I discovered that my Great Aunt, Winifred Alexandra Peters (nee Wootton) had died during a WW2 Bombing raid in Poplar in London. Having a keen interest in Military History, this obviously piqued my interest and what transpired was a five year research project into what happened and how my Great Aunt sadly lost her life.

This is the account of the Bombing of the Old Palace School in St. Leonard's Street, Bow, London, during WW2 and the sad loss of 32 Firemen and 2 Fire Women who were tragically killed during this raid. This is still today, the largest ever loss of life for The Fire Brigade, at one incident, in the History of the service.

To give some background to the night’s events, during the 1930’s the Government started making plans to cope with aerial attacks in the event of War. As the nation’s capital, London was a natural prime target. Dockland warehouses packed with highly combustible oils, grain and timber were clearly a risk and the narrow maze of streets, provided an easy path for the Fire. It was obvious a large number of Firefighters would be needed to prevent London becoming little more than a smoking ruin.

The answer was to expand the regular Fire Brigade by forming an Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS). By 1939 approximately 28,000 men and women had joined the AFS.

The London Fire Brigade and the 66 smaller Brigades in the Greater London Region, were organised into five Districts. For each regular station area, an average of six sub-stations were set up, staffed by the AFS, with a regular Sub-Officer in charge. Garages, filling stations and schools, empty since the evacuation of children, were all commandeered for use as temporary Fire Stations.

The Old Palace School in Poplar in 1941 was an LCC Board School consisting of four stories, much like many of a similar design that remain today. During the Second World War, on the day that the Fire Service was mobilised, it became a sub-fire station, 24U, under 24 Brunswick Road.

The night of April 19th/20th was a Saturday and Hitler’s birthday. In celebration, Reichsmarschall Goering had launched an attack on London intended to be the heaviest so far. One thousand and twenty-six tons of high explosives and a hundred and fifty-three thousand and ninety-six incendiaries are estimated to have been dropped on the capital that night. The sky was overcast and low cloud and drizzling rain, made targets difficult to identify, so the heavy bombing was scattered over a wide area. One thousand four hundred fires were started.

By midnight the situation was bad enough in the area around Poplar and further east, in West Ham and Walthamstow, for calls for assistance to be sent south of the river. Four crews from Beckenham were standing-by at Woodside Fire Station, just outside Croydon. They were ordered to Station 24 Brunswick Road. Stopping briefly at West Norwood Fire Station on the way, they arrived at Brunswick Road, just after 1am and were given tea and biscuits before being directed to the Old Palace School, to wait for further instruction. There, along with crews from Hackney and Homerton, the men from Beckenham were mustering in the playground, when at 1.53 am the school received a direct hit from a parachute-mine. The bomb penetrated the roof of the school building and fell down the stairwell, at the bottom of which was the watch-room, where two auxiliary firewoman, Winifred Peters and Hilda Dupree, were on duty. They were killed instantly. Most of the Firemen waiting in the playground were caught in the blast from the bomb and were already dead, when almost simultaneously they were buried by part of the school which collapsed on top of them. Fire broke out in what was left of the building.

By the morning the fire was out and the business of digging for the injured and dead had begun. First to be recovered were the women from the watch-room, including my Great Aunt, and their bodies were laid on stretchers on the pavement. Later that morning Hilda Dupree’s sister, Joyce, hoping to avoid the distress for her parents, was sent by her family to find out what she could about Hilda. Little more than a girl herself, in her mid teens, she was confronted by what she described as complete devastation and confusion. Some of the men had also been recovered by the time she arrived and they were laid in a line in a space that had been cleared in the playground, ready to be identified. When Joyce finally found someone to ask about her sister, she was shown what was left of the blue vest and she was able to confirm that one of the women was almost certainly Hilda.

Digging carried on with rescuers working in shifts and until a body was found and identified, a casualty could not be pronounced dead and so while families waited, recovery went on for almost a week. Of thirty-two men and two women who died there, all but one, Station Officer Sinstadt, were auxiliaries.

They say that serendipity plays a part in Family History. Two weeks after my Great Aunt Winifred Alexandra Peters sadly lost her life here, my mum was born and she was named after her Aunt, “Winifred Alexandra Wootton”.

My research into this incident has now continued and I have built a website dedicated to the memory of every firefighter that sadly lost their life on that fateful night. I am writing a detailed biography for all the 34 firefighters and would like to reach out to family members of those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for their Country when it was needed the most.

The website can be found here:

https://oldpalaceschoolbombing.com

If anybody is connected to any of the firefighters and can help to tell their story, then I would love to hear from you.

Thanks

Paul Chiddicks

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