Mapping the Underground Written by Pam Preedy. On the 10th January, 1863 the Metropolitan Railway Company opened the first urban underground railway in the world. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon via six intermediate stations, using a steam locomotive. By 2024 there were 272 stations on eleven different lines stretching into the London’s suburbs as far as Amersham, Uxbridge and the five Heathrow Terminals to the west; Richmond, Wimbledon, and Morden to the south; Upminster to the east and Epping, Cockfosters, High Barnet and Watford to the north. The question…
Category: WW2
Nursing the Casualties on the D-Day landing beaches
Nursing the Casualties on the D-Day landing beaches Written by Pam Preedy. The night of 5th June 1944 saw the start of the Allied Invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. During the first day of the D-Day landing there were some 10,000 casualties. A medical support system under the Royal Medical Corps, was quickly set up in France. It included dressing stations, field hospitals,…
Demobilising after World War 2
Demobilising after World War 2 Written by Pam Preedy. On the 8th May 1945, a ceasefire was called, and soldiers of all sides in Europe laid down their arms. Effectively World War 2 in Europe was over. Three months later on August 14th, 1945 VJ Day was announced: Japan surrendered. War was over. Figures vary, but roughly five million British servicemen and women waited to be demobilised and returned to civilian life; my father among them. Demobilisation took about 18 months to complete (June 1945 to December 1946). It was…
An Airman’s Life in India, WW2
An Airman’s Life in India Written by Pam Preedy. A Land of Jackals, Snakes and Mosquitoes Some of the “Life” which our boys are seeing on active service is described in a letter which A/C1 Gilbert Attwood has written from a wireless unit in India to his mother in Lincoln Road, Sidcup. He says:- “I am very well and have just returned from a five day trip to a location right out in the jungle, where I carried out practice out practice duties under surroundings which will in future be,…
Staff-Sergeant J.W. Filby
Staff-Sergeant J.W. Filby News has been received that Staff-Sergeant J. W. Filby, eldest son of Mr and Mrs J. Filby, 11 Turpington Lane, Bromley Common is among the missing in Singapore. A native of Bromley, he was educated at the Church School, Bromley Common, afterwards going to the Beckenham Trade School. He joined the East Surrey Regiment in April, 1933, and went to the Far East in 1938, going first to Singapore and then to Shanghai with the British troops, he returned to Singapore, and later went to Malaya. The…
Women to Help Home guard
Women to Help Home Guard Casualty Service Training More volunteers wanted in Bromley Arrangements have now been completed for the training of women to assist with the Casualty Services of the Home Guard in the Bromley area. It is not intended that these women shall go out to attend to casualties in the fighting positions, but that they shall staff shelter points in selected houses to which casualties will be brought to await removal by ambulance to hospital. As, under invasion conditions there may be delays in procuring evacuation by…
Cross Country Run, 1942
Air Training Corps take part in Cross Country Run A.T.C. in Hard Test Forty-two members of the Bromley Squadron of the Air Training Corps took part in a cross-country run at Hayes [Bromley] on Sunday morning. It was organised by Flying Officer W.M. Ogden, who is in charge of the sports side. The course was a four-mile one, starting from the top of Station Hill by the fountain, then going across the Common to Croydon Road. along to the Fox at Keston and Leafy Grove then down the hill to…
Mr David Waite in Singapore
Missing in Singapore David Stanley Waite was the son of Harold & Margaret Waite of 22 Woodlands Way, West Wickham. He married Margaret Greenhalgh in Bromley in 1934. After studying at the London University School of Journalism, he worked for several years in Fleet Street, and was for some years on the staff at the Kentish Times. In 1935 David left England for Japan where he joined the Straits Times as a sub-editor. He was then only 25 years old. He wife Margaret, joined him in Singapore and they had…
Night’s Heavy Blitz – April 1941
Night’s Heavy Blitz – April 1941 This report describes the aftermath of a heavy night of bombing on the town of Bromley in Kent on 16th April 1941. Due to government censorship of newspapers at the time, no exact location is given, other than a South-East residential location, but we now know this location to be Bromley, St Peter’s and St Pauls’ as the parish church which was destroyed, and the furniture depository being Dunn’s of Bromley which was located on Market Square. Heavy Bombs and Incendiaries in a residential…
Prisoners of Singapore (WW2)
Singapore Prisoners of War During World War II, following the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese military held some 50,000 Allied Soldiers, predominantly British and Australian in a Prisoner of War camp in the Changi area. During the first few months there was little news, then came the reports of the missing. Finally, after months came reports of men being held as prisoners of war. Personally I found it very upsetting. The first reports came sometimes over a radio broadcast or in the form of a postcard. In…