Hitler's Rockets: The Story of the V-2s (39 page)

About the treatment of casualties the ministry was also reassuring. ‘There is’, its report concluded, ‘no doubt that casualty handling has much improved with experience and training and the number of deaths from shock have declined. . . . First-aid treatment of casualties and their removal from the site has generally been expeditious.’ There was, it suggested, only one ‘important lesson’ to be learned, namely ‘the necessity for summoning a sufficient number of ambulances in the early stages of a big incident’, when ‘the greatest number of free and lightly trapped casualties are found’. Still unsolved was that old problem of inadequate or duplicated records, as a result of ‘injured persons’ being ‘taken by friends or unofficial helpers to hospitals or surgeries’ or Form MPC 44, on which all statistics ultimately rested, being completed both ‘at a mobile unit and subsequently at a first-aid post’.

Few V-2s caused serious fires, but the red appliances and grey-helmeted men of the NFS were often the first on the scene when a rocket fell ‘because of their observation posts and their special training in getting away quickly’. With little fire-fighting to do, they had, the ministry acknowledged, ‘rendered most valuable service, particularly in quickly cordoning the site, in clearing roadways, dumping debris and furniture salvage’, and when help in rescue operations was required the firemen readily provided it:

In one incident this . . . resulted in the rescue of two people alive after four hours in a semi-basement under burning debris. The NFS kept the fire under control, avoiding flooding of the basement, and kept much of the heat and smoke from the trapped persons.

The rescue service had always had a distinct character of its own. Its work, the Ministry of Home Security reported, ‘has again been consistently excellent’. The service’s forthright, independent outlook is well conveyed by the report written by the Bermondsey officer in charge at the start of the major incident at Folkestone Gardens on 7 March, previously mentioned:
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At 0320 hours an explosion was heard and Supervisor gave orders for Express Party to go out. . . . We . . . went towards Old Kent Road, but were stopped in Rotherhithe New Road . . . by Mobile Police, who asked where incident was. On being told we were looking for it, they gave us information that it came from the Dock direction. We turned round and belted towards Red Lion and Plough Way, but at Crystal Bridge, Rotherhithe New Road, we were stopped again by the Police, who pointed the incident out by a fire. It was Deptford, so not wasting anytime we went up Bush Road, Trundleys Road, up Knackers Bridge and when we reached the top the incident was in front of us.

The Fire Brigade was there. The Supervisor asked a warden if the Incident Officer was there, but he replied ‘No’ and that he had lost his wife and three children in [the] flats. Supervisor got squad to work, not on the flats but the houses opposite, as there were trapped casualties. Going further along, acting as Incident Officer, called on firemen to give assistance, which they did. There were also police. Supervisor then ran back over bridge to Wardens Post, C.2. , in school and phoned Control where incident was. After phoning, supervisor hurried back to incident where he saw a Heavy Rescue lorry coming onto incident and this had a searchlight on the cabin which was switched on . . . this was a good thing. . . .

Supervisor told the Incident Officer that the Bermondsey Squad were already at work, and on being requested to remove blue cap so that no confusion would take place [i.e. with the incident officer, in his blue steel helmet] supervisor said he would go and help the squad he had working. On finding squad, supervisor was told to listen and a child was heard whimpering underneath a collapsed house. Tools, gloves and household shovels were sent for and the man was told to hurry. Supervisor gave instructions not to pull any long timbers out, no-one to get on top of debris, digging with hands and throwing debris out into the open. The baby kept quiet for a while, supervisor requested the little bugger to cry so as to get at him. While moving bricks, small debris, a voice said ‘Mind my face’ from the debris, this turned out to be the baby’s father. On being asked where he was, he spoke again. As there was no room where supervisor was working for more men to work, instructed another man to edge through broken door and scrape away debris into passage and be bloody quick about it, seeing as both casualties were right under a collapsed house. Supervisor spoke to the unseen man again, who said he couldn’t move at all. [Rescue] Party member was now in a crevice scraping away with his hands. After a time, by the light of hand torches, the man moved his head in an effort to shake dirt from his face. Party member was told to wipe the man’s face and cover same with triangular bandage to keep dirt off, as supervisor was still trying to get to the baby while giving instructions. While all this is going on, another man tries to get into passage to where other Party member was, in doing so he started to shake broken and hanging debris, this was promptly stopped by supervisor, saying to the chap ‘Come out, you bloody fool, do you want the rest of it down’, no arguing, out he came. Supervisor had now got to cane cot, the baby was quiet and also moving. Supervisor had been working in an awkward position, with an obstruction pressing into his abdomen (belly) and when reaching out to get the baby from the cot, supervisor suddenly retched or tried to vomit, immediately stepping to one side, gave instructions for the next man to take baby from the cot which was done by Party member C. M., Bermondsey Light Rescue. . . .

Officer of Deptford Light Rescue Party came to scene and said the crane would lift the top of debris, this was on the [adult] casualty, so Supervisor said ‘Take the bloody crane over to the flats’ as he was doing the job. Now the baby was out. Supervisor asked for pruning saw and cut away a joist which was not supporting anything to be able to get inside the debris.

The cutting was done, Supervisor then got through opening and down, and with lamp was able to see the man lying parallel with window, brick, rubble and masonry was still on top with a bed and bedding from top floor. This proved to be a good thing. After a while we got the bedclothes of the top floor bed, getting a man either end, and each man got hold of one side of the quilt, they were told to pull opposite ways, thus taking the weight from the mattress. Supervisor pulled these out and then the bed itself. The man was complaining of pressure. Supervisor had another look at what position the man was in, turning on his side, he told about six men, some of Deptford men and police to put their shoulders under the timbers that were sticking out through the bay window. This was also smashed down. Supervisor gave orders to lift carefully. As this was being done, supervisor observed another man standing on a joist, he was told quickly what a bloody fool he was and also that the joint he was standing on was the one that was pinning the man down underneath. The joist was lifted in continuance with the other timbers and the man was got out. Covered with blankets and put on stretcher he was sent to ambulance to be taken to hospital. He was asked for information about anyone else in the house, this was taken and as there were a lot of Civil Defence Services there, another squad of Deptford men was put on the house. Supervisor, after nearly two hours (and Party had attended 12 casualties), returned to Depot, after reporting to Incident Officer at 05.15 hours.

An equally vivid picture is provided by the diary kept of the sequence of events after a rocket had landed one Saturday teatime, 27 January 1945, in Battersea. Although the incident officer’s van arrived only twelve minutes after the explosion, several ambulances, NFS pumps and rescue parties were already on the site and within the next three hours he logged twenty-five further arrivals. They included more ambulances and rescue teams, a mobile crane, a searchlight, a gas-repair party, a window-repair lorry, ‘dogs and trainers’, a Metropolitan Water Board turncock, an incident inquiry point team, two mobile canteens and – always a sinister sign – the mortuary van. The detailed ‘Final Report’ which the incident officer later submitted set out, succinctly but comprehensively, how the afflicted had been aided and order restored to this embattled corner of Battersea.

The I.O. post was established in Usk Road at the junction of York Road. I contacted P.W. [Post Warden] L., who had before our arrival made the entrance of the Savoy Cinema, York Road, a F.A.P. [first-aid post] and loading ground and . . . it was arranged that he should continue there. Loading grounds were later established nearer the incident in Usk Road and Petergate. . . .

The information now gathered was that the centre of the incident was approximately 50 yards in the rear of York Road between Usk Road and Petergate, slightly closer to Usk Road. Between 15 and 20 houses had been rendered uninhabitable and 120 to 130 badly damaged. . . .

At approximately 16.30 hrs Wandsworth C.D. informed me that they had been instructed to consider the incident as a Battersea one, but were keeping a sub I.O. post in Petergate, this being a part of the borough boundary. . . .

At 16.30 hrs Column Officer J., NFS, reported with two pumps and two salvage tenders. He was requested, owing to the absence of large fires, to use his personnel in rescue and reconnaissance duties. . . .

At approximately 16.55 hrs I was contacted by the Town Clerk, who offered me additional services, but as the approaches to the incident were somewhat congested with vehicles of H.R. and L.R. parties, who were doing a most excellent job, I declined more of these but accepted the offer of a mobile crane. At about this time it was decided that there were probably five points where trapped casualties might be and the rescue dogs and sound location apparatus were sent for and arrived quickly.

The situation was now easing up somewhat; most of the casualties had been removed for medical attention. The police were efficiently controlling crowds and traffic and parking of vehicles had been organized, Ambulances, repair lorries and other vehicles which were not immediately required were parked in Wynter Street and York Road. At 16.55 hrs two Incident Enquiry Points were established by the WVS of the respective boroughs, one in the York public house at the corner of Usk Road and York Road, and the other in Petergate. The local Wardens Posts census cards were up to date and proved of great assistance. . . .

At dusk refreshment vans were in attendance and rescue parties continued work at the incident floodlit with army searchlights. . . .

At 19.00 hrs the incident had settled into a routine job, with three persons unaccounted for – Mr O. of 8 Usk Road and two boys who were known to have been in a wood shed in the rear of York Road shortly before the explosion, and the search for them continued. At 07.40 hrs Sunday . . . the remains of the two boys were found. . . . At 13.45 hours on Monday . . . Mr O.’s body was found. . . . The incident was then closed. . . . There were 17 fatal casualties and in addition 44 people were detained in hospital, 63 treated in the Out Patients Depts., and 7 treated at F.A.P. . . .

Everyone concerned carried out their duties in an efficient manner. . . . Once the initial chaos had been sorted out the incident ran smoothly.

The police were a feature of every incident and tended to take on the miscellaneous duties which every violent disruption of other people’s lives left behind. An RAF electrician, stationed in Nottingham, was much struck by the contrast between the indifference of his own superiors, who only grudgingly allowed him a single day’s leave when his house in Clapham was damaged, and the reaction of the special constable he met on the scene:

The constable had an incident chart and my house was in the ‘severely damaged zone’. He was most helpful. To my relief he said that if I gave him my name, service number, RAF station, he would telephone the station sergeant [near my base] who could contact my unit. . . . In the short time it took me to walk to the police station after I had left the constable . . . the police had found my RAF station telephone number way out in the wilds of Nottinghamshire and convinced the duty officer I needed extended leave.

‘As always, the WVS have given most valuable service of every sort and have done much towards keeping up the spirits of the public.’ This was the official ministry opinion of the contribution of the Women’s Voluntary Services for Civil Defence (to give them their full title), and it was one which thousands of bombed-out or shaken householders would have echoed. The mobile canteens which dispensed tea and sandwiches within an hour or so of a rocket’s landing were the most visible sign of the WVS presence, but there were others, less obvious, like the ‘visiting teams’ which in some areas systematically called at every house to see if they had any undisclosed problems. ‘These visits’, considered the male ministry reportwriter, ‘accomplish most when made in pairs, one single and one married woman’, the latter presumably being there to receive confidences unfit for spinster ears.

The centre of WVS effort, apart from the canteen, tended to be the incident inquiry point, which had made itself indispensable during the flying-bomb period. Some were on a large scale. One, kept open all night, required a staff of seven, while outside ‘a queue had to be formed,’ the ministry report commented, ‘attended by a mobile canteen. The IIPs were now given official guidelines:

They should be near the incident post but outside the cordon erected to keep the public away from the incident. A modicum of comfort for staff and enquirers is essential. The point should be under cover, with seating for enquirers. If possible there should be arrangements for providing tea for those who are waiting.

How effectively an incident inquiry point could become a little oasis of calm and compassion in a desert of death and destruction was observed by an American writer, who visited one in Bermondsey, set up in a shop opposite ‘a row of what had been pleasant cottages’: