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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Contributed by 
Michael Coigley
People in story: 
Claude Dempster & Michael Coigley
Location of story: 
St Thomas' Hospital London
Background to story: 
Civilian
Article ID: 
A3623140
Contributed on: 
05 February 2005

I was a senior medical student living with my parents in Chislehurst.
One morning towards the end on the war I came off Home Guard duty at 6.00am and thinking it was too late to go bed, incidently we lived next door. I caught the early train to Waterloo and walked to the student's club.
There I met Claude and we decided to have a game of snooker. We went into the snooker romm and started playing but after a short time we heard the familiar phut phut phut of a V1. It was when the engine cut out you had to ;look out and this one did. The familiar swish of its slip stream followed so it was quite near. W went to the window - it was heading straight for the club so we got under the snooker table and shook hands. We must have looked quite ridiculous- a photo graph would have been interesting !.
Nothing happened and on looking again therte was no sight of the thing. That was lucky we said and at that moment it went off. An air current had lifted it along to the siding beside the York Rd exit from the station where it took the top of a bus at the bus stop and destroyed a few trucks on the siding.
A policeman came to casualty and told us that one of thesecontained a phosphorous compound which had sprayed a few people. This had to be removed as it would go on boring into the skin, but it was colourless and had to be detected. Out came the books and I have never forgotten, although I have never had to use it again, that a solution of copper sulphate turns it black. So we washed it all off. There were of course many other serious casualyies to deal with.

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V-1s and V-2s Category
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