Send More Shrouds
Send More Shrouds
The V1 Attack on the Guards Chapel, 1944
Jan Gore
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright Jan Gore, 2017
ISBN 978-1-47385-147-4
eISBN 978-1-47385-148-1
Mobi ISBN 978-1-47385-149-8
The right of Jan Gore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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List of Plates
Enid and friends.
Cross-section of V1 rocket.
V1 hanging from the ceiling of the Imperial War Museum.
Rescue services.
Heavy Rescue Services.
The rescue effort.
Rubble and Birdcage Walk.
The rescue effort continues.
John Murray (Ivan) Cobbold.
Sidney Newbould and Betty Balegian.
Phyllis Roper.
Colonel Guenther.
Harold William Dods.
Agnes Moscrop.
Ida Thomson.
Major Windram.
Martin Bacchiolelli.
The Brookwood graves.
Dennis George Gibson.
Derek Weaver.
Gwen Le Bas Horton.
Rose Sheridan and her sons.
Nathaniel Turton.
Drumhead service.
Inside the Chapel, 22 June 2014.
The Bishop of Londons sermon.
The congregation and bishop.
Keith Lewis.
The band laying a wreath for the musicians.
Families after the service.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank all those connected to the Guards Chapel who have helped and encouraged me with my research, and who have given me information that has helped me along the way. Especial thanks to padres Kevin Bell and Bill Beaver: Kevin, for inviting me to become involved in the memorial service in 2014, and Bill, for encouraging me to write more for the programme, for facilitating access to records not in the public domain and assuring me my work would make a book. He then organised an introduction to a publisher; I am forever in his debt. I should also like to thank Joan Mallett of the Guild of St Helena who had worked with Jamie Glover-Wilson of Pen & Sword on publishing projects and was able to effect an introduction for me, via Bill.
My thanks go to the Guards Chapel Committee for all they did to make the service in 2014 such a moving one, and for all their help since then. I am especially grateful to Lesley Manchester, at that time secretary to the Senior Chaplain, for her unfailing help and good humour throughout our work together. She was pleasant and approachable, and able to remove obstacles when required while keeping an eye on the fine detail. It was thanks to her persistence that I was able to access a lot of material previously unavailable. I am also very grateful to Colonel Simon Vandeleur, regimental adjutant, Coldstream Guards; Colonel Conway Seymour, archivist, and Major Grant Baker, regimental adjutant, Grenadier Guards; Colonel Tom Bonas, regimental adjutant, Welsh Guards; Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Foster, regimental adjutant and Lance Sergeant Leighton Platt of the Scots Guards; and Colonel Timothy Purdon, OBE, regimental adjutant of the Irish Guards. Alan Cooper has been extremely helpful, approaching me after the service to give me some useful material and later being willing to respond to queries at very short notice; he has shared his expertise about Major Windram and the band of the Coldstream Guards. I also owe a considerable debt of gratitude to Keith Lewis, the last known survivor of the incident, for being willing to share his memories with me and for giving me permission to quote from his account of that terrible day in June 1944.
My thanks also to the Royal Voluntary Service (previously the WRVS) for giving me access to material not in the public domain; thank you to Matthew McMurray, archivist, and Mrs Alice Cleland, CBE.
Thank you also to Pen & Sword for your patience and encouragement, especially Jamie Glover-Wilson, Rupert Harding and Susan Last.
I am especially grateful to everyone who shared information with me. To Shane Duffy, of New Zealand, for telling me more about Olive Crooke, and to Tracey Leigh for her material on Kango hammers, and to her father Robert Leigh for information about Gordon Beningfields stained glass.
Above all, Id like to thank the relatives for all their help and support, and especially: Gareth Watson, nephew of Derek Weaver, for his memoir of his uncle; John Anslow for help and information about his uncle, Sidney Newbould; John Holden, for allowing me to quote from the David Gurney letter, and for information about his uncle Harold Dods. The Sheridan family for all their help and support. Tony Titcombe, for memories of his father; Narelle Morrow for information about her father, Chaplain Gordon Gladstone Wood; Michael Curtis and family for information about Hettie Ruthin Neilson and her son; Zena Carter for emails and photographs of Phyllis Roper; Barry Gibson for material about his father Dennis. Tom Gidley-Kitchin and his sister Penelope for information about their father, grandmother and aunt; Jenny Jackson Jones for information on Agnes Moscrop and help and support. John Coles for information about Dennis Hooper, and Tom Crozier for material about Annie Ellen Irving and family. Martine Fratoni for information about her uncle, Martin Bacchiolelli; Clarissa Mitchell for her help with the Mitchell family; Lindsey Nieuwhof for details about Alfred Bowyer. Barry Jameson, whose grandmother Phyllis died in the incident; Anne Smith, granddaughter of Alan and Edith Coleman; and Susan Willmott for telling me more about Diana Milton-Willmott. Robert Fairgrieve, for information about his aunt, Ida Thomson; Joanna Freeman for material about Gwen Gray Horton; Janet Wyatt for information about Mabel Maultby; and especially Katharina Miller for information on her grandfather Nathaniel Turton. Also Lucy Whitrow, daughter of the Reverend Ralph Whitrow, for sharing details of her fathers life and correspondence. I am so grateful to all of you for your help, and I apologise in advance if I have inadvertently omitted anyone.
