Chelmsford & District National Trust Supporter Group

Report by Keith Otter

This evening we heard another fascinating talk by well-known local historian and former Headmaster of KEGS, Tony Tuckwell.

He told us that Chelmsford was an obvious target for bombing raids during World War II because it was home to industries important to the British war effort, including Hoffmans and Marconis. These were easy for enemy bombers to find. All they had to do was fly along the railway line from the coast to Chelmsford. Both factories were next to each other where the line reached the centre of Chelmsford, in New Street. A school in New Street was evacuated.

In other primary schools the corridors where the pupils hung up their coats were turned into safe areas by lining the walls with thick concrete. This could not be done in secondary schools because they had far more pupils so other provisions were made. In KEGS, for example, trenches were dug in the playing fields as a refuge for pupils and staff. There were two sizes of trench, one for the First to Third Forms (that’s Years Seven to Nine in today’s reckoning) and a larger one for the older pupils. These were filled in after the war. One of the trenches was rediscovered when a new Sports Hall was being built in the 1990s.

At the start of the war some Chelmsford families were evacuated. In the same period other families and children were evacuated to Chelmsford from both London and the Essex coastal towns. Some Chelmsford households were taken aback by the behaviour of the East End children billeted with them!

After several months of the “Phoney War” Chelmsford families started coming back. That was when the bombing began, exacerbated when Germany overran much of continental Europe and was therefore able to build airfields nearer to England.

Chelmsford did not experience the incessant bombing raids from which London suffered. In some ways this was more unsettling, as those living and working in Chelmsford did not know when the raids would occur.

Bombing raids on Chelmsford did cause considerable damage to the factories and loss of life. At one time there were particular problems when incendiary bombs were dropped because the telephone lines out of Chelmsford had been destroyed by enemy action, meaning that the local fire brigade was unable to ask for help from the fire stations in rural areas.

One historian has produced a map, based on local newspaper reports, showing where bombs fell during the raids. Tony said that in a way it was quite chilling because you could see the route the bombers took, following the railway line into Chelmsford, dropping bombs on and around Hoffmans and Marconis and then swinging round above where Parkway is now and releasing bombs in that area as well before flying back to their bases.

New Hall School continued in operation throughout the war as it was thought relatively safe due to its location, which was then a few miles into the countryside. One part was used to house patients from a London geriatric hospital. The mobile were put on the first floor and the bed-bound on the ground floor. During one bombing raid those on the first floor were moved to a safer place but a bomb caused the first floor to fall on to those on the ground floor, with consequent loss of life.

At one point a Heinkel bomber crashed on to the garden of the Bishop’s Palace in Springfield Road, killing the three crew members. The Bishop himself gave the three German aircrew a Christian burial.

At first the German bombers flew high, which made it difficult for them to spot their targets. They had to “guesstimate” when to release their bombs. Barrage balloons were no use against high-flying aircraft but were deployed to counteract bombers which flew lower, eg to take advantage of low clouds. One very successful bombing raid (from the German point of view) took place when a solitary bomber used the cover of low clouds to reach his target. Radar was good at picking up large numbers of incoming aircraft but not lone ones.

In the later part of the war Germany deployed V1 “doddlebugs”. Famously, when you heard a V1 engine cut out you knew it was going to land close to you.

The Germans had to calculate how much fuel to put in the V1s so that they would fall on the intended targets. They were usually targeted on London. By carefully placing stories, British intelligence persuaded the Germans that most of the V1s were overshooting. This had the desired effect of fooling the Germans into changing their calculations so that the V1s came down before reaching London, but that meant they landed in Essex!

Very late in the war the Germans started using V2 rockets. As with the V1s, there was no onboard guiding system so the Germans had to calculate everything before launch. One V2 landed on Hoffmans, destroying six weeks’ of the factory’s production of ball bearings and two weeks’ national production. Tony likened this to the chances of buying the winning ticket in the National Lottery.