Bomb Damage WWII

[Marmora Man]

I was idly considering various small 1950's developments in the area recently when it occurred to me that many must have been built on pockets of bomb damage. I know that a bomb fell at the bottom of my garden in Marmora Road and can see a possible "line of damage" across Marmora, Mundania and Therapia roads.

I understand thatsomewhere thers is a anotated map of the bombs that fell in the ED area - can anyone advise me on its whereabouts - I haven't tried the library yet but will.

[ianj]

this site is very interesting, has details of V1 and V2 hits in London.

http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_summary.html

Some fascinating stories on there.

[char1ie]

Apparently if you get aerial shots of south east London you can pick out long strips where missing victorian housing indicates where the bombs fell in lines. And yes, the obvious signs now are the fifties and sixties houses sitting in the middle of victorian terraces.

Charlie

[*Bob*]

The strangest post-war additions must be those pre-fab 'portacabin'-style dwellings on Underhill Road.

They remind me of everywhere I went on holiday (in the UK) up until the age of about 12.

[Jah Lush]

That's a fantastic website Ian J. I've really enjoyed browsing through that. My dad's house in Upper Norwood was bombed during the Second World War. Very interesting and informative. Thanks.

[kford]

The so-called Bomb Maps were available in a huge reference book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-County-Council-Damage-1939-45/dp/0902087517/ref=sr_1_1/203-4831955-9863918?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188894260&sr=8-1

It's out of print now, but the originals are in the National Archives at Kew.

The V1/V2 website is excellent, with good stories, as are the various East Dulwich books at the library. Dulwich got a hammering as the govt. put out disinformation that the war cabinet had decamped to somewhere in SE21.

[Brendan]

Very interesting. I live in a 1950s house built on an old V2 bomb site.

[mockney piers]

Great web site, thanks for that ianj.

Didn't someone on here mention the misinformation put out in codes we knew had been cracked by the germans, claiming that central london hits were actually landing in north london, prompting the germans to recalibrate their rockets and hence the ensuing pasting of lewisham, dulwich et al and particularly poor old croydon.

[Asset]

it mentions the misinformation on that website, in the SE17 section.

[Mark]

Go to http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx and search on "Dulwich war" without the quotes, some nice photos. I would post them on here but the photo police would get me.

[kford]

The Lycott Road blast damage shot is interesting. There is a block of '50s/'60s maisonettes there now.

[Brendan]

Do you mean Rycott Road?

[kford]

Actually I meant Lycott GROVE!

[kford]

kford Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Actually I meant Lycott GROVE. Here's where I get in trouble:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9890/3227663nv9.th.jpg

[ratty]

Wow - great site. My Dad's house in E1 was destroyed by a bomb. Would love to check out the full archives to see if I could find out when!

[AB]

There was an interesting article in an old copy of SE22 magazine on bomb hits in which people died (Feb I think). Was talking about it last night as our place is on a bombsite and was on the list. I think it comes from a book on East Dulwich history which may still be available in the library on lordship lane.

[Dannyboy]

ratty - depends where your Dad's house was in E1, but the Tower Hamlets Local History library on Bancroft Road has a copy of the local 'bomb map' which is very striking. I've got a (much photocopied) version I use for teaching - if you pm me your postal address, I'll send you a copy. It won't tell you when though - I think that is probably a National Archives/London Metropolitan Archives job.

[Londoner]

Also,in 'Agent Zigzag', great book about WW2 double agent, the agent is told by his British handlers to make false reports about bomb damage in central London so that SE London would carry on getting hit, on the basis that casualities would be lighter than in Central London. In this book it is presented that the dulwich bombing was not deliberate but the result of miscalibration.

[Damo]

IIRC, the block on Lordship Lane with Budgens at one end and the chemists at the other is built on a bomb damaged site. I think it was a V2 that not only destroyed the original block but killed about 20 people at a tram stop, pretty grim.

Not only does this account for the modern block but that the Northcross Road shops don't start for a while and the corner of Nutfield Road has two new builds.

I presume the Palmerston must have been significantly repaired?

All of this was from a book on old East Dulwich which I sped read in the Horniman a couple of years ago (probably the same as AB references above) so apologise if the details are a bit flakey. There may have been a before and after picture of that area too.

[Frisco]

"IIRC, the block on Lordship Lane with Budgens at one end and the chemists at the other is built on a bomb damaged site. I think it was a V2 that not only destroyed the original block but killed about 20 people at a tram stop, pretty grim."

The block referred to was the site of the Co-op, which was destroyed later in the war in August 1944, when a bomb fell in daytime and many shoppers and passers-by were killed. When I came to live in ED there was still a quite a sizable Co-op on the greater part of that block, but it closed shortly after. Almost every 40s and 50s house or the larger 40s/50s developments in the area are on the sites of bombings. The 1940s development of flats in Melbourne Grove is on the site of a very big explosion, but in most cases you can see where strings of bombs fell across numerous roads, resulting in post-war developments of 3 or 4 post-war houses or flats in roads next to each other. At that time ED was part of the then Borough of Camberwell, which had 90%+ of its total housing damaged in some way in the war.

[kford]

Hence all the concrete-tiled rooves, pebbledash and metal framed or non-standard windows in the area, especially in the shops opposite the Co-op block on LL.

[Frisco]

"Hence all the concrete-tiled rooves, pebbledash and metal framed or non-standard windows in the area, especially in the shops opposite the Co-op block on LL."

Well observed, but if you sit in the (East?) Dulwich Cafe and you can get a good view of the roof the building immediately opposite (I think it's a dentist), and you will see a very good and increasingly rare example of an elaborately slated roof and an ornate brick chimney stack, which is how the whole of East Dulwich used to be.

[eccentric]

Anyone know Pat Riley Helmet Maker East Dulwich 1957?

[macroban]

I seem to remember that Riley's had their factory South of the railway line just West of Dulwich Hospital. Makers of horse-riding helmets, motor-cycle helmets (old-style), and industrial protection helmts. Those were the days of leather and cork.

This thread reminds me of the difficulties of claiming compensation from the War Damage Commission. Inadequate compensation and material shortages meant that damaged houses next to bomb-sites were "repaired" in a very ad hoc fashion and then the repairs were skillfully hidden. Probably in the hope that proper repairs could be done later in better times.

In the old days when East Dulwich had proper estate agents such as White Dent they had this local knowledge of which properties were affected in this way.

I suspect that now this local knowledge is lost house surveys may well not discover this damage.

[MadWorld74]

I am resurrecting this post as I am nearly through a book that details why Dulwich was hit by V-1 bombs.

Why would the Nazi's want to hit Dulwich?

Well this biography I am reading at the moment, titled 'Agent Zigzag; Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy' by Ben Macintyre, tells of how Zigzag acted as a double agent in WW2. He worked with the German Secret Services known as Abwehr, as well as MI5's infamous Twenty Committee.

Agent Zigzag was known throughout Soho's underworld as Eddie Chapman. A racketeer and crook.

He stumbled into acting as a double agent and ended up giving disinformation to his German Spy Master, Von Groning, concerning locations and target points of the V-1's launced by the Germans.

The Luftwaffe tried to aim for Charing Cross (which is where the Admiralty is based) but they fell short, always.

With the disinformation MI5 reckoned that Zigzag could move the Doodlebugs further away from the centre of London into suburban and 'countryside' areas. This is one of the main reasons Dulwich was hit. To quote:

'The Germans seemed to be aiming for the Charing Cross area, but the mean point of impact was calculated to be Dulwich station in south London'

Another quote:

'Chapman's deception messages have survived only in fragments. MI5 was careful to destroy the traffic, aware of the potential repercussions if the inhabitants of south London realised they were being sacrificed to protect the centre of the City.'

This book is fascinating and for anyone who is interested in the history and complexity of WW2, I suggest reading it.