Number 16 – Autumn 2020 CHATHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY Medway Chronicle 'Keeping Medway's History Alive' The Blitz and the Battle of Britain: The Medway Towns during World War II ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Ordnance Street ● Fort Bridgewoods ● Short's Factory Newcomb Diary ● Grafton Avenue ● Hawthorne Road 1 CHATHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY meets at St Stephen©s Church, Maidstone Road, Chatham, ME4 6JE on the second Wednesday of each month except January and August. Doors open at 7:15pm and the meeting starts at 7:30pm. News and information about Chatham Historical Society is available on the website: www.chathamhistoricalsoc.btck.co.uk Officers of the committee President Vacancy Chairman Len Feist Hon Secretary Catharina Clement Hon Treasurer Barry Meade MEDWAY CHRONICLE is published by Chatham Historical Society. Editor Christopher Dardry Contributors as credited throughout the magazine. Views expressed by contributors do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Society. Copyright remains with the authors. The Editor welcomes articles for inclusion in future issues of the Medway Chronicle. Please submit text and images in electronic form by email to [email protected] or on paper to the editor at any of the society©s meetings. (The editor prefers email.) The Medway Chronicle is produced with the financial support of MEDWAY COUNCIL. Front cover: Mr Steven Foy, a survivor of the Ordnance Street bombing in December 1940, standing beside the Memorial Plaque. 2 Index The Battle of Britain......................................................................................................................................4 The Newcomb Diary......................................................................................................................................6 Chatham’s Blitz..............................................................................................................................................9 Ordnance Street Memories...........................................................................................................................11 Chatham Bombs...........................................................................................................................................12 Hometown Hero: The Secret Life of Roy E. Hardy, Esq.............................................................................17 The Chase, Chatham:A German plane crash 15th September 1940............................................................29 The V1 Rainham railway incident on the 16th August 1944.......................................................................32 Pobjoys & Short Brothers............................................................................................................................35 The Fallen Eagle..........................................................................................................................................38 Grafton Avenue Wartime Memories............................................................................................................42 Grafton Avenue............................................................................................................................................44 Attack on Station Road, Strood on the 2nd March 1944.............................................................................45 Wickham Street, Rochester..........................................................................................................................48 Hawthorn Road, Strood bombings: An account of memories and brave acts..............................................52 Gillingham Raids of 26-28th August 1940..................................................................................................55 Message from our former President, Brian Joyce........................................................................................57 The Editor always has the last word............................................................................................................57 3 The Battle of Britain by Brian Joyce After Britain evacuated its troops from Dunkirk and other French ports and a Franco-German armistice was signed, Hitler issued several ªappeals to reasonº, urging Britain to make peace. He was ignored, so the Germans reluctantly prepared to invade in ªOperation Sea Lionº. To help safeguard their ships and troop-carrying barges, German air superiority over the Channel was vital. From 12 August 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked RAF airfields, supply lines, aircraft factories and radar stations: what Churchill was to call the Battle of Britain had begun. There were 53 major attacks on airfields during the next four weeks. For example, Eastchurch and Detling RAF stations were hit, the attack on the latter killing 68 people including its Commanding Officer. RAF Manston and nearby Ramsgate were targeted, and at the end of August there were repeated raids on Biggin Hill. Aircraft were destroyed and airfield infrastructure severely damaged in these attacks, but superhuman efforts by ground crew and others soon restored much of their operational capacity. The RAF and the Civilian Repair Unit patched up damaged aircraft at the average rate of 160 a week. A third of the aircraft assigned to Fighter Command during this period were salvaged planes fitted with cannibalised parts. Meanwhile the Ministry of Aircraft Production under the dynamic Lord Beaverbrook was organising the construction of an average of 63 Hurricanes and 33 Spitfires a week. The Spitfire remains the iconic fighter of ªThe Battle of Britainº, thanks to its aesthetic design and the praise heaped on it by its pilots, although the larger and slower Hurricane outnumbered the ªSpitº by a ratio of 3:2. People were encouraged to donate money to so-called ªSpitfire Fundsº, the idea for which originated in Jamaica. Towns and employers set up these collections and were then entitled to christen a specific plane once the target of £5000 (less than half of the actual cost of a Spitfire) was reached. JL Lyons the caterer named ªitsº plane The Nippy after the nickname for its waitresses, and the Kennel Club christened theirs The Dog Fighter. Supposedly to facilitate the construction of these aircraft, civilians were urged to donate aluminium household goods at collection points run by the Women's Voluntary Service. However, the utility of such hardware was debatable, and it 4 remained possible to buy aluminium goods in the shops. The intention of this campaign could well have been to boost morale by encouraging donors to believe they were contributing to the war effort. Fighter Command's problem during the Battle of Britain was not so much a scarcity of aircraft as a shortage of pilots. Despite their training period being eventually slashed to a mere two weeks (or perhaps because of it), the RAF lost pilots faster than they could be replaced. Between July and October 1940, 481 pilots from Fighter Command were killed, were reported missing or taken prisoner. While many fighter pilots conformed to the breezy public-school stereotype, they were augmented by lower middle and working class ªSergeant Pilotsº from the RAF Volunteer Reserve which had been created in 1936. Neither should it forgotten that a fifth of what Churchill dubbed ªThe Fewº were non-British. Many were from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and across the Empire. Others were from Europe; 145 Polish pilots and 88 Czechoslovaks took part in the Battle of Britain, for example. Ground crew and others were recruited from Britain's Caribbean possessions. Historians disagree as to why the Luftwaffe switched its attentions away from airfields to major cities and industrial centres from early September 1940, but it certainly enabled the RAF to reorganise and repair itself. The Battle was far from over though, the week of 7 to 15 September being the most perilous for Britain. Battle of Britain Day is commemorated on the latter. By then Luftwaffe losses were running at 25%, which was unsustainable. Autumn and rough seas were approaching; on 20 September, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion for the time being. The RAF had earned Britain a reprieve which, as it turned out, was permanent. The diplomat Harold Nicholson could not foresee this when he wrote to his wife Vita Sackville West after the crisis: ªI think we have avoided losing the war, but when I think how we are going to win it, my imagination quailsº. These sentiments were probably shared by most of the British people. 5 The Newcomb Diary A few years ago Chatham Historical Society was given permission to make a replica of an original diary written every day during the years of the Second World War by George West, company secretary of a navy tailors, hosiers, hatters and shirt makers in Chatham High Street called Newcomb©s. This replica of the "Newcomb War Diary" is dedicated to the memory of Mr West, the Newcomb and Paine families, and all Medway people ± both service personnel and civilians ± who lived through the events described in it. Newcomb©s opened for business in 1854. After the original shop was demolished when the Sir John Hawkins flyover was built, the business moved along the High Street to the corner of Medway Street. Mr Gerald Newcomb is still trading as Penguins Dress Hire. The replica was paid for by Chatham Historical Society and a generous donation by the late Mr and Mrs W. Paine, and has been available to view at public events and libraries in the Medway Towns. The Paine family ran outfitter©s