THE ROCKET

The V2 Rocket on 12^th November 1944

If you drive into Nazeing along St Leonards Road up to the crossroads, then you will have passed by these houses. On the left is the turning for Tatsfield Avenue, then Tatsfield Houses (1 to 4). Next are two bungalows Lynton and Clovelly, followed by a pair of modern semis, then there is the very old house called Cutlands. You can just see the roof, which I have marked with a red arrow. You may not be aware of it, but just over 80 years ago this was a scene of utter devastation.

Google street view of St Leonards Road, from the entrance to Tatsfield Avenue looking towards the crossroads

12^th November 1944. This was a Sunday morning, and a devastating event for the village.

The ARP Warden, E J Carter from Waltham Abbey was at the 11 am service in the Abbey Church. In his diary he wrote: at 11.30 hrs a heavy explosion caused the north windows to creak.    The Abbey Church is 4 miles from Lower Nazeing Cross Roads. The explosion was also heard at  All Saints’ Nazeing Church and all around the village. Connie Cordell from the top of Back Lane recorded that the earth shook, even up here.

Area of devastation (circled in red) after the V2 rocket landed in St Leonards Road on 12^th November 1944

Mounds of rubble and devastation. The remains of “Clovelly” the home of Fred Sewell’s grandparents and “Lynton” home to the Rumsey family.  Cutlands in the background was also damaged.

In his diary Carter described the scene: With all the open fields nearby, the rocket had fallen in the one place where it could do most damage; clean in the middle of the road among a little community of houses.  ….    there came an impression of dirt and devastation, two gaunt chimney breasts pointing to the sky from mounds of rubble …  The crater yawned right across the road, huge boulders of clay mixed with pieces of macadam surface, and here and there a lump of kerb stone.  One side of the crater flamed from the escape of gas from the main which the explosion had shattered, while on the other side of the crater, a severed water main poured its contents into the gutters and the ditch.

He went on to describe the carnage and broken bodies, and the efforts of all those who had come to help   ……….A stretcher is carried by, with a tiny child, not occupying one half of its length laid upon it …..: an elderly woman wrapped in blankets and wearing a large black hat at an awkward angle.

A V 2 Rocket landed in St Leonards Road. View looking south, from what was left of the road

That tiny child was Fred Sewell. He hadn’t been allowed to play with his two friends Basil and John as it was a Sunday. They were playing football on the next-door drive at a house called Lynton.  Fred’s mother was feeding the chickens and was blown the length of the back garden. Young Fred was in the kitchen, under the table. His grandma was cooking the Sunday dinner. The casualties were taken to the Rookery (100yds or so towards the crossroads) which had been set up as a First Aid Post. Fred spent two weeks in hospital.

The story has a happier ending. Fred lived a long life, his family rebuilding Franwell in Tatsfield Avenue. He lived there with his family until his passing in 2018 aged 82. He was a chairman of Nazeing RAF for many years and supported the Hertfordshire Airfields Memorial Group.

Fred Sewell

Another friend of Basil and John was John Barrett, aged 8, who lived in Mulberries Farm on the other side of St Leonards Road. He would have been out playing with them if they hadn’t had a childhood tiff.  Instead, he was indoors with his sister, Kathleen doing a jigsaw. He sat on the floor with his back to the window; she was facing it. Their mother was collecting eggs in the farm yard; father was delivering milk around the village as he did every day. The blast caught Kathleen and she spent weeks in hospital and needed 20 stitches. Their house and farm buildings were badly damaged; the front door had been blown through the house and out the back door. On his return, their father thought they had all been killed. He found the bull was still standing quietly in its stall, the roof blown off and wreckage all around.

View looking north, Cutlands and Mulberries Farm in the background

John never forgot the sight of the bodies laid out in the farm yard, and the guilt of not playing with his friends that morning.  The bodies of his best friends Basil and John were never recovered.  Kathleen went to Teacher Training College and began her career teaching at the village Primary School. John learnt office skills whilst doing his National Service and worked for many years at the Dunlop Factory in Waltham Abbey. He designed the wooden Maxply Fort tennis racket and met many international tennis players over the years. He also captained the village Badminton Club. You can read more about the village during the 20^th Century in Seventeen miles from Town – The History of Nazeing Part 2 available from  Nazeinghistory.org/publications  for £10 plus post and packaging.

Kathleen and John Barrett at a family wedding in 1958

Ray Newton was 12 years old. He was climbing a tree with Robin Pallet (the young lad standing in the bomb crater at the beginning of the last blog) and Cyril and Hector Hall. Two evacuees, Billy and David King were nearby. 

In 2012 Ray reported that: Suddenly my field of vision was nothing but a wash of scarlet red, then total black. I did not hear or have any consciousness of an explosion. I found myself flat on my back on the ground below the tree and to my horror my body from the waist down was underneath an enormous chunk of the road. To my relief I was able to draw my legs out from under it. My clothes were hanging by shreds but in spite of lots of blood from minor wounds I appeared to be okay.

Billy, 12 and David, 7 were killed. Ray, Robin, Cyril and Hector all survived.   

Hector was only a few feet away from Billy and David who were cutting sticks out of the hedge. He was badly injured by shrapnel and blasted some distance. Unconscious for a week, he was the most severely injured casualty to survive.

Ray went on to described how he found and identified his dead Father, whose arm had been severed from his body.

Jim Lucas was 17 and walking the dog. The family believed life in a small Essex village was safer than living in London. He was about 100 yards away when his house, 2 Tatsfield Cottages just disappeared. His Mother Kate and siblings George and Ruby were killed.  His father Tom and sister Dorothy survived.

Val Braithwaite and her sister were evacuated from Walthamstow to Nazeing in 1944 to stay with their aunt and uncle in Tatsfield Avenue.  She had just returned home from an errand to the shop in North Street and ran all the way home, instead of dawdling, eager to play with a new toy, a Post Office Set she had just received for her 8^th birthday. Then the ceiling fell in and she, and the Post Office Set were covered in dust.

John Gervis reported that Nazeingbury (some 500m or so away) had received damage to windows and tiles. Houses at the far end of Tatsfield Avenue were also damaged.

Looking west: Tatsfield Cottages had all but disappeared, houses in Tatsfield Avenue, in the distance, were damaged.

Villagers rushed to give aid, including Joyce Martin’s father. He was a volunteer First aider at the Gun Powder Factory. He dashed off to render what help he could. She thought that the shock of what he found was a factor in his developing, soon afterwards, severe pneumonia from which he never fully recovered. 

Albert Nichols of The Briars, Nursery Road was an ARP volunteer, his daughter Jeanette Wardle was 17. She recalled how he went to help only to find his wife’s mother Ada Merrifield was one of the casualties in 1 Tatsfield Cottages. She was eventually dug out but died in the ambulance on the way to Hertford Hospital.

Roy Benwell, from Blackadder Cottages said his father was a St John’s medic and immediately went to the scene. Roy and his brother remember walking across the fields to the site a few hours later and the gas main was still a billowing fireball.

The blast propelled a metal nut into Robin Pallet’s neck, which was removed by Hertford Hospital, and always carried this reminder of his lucky escape with him on his key ring with a threepenny bit.  He would proudly show it to anyone he met. He lived a long life in the village working in the glass house industry. Hector Hall gave his life to working for the church. Jacky Cooper remembers him leading classes in Sunday School in the 1950s.   Basil’s family ran the village green grocers shop for many years on the corner of Hoe Lane.  John’s family continued to run the Crooked Billet for many years.

The nut from a V2 rocket removed from Robin Pallett’s neck on his key ring

The 10 victims from the V2 rocket disaster were buried together in the new churchyard at All Saints.

The rocket memorial at All Saints Church Yard, Nazeing

Those who died, and whose names are inscribed on the Rocket Memorial:

Basil Rumsey	aged 10 years	Lynton, St. Leonards Road
John Henry Weare	aged 9 years	Crooked Billet, Middle Street
William George King	aged 12 years	Franwell, Tatsfield Avenue
David Henry King	aged 7 years	Franwell, Tatsfield Avenue
Ada Rachel Merrifield	aged 71 years	1 Tatsfield Cottages, St Leonards Road
Kate Lucas	aged 44 years	2 Tatsfield Cottages, St Leonards Road
George William Lucas	aged 20 years	2 Tatsfield Cottages, St Leonards Road
Ruby Gladys Lucas	aged 12 years	2 Tatsfield Cottages, St Leonards Road
Amelia Helen Green	aged 35 years	3 Tatsfield Cottages, St Leonards Road
Charles James Newton	aged 42 years	Hill View, St. Leonards Road

There was no shortage of volunteers to come and help out when help was needed in the village. We will learn about the different branches of the Civil Defence Organisations in the next blog.