Recollections of the Sandringham Road bomb
I was still in my teens in 1944 when the Doodlebug landed in Sandringham Road. It exploded with a huge bang and although we were living in First Avenue, Garston, we heard and felt it. The windows rattled and the curtains blew out.
My father, Montie Wilson, a First World War veteran, put on his Home Guard uniform (he was a sergeant in the platoon guarding Leavesden aircraft factory and airfield) and he said "Come on, you've been a Guide — we must see what we can do to help." So off on our bikes we went.
What a terrible mess! All the services, military and civilian, were there. I was given a sack and told to gather up what I could. After a time my several sacks were handed in and I called at the house on the corner of Windsor Road. One wall was leaning out and the people told me that their china and glass cabinet which had been against that wall had moved right across the room, facing inwards. Nothing was broken!
I only heard later of the dreadful casualties, as the blast had travelled sideways far up the road.
Photographs
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Montie Wilson (inset) with others at Sandringham Road bomb scene.
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Map
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View larger map |
Map with Sandringham Road highlighted.
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Indicates the junction of Sandringham Road and Parkgate Road, where the bomb impact took place.
Credits
Author: Carol Hassall.
Photograph: with kind permission of Carol Hassall.
[Added by Glen: 7:32pm 8 Aug 2009]
