80th anniversary of Dames Road disaster

Location of the Doodlebug hit on 27 July 1944

27th July 2024 marks the 80th anniversary of the Dames Road disaster - the deadliest air raid hit on Forest Gate during World War 11.

We have covered the Doodlebug bombing of the road - close to the Holly Tree - on this site before, notably here, when we were able to publish all the names of the victims of the disaster for the first time, and  here, where we published a detailed first-hand account of the day's events from the standpoint of a 15-year-old victim family member.

This article combines different perspectives from previous postings to provide a comprehensive account of the event to mark this significant local anniversary.

Cyril Demarne, who would later become West Ham's chief fire officer, was called to assist with the aftermath of the bombing. In his 1980 memoirs, he described the event as " the most horrific thing I have ever witnessed."

Contemporary press reports were significantly affected by wartime censorship imposed on newspapers, which was done to avoid adversely impacting civilian morale and to confuse enemy understanding of the outcome and locations of their V1 attacks.

The Stratford Express account of 4 August (see below) did not identify the exact location of the hit, stating that a "passing vehicle" was wrecked and that there were a number of fatalities, but only mentioned four people. None of this was false, but it certainly wasn't comprehensive.

First press report - Stratford Express - 4 August - vague

Other local newspapers took a further six weeks to publish fuller but conflicting accounts.

The Leytonstone Independent of 15 September reported that 34 people were killed and that the "passing vehicle" was, in fact, a trolley bus.

More accurate newspaper account - seven weeks after the raid, Leytonstone Guardian

The Walthamstow Guardian of the same date devoted a mere 24 words to the worst local bombing of the war when it reported: "At Dames Road, when a bomb fell within a few yards of a trolley bus, 41 people were killed and 24 taken to hospital."

After the conclusion of the war, each borough produced a list of the civilians who had died during the conflict, which was compiled by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. By scrolling through the lists produced by both West Ham and Leytonstone councils (the bomb fell on the borough boundary), we have been able to identify 34 dead - the same number as the Leytonstone Independent had reported - and listed their names, ages, and addresses. 

No similar lists were compiled for casualties, so we have no accurate assessment of how many may have been injured in the attack.

West Ham's book of civilian war deaths

It would appear that the family that was most affected by the disaster was the Blackmans of 323 Billet Road, Walthamstow. Three members were killed: Gladys (aged 34), the wife of Leading Aircraftsman William Blackman, and Jean, aged 10, and Wendy, aged 4, their children.

In October 2020, Sue, the granddaughter of William and Gladys Blackman, contacted us. She said that her grandparents also had two sons, Donald, who survived the attack, and William Jr. (Bill), who was 15 at the time and at work, therefore not in the vicinity of the Doodlebug hit.

Sue sent us an extract from her father, Bill's memoirs (he was 91 at the time) - What a lucky sod I am - which provides a detailed account of the day from his perspective. It can be accessed here.

Bill Blackman aged 15 - around the time of the death of his mother and sisters

Gladys, apparently, was in the habit of taking her children to see their grandmother in Manor Park every Friday afternoon. On the afternoon of 27 July, they were on a trolley bus going home via Forest Gate when the VI missile hit the vehicle on Dames Road.

When he heard the explosion, Bill was working at Wrighton's, a furniture manufacturer near the Crooked Billet roundabout. The firm was beginning to close down for the day, and Bill saw a "huge black mushroom of smoke and debris rising in the sky." Although he was used to the sounds of bombs exploding, he felt particularly uneasy about this blast.

V1 missile, of the knid that hit Dames Road

It was his normal practice to go home on a Friday afternoon and lay the table in preparation for his mum and siblings' return from their family visit.

He did this, as normal, on 27 July but became increasingly uneasy as time went on, and they did not return. After a while, a policeman knocked on the door and asked to speak to one of his parents. Bill explained they were not in the house, so the police left and went to a neighbour. After a while, the neighbour and police officer returned and told Bill that his brother had been injured in a bomb blast and taken to St Mary's hospital in Hackney.

Bill told them that Donald was with his mother and sisters that afternoon. The policeman and neighbour said they would go to the police station to get more details.

15-year-old Bil was left alone in the house for hours until the neighbour returned, ashen-faced. He threw Bill a cigarette and told him to light it to calm down. The neighbour then began to explain the fate of Bill's mother and sisters. "I can remember my brain seemed to shut down momentarily ... I seemed to be in this strange trance-like state for some time before suddenly everything came to life, and I realised what had just happened to me."

Gladys Blackman - Bill's mother, and victim

The neighbours offered Bill a meal and a bed for the night, but he refused both, preferring to sleep in his own bed, alone in the house. They did, however, look after him until his father returned from active service abroad, for which he has always been grateful.

Bill took a month off work, and it was several weeks before his father reached home. Bill describes himself as feeling “comfortably numb” through this time. He spent some of it, accompanied by different adults, travelling the country to explain to relatives the circumstances of the deaths. One of those visits was to his nan, who was in the pub when he called.

Jean Blackman - Bill's sister, and victim

One of Bill’s most painful experiences was having to identify the bodies of his mother and two sisters in the mortuary. He was shown his mother’s face, which only had a few scratches on it, but only some of the clothes of his two sisters.

Bill says he also visited his brother Donald in the hospital, “the only survivor from the bus of 70 passengers.”

Following the funerals of his mother and sisters, Bill described his life as “for probably several weeks just surviving on auto-pilot”. When he eventually returned to work, he was put on “light duties”, working alone in an office essentially as a gatekeeper/receptionist.

When his dad finally arrived home, Bill discovered that he had been misinformed and told that the whole family and their house had been destroyed by a bomb blast. 

This partially explains why it took him so long to return – he thought he was coming home to emptiness. An additional complicating factor, explaining the length of his homecoming, was that he was expected to make his own way and travel arrangements, unaided, in returning from the Egyptian desert.

The War Office made some amends by posting Bill snr locally so that he could return home each evening. Donald was in the hospital for 18 months, recovering from a serious injury before being sent to Switzerland for convalescence. 

91-year old Bill, in 2020

Production at Wrighton’s changed from furniture manufacture to aircraft production until the end of the war. Bill, meanwhile, survived into his 90s, writing a very moving memoir of the dreadful times he experienced after the Dames Road bomb.