The following is an account of a V-1 'flying bomb' which landed in the gardens between Gorseway and Rush Green Road on 5th August 1944:

During the war years I lived in Rush Green Road.  On the morning that Ray remembers¹ I was on an errand to Prices Bakery in Oldchurch Road.  The warning sounded when I was somewhere between Elves cottages and the shops.  By the time I arrived at Sisselys cycle shop, I could hear and see the doodlebug.  Everything stopped; all around people were watching for it to pass over.  The engine cut out; traffic stopped; all the watchers were now lying on the pavement.  A large van had stopped just around the corner in Dagenham Road, the driver laying himself on the front seat.   I ran for the shelter of it, thinking the bomb was coming down on Rush Green Road, dived onto the kerb by the van and rolled under it.  I was just about under when the bomb exploded.  I looked out at the shop windows alongside the van; it seemed to take a long time for the blast to reach them, but they too exploded, showering the footpaths with glass.  I got out from under the van in double quick time!  I hadn't just escaped a bombing to end up being run over!  But to this day I remember how my legs were hard pressed to carry me to finish my errand!

Fred Chapman, July 2001.

¹ There is another account of the same incident from Ray Smith, who lived in Gorseway, two doors away from where the bomb landed.