I had finished a day's work at 'Ruthers' garage, and had just started down North Street when I heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of Mawney Road, north of Eastern Avenue.  Those days one naturally looked up and coming down towards me was what looked like an exceedingly large cylindrical object with what appeared to be a propeller rotating at one end.  It came at an angle from north to south and very fast.  I just ran to a fence which seemed to afford the only protection available.  I remember putting my hands over my head (a lot of good that would have been).  I heard it pass and then a thud somewhere in the direction of Parkside Avenue.  I didn't stop to investigate, just made a beeline for home. 

Now having read Peter Watt's book Hitler v Havering, what I had seen must have been a V-2 rocket motor with parts of the pipework attached and which I thought at the time was a propeller.  The rocket according to the book had broken up in mid-air.  The warhead fell in the centre of Mawney Road, on the corner with Forest Road.  Sadly there were 2 fatal casualties, 34 injured and 16 houses demolished.  The two fatalities are recorded as Lilian Hitchcock aged 59 of 235 Mawney Road, and Keith Jones aged 18 of 256 Mawney Road.

The frightening thing about the V-2 rocket was that one did not hear them coming until after the warhead had exploded.  Because of the speed of the rocket, the explosion occurred then the sound of the rocket travelling through the air.  Loud at first then getting fainter rather like an underground train leaving a station and disappearing into a tunnel.

The incident happened at five minutes past seven during the evening of 26 March 1945.  After reading of the time of the day I thought that this time could not be correct, because I saw the object coming out of the sky in reasonable daylight.  But then it 'clicked' - during the war era, double British time was introduced to allow farmers to cultivate fields, so even at 7pm it would have still have been fairly light.¹

This was my third near miss - the second occurred a month earlier at Fairholme Avenue.

Ray Smith, October/November 2000.

¹ This is one of three accounts of the same event - the other two being witnessed from Birch Road and from Mawney Road.