Peter Sydenham who has long provided us with history of our site as his father was stationed here during the war has sent us an update about a memorial plaque and an account of a raid 75 years ago.
The 18th June 1944 incident at No 1 Balloon Command
On 6 June 1944 the D-Day invasion successfully landed in France. The German Air Force was no longer able to carry out the heavy bombing of Britain. People in London started to feel safe again. They could relax. However, Germany was able to start sending his first ‘V’engeance weapon, the V1 bomb or ‘doodlebug’, from launching ramps still out of reach of the advancing Allies. The first, of tens of thousands, of V1s landed in Britain on the 13 June. They targeted the London region. At its peak over 100 per day were sent. At 04:10 am 18 June, the Head Quarters hut of 901 Squadron took a near-direct hit by a V1 bomb. It was blown to smithereens leaving a large crater in its place. At that time its occupants were on duty or sleeping in bunks. These 2-tonne bombs had a blast radius of 400-600 yards. People and property close to it had no chance of survival, dying or being seriously injured by the blast or flying shrapnel. In this incident, it seems to be from official RAF records, that 10 persons were in that 20-foot long hut. My father, Corporal Henry Sydenham, told me later in life that of those people he was the only person to not be killed outright or to die in hospital on the days just ahead. He sustained a right leg injury when a 50mm round flat piece of shrapnel flew into his ankle, travelling half-way up the side of his femur bone. He said if he had not started to get out of his bunk he would have not been injured at all. It took years to heal satisfactorily. One person who was killed outright was not listed on Squadron’s Operations Record, his remains were eventually identified. Aerial photos taken of the site at the end of the war show a crater in the narrow road at a spot that is now in the Kidbrooke Park Allotments.A memorial to the No 1 Balloon Centre, and the 40 servicemen and women who gave their lives in service there, is being set up by the 75-year-old Barrage Balloon Reunion Club, in the Royal Aeronautical Society Heritage (RAeS) Award scheme. It is planned to be placed near the front gate of the Thomas Tallis School that is now built on that RAF Kidbrooke base.
They should not, and shall not, be forgotten.