大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Epping Forest District Museum on behalf of Fred Sewell and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

extract from oral history interview:

I was only seven at the time. My father was at Church, the local congregational Church. My mother was feeding the chickens in the garden. I was with grandma. They say I was very close to grandma, she thought the world of me. I was in the kitchen with her when the V2 dropped. We didn't hear it coming, there was no sound, no noise. The house came down on top of us. We were buried. We were dug out, I don't know how many hours later, but it must have been perhaps five or six hours before they found us, the rescue people.
My first recollection and I can remember it now; I came to on the stretcher, being carried across mountains of rubble. That was all that was left of grandma's house! I can remember looking to my right. Where the road had been there was an enormous crater with an enormous flame. That was the gas main alight. And a huge column of water, which was the water main burst. Looking to the left I can remember the nearest house, which was quite a way away, looked just as though someone had driven a tank through it, there was a complete hole through the house. Our house and the adjacent ones were completely flat, apart from the chimneys, just the chimneys stacks were standing. Ten people were killed that day, quite a few of them children...anybody who was outdoors, never stood a chance.

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