London in wartime: a bomb explodes near Drury Lane in 1944
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I suspect what he saw was a v1, like a drone, rather than a v2 - there was some success shooting v1s down but a v2 descended at several times the speed of sound
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
I can't ask him anymore, but you're probably correct .
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Being up in a flimsy frame of wood and metal like a Wellington's in itself a daring and brave thing to do so whether it was a 1 or 2 yer fil imo courageous
Hollis
bloody furious
Does this photo have a date?
I often think the V bomb campaign gets overlooked by the Blitz - think about 9000 people were killed in London by them in 1944/45.
RAF had bombed the factory buliding them in 1943 at Peenemunde to try to delay production. USAAF in 1944..
I imagine the Blitz must have been terriifying - but the randomness of the V bombs is hard to get your head round.
I often think the V bomb campaign gets overlooked by the Blitz - think about 9000 people were killed in London by them in 1944/45.
RAF had bombed the factory buliding them in 1943 at Peenemunde to try to delay production. USAAF in 1944..
I imagine the Blitz must have been terriifying - but the randomness of the V bombs is hard to get your head round.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
the photo is posted a few places on the internet.
one suggests it's 18 june 1944, and landed in Aldwych - more here. but putting exact dates / times / locations to war time photos is not always easy - the government didn't want to make precise details public of what had landed where and when.
especially when they were feeding back duff information via double agents to say that the V1's had overshot london and landed in countryside north of london (the idea being to get them eventually to land in countryside south of london, but that's why south london copped a lot more of them than north london did)
but there were a few that landed round Aldwych - extract from the LCC's bomb damage map (from layers of london website)
each large circle represents a V1, the red squiggles above each circle is mine to make them a bit more obvious. the colours represent state of the building, from black (totally destroyed), purple (badly damaged) through red, pink, orange to yellow (slight damage)
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
Extraordinary image. I have never seen this photograph before, and if I had come across it randomly on the internet I would have instantly dismissed it as fake/ CGI/ AI. Everything from the composition to the behaviour of the people shown to the size of the mushroom cloud screams ‘not real’ to me. In particular the mushroom cloud, even though I’m certainly not a pyrotechnics expert. Breathtaking shot.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
That smoke and debris cloud wouldn’t have developed until quite a few seconds after the explosion. So, the group of men in the street behind the bus are all looking at it, grandad in the black suit on the right was probably deaf, so completely oblivious, and the girls getting off the bus were possibly inside when it exploded, so unaware of the column behind them.
PTK
Paul Kegan
"Grandad" may have heard the explosion, and then gone back to what he was doing, as he had seen such things only all too often.
My Mum told me that she was sharing a bed with another woman when the V2s were falling, and they would hide under the bed when they heard an explosion, and in the end they decided that there was no point.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
The V2s must have been psychologically terrifying even to battle-hardened Londoners after four years of bombardments. The very first supersonic weapon to rain on civilians, one that you can’t hear approaching, and not even acknowledged by your own government for many months. I wonder what must have gone through the minds of local residents who witnessed a nearby street being suddenly destroyed by an explosion seemingly coming from nowhere.
PTK
Paul Kegan
Yes, indeed. I think that such experiences informed my parents opposition to bombing distant lands that posed no military threat to the states doing the bombing.
Tehran and Baghdad suffered this kind of thing during the Iran-Iraq War, which took place from 1980 to 1988.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
The V2s were so fast, I've read some accounts that witnesses actually heard the roar of the rockets arriving after the explosion. Not sure if that's kosher but I've read it more than once.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
That actually makes perfect sense. They were supersonic weapons so the sound would reach you long after the shockwave from the explosion had.
PTK
Paul Kegan
I think it would be true, because they were travelling faster than sound.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Yes, it makes some sense but I was a bit sceptical because it wouldn’t be very far behind the explosion, and the noise of the explosion would last for quite a few seconds.
I looked it up again though and found this:
Description of a V2 Impact - WWII V2 Rocket Attacks
According to the excellent web site www.v2rocket.com A description of a V2 impact would be as follows. First, a whip cracking sound of a blast wave created by the rocket (moving faster than the speed of sound) bounces off of the point of impact just split seconds before the flash of impact...
www.wrsonline.co.uk
PTK
Paul Kegan
I could not follow this. It is confusing.Yes, it makes some sense but I was a bit sceptical because it wouldn’t be very far behind the explosion, and the noise of the explosion would last for quite a few seconds.
I looked it up again though and found this:
Description of a V2 Impact - WWII V2 Rocket Attacks
According to the excellent web site www.v2rocket.com A description of a V2 impact would be as follows. First, a whip cracking sound of a blast wave created by the rocket (moving faster than the speed of sound) bounces off of the point of impact just split seconds before the flash of impact...
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