Broken Wood and Glass, into the Butchers shop and brought out a white coat and apron with which to cover up the woman's body another gentleman helping me to lay her out. Now feeling queer myself, I left the scene and walked to a friend's house, where I was given refreshment and treatment. A fragment of Glass being taken out of my Forehead and out of my clothes. Even Broken Fragments and dust were in my socks. It was discovered that where I had fallen, a large section of Masonry and Brickwork from the Coping of the Butcher’s shop, had struck and made a large hole in the Pavement Stone, close to where my head had laid, but had only just touched my hat and marked it. For which I am sincerely thankful.
"As a thank offering for my life being spared, I am sending a donation to our local Hospital, which many others could do the same, to assist them in their arduous work for the benefit of injured persons, not so lucky as myself.
"G.J.A.B.
"George James Arthur Baker"
Hi. I'm new here so please be gentle with me......
My, this is a VERY interesting website! Wish I had seen it earlier as I currently live slap bang in the centre of the City of London which, as you all know, was heavily bombed. I remember my Dad showing me an old A-Z map of London showing the Barbican area as being virtually devoid - so unlike today where it's been built up again.
I'm just wondering as the exact number of casualties on most V1/V2 landing sites are listed if there's a list somewhere of names of those who were, unfortunately, killed at each site? I'm asking this as I'm doing Family Research and noticed a couple of my relatives were actually living in the centre of London during the war years and would have been in their mid 60s then but I cannot find any trace of both their (husband and wife) demises.
Thanks in advance for any advice forthcoming.
CB.
V2 Mayesbrooke Park. Dagenham
A very strange experience.
I was living in Woodward Rd Dagenham and was standing at my front gate looking across the road towards my friends house, waiting for him to come out to play, I was 11 years old and the time must have been early evening. Suddenly I saw a small object shoot down from the sky at rooftop height at an angle of about 45 degrees, this was followed by an explosion with debris being thrown up into the air. Knowing since how fast it was travelling I can only attempt to explain how I came to see it, my only explanation is that I must have blinked at the exact moment and mentally captured the image in the same way that a camera does. The odd thing is that I saw a red glow at the impact spot which I have always thought came before the impact, but memory plays tricks.
I have since looked at local maps in an attempt to find the site, which would have been in the direction of Mayesbrook Pk.
I had always thought that it had fallen closer to me than your map shows, it must have actually been about 3/4 mile away.
Your map shows it as an airburst !!! but what I saw was almost at impact ?????
This is just something that has been with me ever since as being so strange to have actually seen it, albeit fleetingly.
Bernard
Hi Les Samuels here. great site. I was living in Chisenhale Rd when a V2 rocket landed in Victoria Park. I was 7yrs then. It blew in the front windows of our house and splinters of glass embedded themselves in the pillow of my younger brothers pram(my mother had removed him earlier). I also remember playing in the crater in Victoria Park and the twisted remains of the rocket at the top of the crater. Luckily the rocket landed in Victoria Park. The Old Ford Road location on your site is a bit out. It was approximately 51.32N 02.40W just west of the skew bridge.
Just stumbled upon this site - much of interest, thanks to all those who have worked to put it together.
I think I have another V2 site for you: my mother survived a strike in Southborough Lane, Bromley (Kent) which demolished several of the cottages adjacent to hers and 'created' the current car park space for the Crooked Billet pub. The impact site can still be made out using the satellite view in Google Maps:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.390202,0.054674&spn=0.001697,0.004801&t=h&z=18
According to the book "Bromley Memories", 21 people died in the incident, although the BBC carried an account of the same strike which suggests 'over 100' - see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/74/a6027374.shtml
More than 100 fatalities seems unlikley, but either way this was a significant - and tragic - event.
Hope this info is of some use.
Thanks to everyone for these stories and information. It greatly enriches the original map and article to have so much additional input from people who witnessed these strikes. I've added a few of the more accurately described accounts to the map. But the map is still incomplete. I know there were at least another 200 strikes not accounted for in the records I've seen.
I'm working with a photographer on a project photographing houses that have been damaged by V2 rockets. The photographer has a morbid fascination with the V2's as his mother narrowly missed being hit by the last V2. His grandparents were killed, but his mother was late being dropped off at their house.
My role in the project is to find suburban houses that were damaged, not destroyed by a V2. Most of the reported landings that I can find state which roads the rockets landed on and the houses that were destroyed, but ideally if anyone has specific house numbers that were damaged, that would be brilliant. A lot of the destroyed houses are now car parks or commercial buildings, so we would like to find house that were damaged but are still standing.....
Last week we went to Abbotts Gardens, East Finchley and met some very helpful people.
Please be in touch if you think you can help.
citybloke
If you go to the commonwealth war graves commision website and click on search our records , put in the surname and initial of the people you are looking for and roughly when they died and you get a list come up with all the people in that area with the name you put in ,your relatives may be on that list If they are on there click on their name and the details come up .Also at the bottom of the details page if you click on certificate there is a picture of the page in the civilian war dead book with their details and 'remembered with honour' written
The mapped V2 strike shown for Broadmead Road, Woodford Green (also known as Sado's Corner) was a V1 "buzz bomb" not a V2. My father remembers as a young boy watching it from approach over Draper's Hill, Woodford Bridge and then being bundled under the dining room table by his mother when the engine cut out and hearing the explosion as it came down on the junction of Broadmead Road and Chigwell Road. My mother was only a baby at the time but the windows of her parents house in Brackley Square were blown in by the blast.
A V2 did come down close to Albyns Manor (a very large country house) in Stapleford Abbotts, nr Romford (postcode would be something like RM4 1RS) doing enough damage to the house that it was demolished as a direct result in the early 1950s. Only the servants quarters now survive.
Sorry, but I dont know the dates for either event.
Thanks for that last comment. I've removed the V1 strike and added your Albyns Manor strike. Let me know if you think the marker I've added could be more accurately placed (it's on the spot suggested by the post code you gave).
That looks pretty much spot on.
im new so please be gentle,
my father tells me his grandmother was killed by the last v2 droped on london, i think she was in the east end as my father is from east ham, her name was ursular archer, dose this ring any bells with any one
Go to the commonwealth war graves commission web site click on search our records Put her name on the form for the debt of honour register. Choose 2nd world war and date 1945 It will come up with any one with that name and an address for them . Click on the name and it will take you to a page with all the details they have and at the bottom of that page there is a link to certificate ,click on this and it shows the page in the book they have for all the civilian war dead.
I know you were probably hoping for an answer from someone who knew the family but at least this will give you an address to work on
I remember well the V2 which landed after 9p.m. on or about 17th November, 1944. It struck the junction of Fourth Avenue with the, then named, Old Dagenham Road, Rush Green. It destroyed the off licence, the Handy Stores and the houses opposite with proportionate blast damage according to distance. I believe I was first on the scene which was well lit up by the burning gas main. I had been asked by my father to find out what had happened when we came to. We lost roof, windows and doors. Fortunately, although rescue spent some time searching for the off licence couple,(it seemed they were away for the weekend), no one was seriously hurt. When daylight came I found my hands had been shot blasted with powdered glass. Smilingjim
I was born in Kenwyn Drive Neasden on 29th January 1945.
My arrival was apparently triggered by the shock my mother received when a V2 landed near our house but did not explode. On your excellent map there is a "?" labeled "Annesley Close" close to Kenwyn Drive. Do you have any information on the date of this possible V2 strike which would tie in with my birth date?
My father who was on leave from the Royal Artillery at the time of my birth collected some bits of the V2 as souvenirs and I still have an alluminium pipe coupling from this V2!