WW2 events

[Colin walsh]

Hi still can't log in with social network,had to re join,still ok now,for a while there it looked like aKyn job😊

[MartinR]

So that's what has been wrong!  I've been unable to view posts properly for about a week now.  Thank's for sorting it out, even if I had to log in again.

[Dave Smith]

Strange that no one has commented on the site being in maintenance mode for the past few days! Anyway, it's working for me now, thanks-again- Stuart.  VJ Day. On the old forum I posted that I remembered it well for, as an apprentice at Shorts seaplane works, we heard that there was to be a big bonfire in the evening to celebrate the final finish to the conflict between the Allies & the Axis. About 7 in the evening we arrived to find that it had been built on waste ground further along the esplanade, just past no.18 shop hardstanding. They'd used pallets & other wood initially & finished with a " wigwam", wrapped around by bitumus brown paper. Prior to the fire being lit, someone poured- petrol I suspect- on the central wood & then it was lit. It wasn't long before there was a mighty woosh up into the air, which unfortunately also blew sideways & 2 girls at the front were burned. Next we heard was an ambulance arriving at 18 shop & the girls transferred on stretchers. I'm glad to say that I heard later that it wasn't as bad as it might have been.

[Dave Smith]

Cosmo. The sphere on V1,s was a pressure vessel used to pressurise the fuel prior to it entering the jets that sprayed a fine mist- to better mix with the oxygen in the air. A spark plug ignited this mixture about 40 times per second to give the name " pulse jet" & give the never to be forgotten ( by me anyway- I can hear it now!) brrrrrrrr.

[mmitch]

Th other V2 demolished Fort house, General Gordon's former house (now Fort gardens) The tail pipe assembly was on display there for many years. Also I remember there was a sea mine next to it converted into a collecting box!
mmitch.

[Cosmo Smallpiece]

Bye the way, as V2's were generally unseen and unheard until they hit, how was it determined that this was, in fact, a V2?

I remember seeing some parts of a landed V1 or V2 on display in a museum recently. Some were football-like spheres made out of tape wrapping of some kind. I recall wondering how such parts could possibly have survived an impact, let alone the explosion?

[mmitch]

I remember my sister saying a girl she went to the nearby Whitehill school with was leaning on her front gate and just vanished..... But that was normal life in those days. A workmate had lost his mother  in a raid because she hide behind the wrong side of a wall but her husband was on the other side and lived.
mmitch.

[grandarog]

As a result of the 181 strike on Portland Avenue.I have found 4 Civilans Killed on the day. SMDash and P Keer at 81 EG Finney at 83 and DE Sprigwell at 80.
EM Fergusson of 84 died later at Northkent Hospital gravesend .
There may have been more deaths on later dates from injury sustained.
from a couple of books, one states 5 Killed and 16 injured and another states 5 lives lost and 84 injured.


Good article about the incident on this Link:= https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/my-parents-were-lucky-to-survive-216145/

[Smiffy]

Good site here listing all known V2 hits and information relating to them:

https://www.wrsonline.co.uk/

[grandarog]

There were 2 V2 Strikes in Gravesend Both Direct hits.
  mmitch's was Incident 181 at 16.39 Mon 13 November 1944, Portland Avenue.
the other was incident 281 at 23.45 Wed 29 November 1944"near the RN Sea School.

[mmitch]

I still live in the house in Gravesend. The V2 landed in Portland avenue near to Echo square. Several deaths and injuries and the damage reached the Echo. Our kitchen ceiling came down later just missing Mum and we are about 1/2 mile away.
mmitch.

[Dave Smith]

mmitch. That's interesting. Where did you live then & do you know where the V2 actually fell? I remember that in 1944 a V2 or maybe a V1 landed on a housing estate at Finsbury/Strood.

[Smiffy]

[MartinR]

If it was a true shock, either from the supersonic flight or from the explosion, it would indeed travel much faster than the sound of the explosion.  That's part of the distinction between a shock and normal waves.

[mmitch]

My Mum was standing by the back window of our house and looking out as a V2 fell about 1/2 mile away. She  felt a shockwave and the window bowed inwards before they heard the bang. My sister remembered the door key flying across the room. The ceilings of several house collapsed later. I don't remember it as Mum was only just pregnant with me then!
mmitch.