大象传媒

E.D.Siggins personal experience of the V2 Bombing

It is Friday the 16th February 1945 I had finished work for the day and caught the trolleybus home, it was going to be a frosty night by the look of the sky. The war was slowly coming towards the end and I looked forward to doing a bit of work on some wooden toys, Leslie, Peter and I were making for the other smaller members of our family, we tried to make our own, as you could buy very little in the shops, assuming you had the money in the first instant.
The house we lived in was a terraced one and at one time had been used as two flats each with it鈥檚 own kitchen. We had the use of the upstairs kitchen as a workshop, it had a sink and water supply and a gas stove, handy for heating up the glue pot. We had between us already made a model of a steam train from wood, with a cotton reel for a chimney, it was painted dark green and red, the only paint we had. It looked quite good to us at the time, but we were now on to something else and having a lovely time in our makeshift carpenters shop. As long as we never made too much noise and cleared up the mess afterwards Mother didn鈥檛 mind and it was only for 2 or 3 hours in the evenings.
We eventually got the call to get ready for bed, cleared up and did just that, after hanging up our prize possession, a new hacksaw, bought from Woollies in Leeds for 5 shillings and sixpence, two weeks pocket money, (I still have that saw to this day). Leslie, Peter and I slept in a double bed on the ground floor, the three of us piled into this, to be closer to the air raid shelter, in the highly likely event of buzz bombs coming in the night and to be able to give a hand to the smaller members of the family, to get them quickly to the Anderson shelter in the garden.
It was the time of the V.1 flying bomb and V.2 rockets, they each carried approximately 1 tone of explosive warhead. You never heard the rockets coming, until it had hit and exploded, they travelled faster than sound. We were late into bed that night, around 11.o鈥檆lock, Dad had been away on a few days trip, working up north I believe. Irene had a bedroom upstairs and Mum slept in the front bedroom downstairs, together with the three younger members of the family, Betty Anne aged 3 years, Stanley and Jimmy in cots. At about 11.30pm I heard Dad come home and asked Mum, who had just gone to bed, if she wanted a cup of tea, as he was going to make one and have a sandwich. He then walked down to the kitchen at the back of the house, the next thing I knew was waking up, trying to turn over, I found I could not move. I remember thinking I must still be asleep and thought if I shouted I would wake myself up, so I did, as soon as I opened my mouth it filled up with dust and grit and I started coughing and spat it out. Still no being able to move, I had the feeling that my head was pointing down, with my feet going upwards, it had been silent up to now, but then I started to hear people crying and felt what could only have been Les and Peter lying across my legs, my feet seemed to be wedged against one of them, they were struggling and crying and as I began to realise that something had happened and that we were trapped underneath rubble of some kind, they by now I could feel, were really struggling hard and still crying. I started to talk to them and told them not to cry, as someone would find us and get us out, they still cried and I continued to talk to them and tried to give them some encouragement. I must have been in an air pocket and so could breathe, but could taste the dust as I opened my mouth. I had realised of course that we were trapped underneath the house, I had heard muffled rumblings and thuds. I continued to talk to them and after a while I could feel their struggles getting weaker and then cease altogether, still I continued talking to them, but they were silent and did not move. I think I must have gone numb by now because I could not feel anything, but it was very hot, I re-call, I called out to the boys now and then, but there was no reply, just a muffled silence.
I remember getting the feeling that perhaps they were dead and if so, it would be my turn next, I remember being curious about this and wondered what it was going to be like, strangely, I was not afraid, only curious. I don鈥檛 know how long this went on for, I remember seeing or imagining I saw a face staring at me, it was an old face, with greyish type hair and a pallid look, but the eyes I seemed to stare into were extra large,like saucers, wrinkled and empty, there was no expression in them at all, there was nothing behind them just a void and emptiness, it was strange, but I was not afraid. I could only put this down to the fact that I鈥檇 had a crack on the head, or perhaps my imagination was running riot at the time, but to me it was real. After a while I heard muffled voices coming from above and pressure on me as if someone was walking over me, so I started calling out again, there were a few rumblings sounds and they came nearer. Then I heard a voice say 鈥渉ere鈥檚 one鈥�, a couple of minutes silence, then 鈥淗e鈥檚 gone鈥�, then 鈥淗ere鈥檚 another鈥� then 鈥渉e鈥檚 gone鈥�. I then felt the bricks and rubble being pulled away from my head and saw the dark night and how bright the stars were. As I took in great gulps of cold, sweet, fresh air, I heard a voice say 鈥済ive him a shot of morphine鈥� and I was freed and lifted out and onto a stretcher. I was feeling a bit drowsy, but opened my eyes and saw that what had been home was now a big pile of grey dusty rubble. There were people in dark boilersuit like clothing and tin hats, kneeling and moving about the debris. There were searchlights and spotlights and other hand held lamps, I closed my eyes and felt myself being loaded into something that sped along and opening my eyes at some stage and seeing a clock hanging on a wall, which gave the time as 3.30am. I found I was lying on a table on something in hospital and someone gave me a mouthful of tea, which was very sweet and drunk from a cup with a spout like a teapot on it. I was then violently sick, bringing up something like mud into a kidney bowl. I woke up in bed next morning, underneath a cage like structure with a blanket over it, in Whipps Cross hospital.
The rocket came down at 11.45pm and it took six from my family and two cousins who lived in the street behind. Twenty five people died there that night.

What Happened After The Rocket Exploded

I did hear from my sister Irene, what had happened to her, a few years after the War had ended.
She told me that all she could remember was waking up to find that she was lying on top of the slated roof of the house, and looking up towards the sky at the stars .The roof it appears, was lying on top of the rubble of the house she has no memory of how she got there, but she told me that she remembers getting up and walking off and across the rubble and de鈥檅ris into the road and was found walking down the middle of Crownfield Road staring straight ahead of her dressed in her nightgown, where she was found by rescue workers who placed a blanket around her. She was unable to utter a word for almost two days afterwards. But was recognised and taken home by relations.

I was also told that my Mum had been trapped underneath the rubble and had gone through to the cellar, and the ARP, said it was going to be difficult to get her out as there was a great danger of the rubble collapsing on top of whoever was trying to dig their way in to her. They would have to leave her there and come back to her later, when they had more help,, in the meantime, they would have to help others. I was told this by my Aunt and Uncle who it seems had sat and waited at the bomb site until everyone had been accounted for

They also said that some soldiers had come from the army camp on the other side of the road, to help rescue the people trapped under the rubble. It would appear that one of these soldiers removed the rubble with his bare hands and dug a tunnel down to my Mum with his two mates holding on to his legs while he went in head first and found her. He took the dead baby from her arms, and then pulled her out. They said that there was a danger of the rubble collapsing on top of him while he worked, but he refused to give up until he had pulled her clear. The family found him a few days later and made him a gift of money they had collected. He was a bit embarrassed by this and was reluctant to take it, but was eventually persuaded to do so, as it was a token of the Families gratitude.

While all this was going on I was in Whipps Cross Hospital, where I had been taken the night before , I had some cuts to the head and a few stitches but no broken bones. I was very fortunate to get away so lightly, it must have been the bedclothes and blankets that protected me when the house collapsed. My Uncle Jim Banham was the first one to visit me, he came two or three times
And each time he told me that Mum and Rene were okay and doing well, but never mentioned the others, I knew that Les and Pete had died and came to the conclusion that the same fate had probably overtaken the others otherwise he would have spoken about them. So it came as no great shock when he finally did tell me that they were all dead. I already knew by instinct.

After about a week I was transferred to Chase Farm Hospital at Enfield, I stayed there about a week and was then discharged. My Uncle Jim Banham came to collect me and brought a new suit and shoes and other items of clothing, supplied by the Government, as all I had to my name was the shirt I had been pulled out of the debri in and which had been cut off me in the hospital . My Uncle Jim was on sick leave from the army, he had been on the landings at 鈥楽alerno鈥� in Italy, with the Coldstream Guards and been shot in the shoulder by a sniper in a church tower.

He took me to see my Mum in another hospital, Which I think was in Winchmore Hill, When I saw her we both burst into tears, I was so relieved to see her, she had an enormous bump on her forehead, looked like the size of an egg We never had Counselling in those days, to help people over the trauma as they do today, it didn鈥檛 exist. You just went back to work. And got on with it. There was no other way.

Addendum

At the end of the war, the total number of dead in the family were as follows:
My Father, James Edward Siggins aged 40
Brother Leslie Derek Siggins aged 11
Brother Peter John Siggins aged 7
Sister Betty Ann Siggins aged 3 陆
Brother James Siggins aged 16 months
Brother Stanley Siggins aged 7 weeks

Also Killed, cousin Ivy Parr aged 20 years
And her sister Doreen Parr aged 9 years
They lived in the house that backed on to ours in Crownfield Road.

These were all killed by the same V2 rocket on the night of 16th.,February 1945

(Frederick Parr) Ivy and Dorens Brother was killed in the fighting in Burma, with (Wingates Chindits) he was aged 21.

Stanley Bowyer, was killed in the fighting in Holland in 1944, aged 19, and is buried there. Total number of Dead 10.

A Memory from my Aunt Jess from the First World War

In Shandy Street, was the local parish church, St Faiths. At the front of the church was a war memorial to the men of the parish that lost their lives in the First World War. My Aunt Jessie told me on more than one occasion, that when this was being planned, the vicar, or one of his sidekicks called on her Mother, my Grannie Bowyer, to ask for some money to help pay for the memorial. Now my Grannie, had been left with 13 children to support on an Army pension, Grandad having volunteered to fight and been killed, Grannie told the vicar or his representative that she could not afford to give anything as there was no money to spare, not with 13 kids to support. on the Army pension.
She was finding it a struggle to manage as it was. So, they left his name off the memorial, the old Aunt was very upset about this, and often spoke about it, her not seeing her Dads name there every time she passed the spot. Well, that鈥檚 what she told me. And I believe her

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