The Shotesham Rocket

At the start of WW2 my family, Mum, Dad, Sister joan, and Brother Ron and I moved from the East End of London to Glengal Terrace in Peckham South London as the East End was Badly bombed, and during a very heavy raid during the Blitz our house was bombed, luckily we were all led to the local comunity shelter by the local ARP Wardens. I remember as we made our way through the back gardens all the trees and fences were on fire, we were told it was an Oil Bomb whatever that was, we went home in the morning to find our house destroyed and the Anderson shelter in the back garden with both ends gone and all the earth gone from the top. We moved to a house in West Dulwich near Crystal Palace, in those days you just found an empty house and move in but had to inform the local council. We all went through the Blitz in this house sitting under the kitchen table or stairs without a shelter, Dad was an ARP warden as he was on reserved ocupation making self sealing petrol tanks and Addis Lamps at a factory in Chelsea that made Lifts before the war.One Sunday in 1944 at six AM a V-1 flying bomb, Doolebug, came over and its engine cut out over head and crashed in the Norwood Cemetary behind the TMC factory that was behind our house, it demolished a section of the high wall in Robson Road and two houses, the remains of graves were spead over a great area. We were in our Morrison shelter at the time but Dad crouched in the corner with his helmet on and said "I think this is our lot", The house was badly damaged but we were unhurt just covered in dust. We then went to live with an aunt at Dagenham Heathway. One day a V-2 rocket crashed on a school air raid shelter nearby, luckily it was empty as there were no warnings with Rockets, and they were becoming more frequent, so us kids were asked if we would like to be sent to the country again, we had been sent to Doset during the phoney war but came back, we said yes and were taken to Liverpool Street Station put on a train clutching our cardbourd boxes with our Gas Masks and some personal belongings and sandwiches and taken to Norwich. We were lined up and put on rickety old buses and taken to the village of Shotesham about fifteen miles away, there we were met by Ladies, sorted out and the three of us were placed with people who chose us and were taken in an old Ford car to the far end of the village to there cottage. we were upset at first and wanted to refurn home but we settled in after a while, we were well looked after. However three kids in the house was a bit tight so my brother and I were asked if we would stay with a Mr and Mrs Money who lived in a little house behind the church on the small hill near the stream at the other end of the village by the road juntion and the road to Norwich. Mr Money was a retired policman but was in the Home Guard, he had a Lee Enfield rifle with a clip of bullets locked in a cupboard, also a double barrel shotgun. The toilet was down the garden called the Thunder Box, as was a well with a pump and a barrel, under the lid of this barrl were a few big Slugs and we were told not to move them as they kept the water pure. They had a flock of Geese that chased us and a Golden Retreaver dog that aways cams running when Mr money blew his silent whistle. We enjoyed life there and went to the little school next to the church. We learnt how to catch rabbits, helped to grow veg in the garden, feed the chickens, and helped the farm workers in the fields picking crops and with the harvest, we led the cows in to be milked and drank the milk straight from the cows after it was put through the cooler, it was very creamy. We picked Carrots brushed the earth of and eat them, no spraying then just pure Organic. Mrs money made jam from Marrows, Plums, apples, Pears, Blackberrys, and any fruit at hand. She also made wine from Elderberrys, all this done on a black iron stove using wood as fuel. A favourite was Rabbit pie or stew that were shot or snared by us and Mr Money. One day we were ill from eating elderberries. Now and again a duck or goose would be cooked. This house had no gas, electric or mains water, the only lighting was from a highly polished oil lamp that was lit with by Mr Money in an almost religious ceremony at night. The whole house smelt of Lavender with bags of it everywhere, and was spotlessly clean, shoes left at the door ect. We also collected Hazel nuts, Rose Hips, Cob nuts, wild Apples, Pears, Plums, all growing wild. We played in the Bec, the stream nearby. Just up the lane there was a sawmill where we bought for a penny some wood and nails to make model boats to sail on the Bec. When our parents came to visit us they could not understand us as we had picked up the Norfolk Lingo. We were well cared for there. On Friday morning the 6th of October 1944 at 9025 hrs, we were in school when a V-2 Rocket fell in a wild orchard on Glebe farmwhere wher only a few days before we had been collecting apples, about a hundred yards behind our school, the church, and our house had some windows blown out, and in our class two girls were injured and one of my shoes was blown off. Its hard to describe the noise and our ears were ringing for a while. The church and our house had some damage, luckely the church was empty and Mr and Mrs Money were not at home. We were all lined up in the playground and not allowed to leave until the Home Guard arived to deal with the aftermath. The church tower was suspect and forty two houses were damaged. All day the army and police came and went to the bomb site and finaly in the late afternoon we were alowed back to our house, it was quite badly messed up, but Mr money soon cleaned and patched it up so it was habitable. In the evening we were allowed to visit the crash site, the orchard was no more just stumps of trees, the crater was about 40ft round and 15ft deep and slowly filling with water from the Bec that ran nearby. The whole area smelt the same as after a raid during the Blitz, a smoky smell. and was a sorry site. I found a piece of what I thought was cycle chain and a sprocket and was told the Germans used scrap iron in there rockets as ballast, but I have since learnd that this was part of the guidence system. Most afternoons the B-17 Bombers flew over the village returning from there raids over Germany, very low and some with engines stopped and smoking, many had holes in wings and tails its a wonder they kept flying. Some times the aircrew threw out chewing gum wrapped in paper from the waist gun positions and we would run to find it in the fields. One day all of us kids were taken to Cromer for the day in an old coach, and on the way we saw a bomber do a belly landing in a field, it stopped and all the crew got out. At Cromer we could only go on a small piece of beach as it was mostly covered with barb wire and I think it was mined. I went back to Shotesham a few years back and found the bomb crater, the church and the house are still there, and the little bridge were we caught tiddlers and frogs, a few more houses have been built on some of the fields that we worked in but not much has changed. Mr and Mrs Money are buried in the church graveyard and I was told after much research that there son was killed in the war, but not sure of this. The Allied code name for this V-2 Rocket was BIG-BEN, and the incident became BIG-BEN 56, ie. the 56th V-2 to fall on Britain. This Rocket was launched from a site in Rijs Friesland, Holland, during the operation Market Garden. This was one of 44 V-2s aimed at East Anglia Norwich and Ipswitch between the 25th of September and the 12th of October 1944. The Germans feared that there V-2 sites would be cut off or captured so they moved to other areas making London out of range. This crew the Lehr and Versuchs Artillerie Batterie 444 were forced to launch towards the East Anglia area. These Rockets took 3 minuets from launch to landing and this one was reported lifting off by a bomber crew at exactly the time reported. On the 6th of November 1944 a USAF P-51 Mustang fighter plane crashed near Shotesham Mill in fog, and on the 1st of April 1945 a USAF B-24 Liberator Bomber from Old Buckenham USAF Base crashed here on a test flight the four crew tried to bale out but only one survived. I am telling this story as a tribute to the people of Shotesham and especially the Mr and Mrs money who looked after us in the war. The information .RE. the Rockets I obtained from the Flixton Museum in Norfolk, But I was there when it landed.

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