High Explosive Bomb at St Leonard's Street

The attached Police Report was obtained from the London Fire Brigade records with their permission. No action was taken of the rescue. It was considered to be the thing to do as a professional fireman.

COPY Police Office,
Royal Albert Dock.
10th March 1941
To — The Chief Police Officer.

Sir,
IMMERSION — M.Korn
I beg to report that on the 9th March 1941 at about 8.30p.m. at No. 1 Warehouse, Royal Victoria Dock, Morris Korn, age 33, an A.F.S.Fireman No.2888 West Ham Fire Brigade, attached to No.23 Fire Station near Vernons Gate, was about to step on to the barge “FROME” to assist in extinguishing a fire caused by an incendiary bomb, when he missed his footing and fell into the dock water between the barge and the quay. Fireman Frappell who was on the barge heard a splash, and on looking round, found that Korn was missing. He jumped back on to the quay, looked over the edge and saw Korn in the water. He shouted “Man overboard”, and, lying flat on the ground, reached down and held Korn’s hand. Fireman Fisher, who was in charge of the appliance on the quay lay down beside Frappell and held Korn’s other hand. Together, both men tried to pull him from the water but were unsuccessful. A rope was then lowered and Korn held on to this. Once agtain an attempt was made to pull him from the water but without success. By this time Korn was becoming exhausted and told the others that he could hold on no longer. Frappell then asked for a line to be tied round him. This was done by Fisher and he was lowered into the water beside Korn. Another lione was lowered and this was tied round Korn’s shoulders by Frappell. With Frappell pushing from below, and Fireman and P.L.A.Fire Spotters pulling from the quay Korn was hauled from the water.
Both men were taken to No.23 Fire Station, rubbed down and wrapped in blankets. Frappell had fully recovered by the following morning, but although Korn said that he was not too bad he still seems a little shaky. There were six barges moored at this spot, three to the end of the barge “Frome” end to end, and liable to move in the wind. Korn admitted to me that if Frappell had not entered the water and tied the line to him he would have gone under and probably drowned. The rope dropped into the water had slipped through his hands and had almost reached the end when the other line was secured round his shoulder. Frappell is rather a stout man; his age is 45, and the lines used were the life lines that Firemen carry as part of their equipment, not much thicker than cord.
The thinness of the lines made it difficult to pull the men from the water and certainly appeared a little frail to hold a man of Frappell’s bulk. The water was some feet below the quay edge. A N.N.Easterly wind was blowing at the time which might have blown the barges towards the quay and so jammed the men between barge and quay. Both Firemen were fully dressed and were wearing rubber boots; these filled with water and weighted the men down. There is little doubt that Frappell saved Korn’s life.
An intensive air raid was in progress, incendiary bombs had been dropped and there was every likelihood of H.Es following. So, although Frappell had the line round him, if the barges had moved towards the quay, or bombs dropped near causing Fisher to Release his hold on the line, he would have been in a precarious position.
He said he is a fair swimmer but has not been in the water for some years.
I respectfully suggest that the action of Frappell be brought to the notice of the West Ham Fire Brigade for the commendation he so richly deserves.

I give below statements taken by me.

MORRIS KORN AGE 33 A.F.S Fireman No. 2888, West Ham Fire
Brigade, attached to No.23 Station, states;-

“About 8.30pm 9th March 1941 I was taking a hose from the quayside of No.1 Shed, to a barge on which an incendiary bomb was burning, when I missed my footing and fell into the water between the barge and the quay. Then one of my mates leaned over the quay and held my hand, and tried to pull me out. He could not do this and lowered me a rope. I could not pull myself up the rope and became exhausted.
Fireman Frappell was lowered on a rope and assisted me to the quay. If he had not come to my help when he did I should have gone under again. I feel reasonably well this morning.”
sgd. M.Korn.

CHARLES FRAPPELL age 45, A Fireman No.122, West Ham Fire Brigade attached to No.23 Station states;-

“About 8.30p.m. 9th March 1941 I was standing on a barge (The “Frome” owned by Whitehairs) extinguishing an incendiary bomb when I heard a splash and on looking round found that Korn, who should have been following me on to the barge, had disappeared. I shouted “Help — man overboard”.
I jumped onto the quay and saw him come to the surface of the water between the barge and the quay. I lay on the quayside and put my hand over the edge and he grabbed it. Then Fireman Fisher came up and did the same as me. Each of us holding a hand. We tried to pull him out but were unsuccessful. He then said he could hold on no longer. I asked for a line to be put round me and was lowered into the water beside Korn. Then another line was lowered and I tied this under his arm and helped to push him up while the others pulled him out. I am a fair swimmer but have not been in the water for some years. I feel none the worse for the immersion”.
sgd. C.Frappell
CHARLES FISHER No.088. Fireman in charge No.23 Station, West Ham Fire Brigade states;-

“About 8.30p.m. 9th March 1941, I was in charge of the appliance attending the fire on the barge “Frome” at No.1. Shed, Royal Victoria Dock. I heard a shout of “man overboard” from Fireman Frappell and went to the quay edge and saw Frappell lying on his stomach holding the hand of Korn, who was in the water, between the barge and the quay. I also lay down and held Korn’s other hand and together we tried to pull him out. This we could not do and a rope was lowered to him. He held this and we made another attempt to pull him out, again we could not. Korn then said he could hold no longer and a line was tied round Frappell and he was lowered into the water beside him. Another line was lowered and this Frappell tied round Korn’s shoulder and with Frappell pushing and myself and other firemen together with some P.D.A. men who had arrived, we got Korn out. Both men were taken to this Station, given a rub down and wrapped in blankets. They were fully dressed in full uniform and rubber boots. In my opinion if Frappell had not gone in korn would have drowned.
Sgd. C.Fisher

A.H.Smith.
Inspector.

Sir,
The above Police report on a very praiseworthy act by a member of the West Ham Fire Brigade is forwarded with the suggestion that Frappell’s action be brought to the notice of the Chief Officer of his Brigade.
(signed) F.Hall.
Divisional Inspector.
10.3.41

It is September 1940 and I am returning from Chrisp Street Market with my mother. I'm nearly seven and I've come back to London after being evacuated to Glastonbury during the 'phoney war'. It's a lovely warm evening and my mum is anxious to get back home with her shopping.

As we begin to turn into Brunswick Road, we hear the sound of gunfire - not unusual, as we live near the East India Docks and there is frequent gunnery practice. But then we hear the planes and the air raid sirens. ARP wardens are running about blowing whistles, shouting, 'Take cover, take cover!' We start running the last few yards home.

My dad is panicking and my nana (who speaks little English) is hysterical. We then all bolt into the Anderson shelter in the back yard, just as the first bombs start exploding. My Dad hates the Anderson as it's always full of spiders and he's scared of them. The noise is horrendous. Every time a bomb falls near, everything shakes. Above us there is the 'voom, voom, voom' sound of the planes. The ack-ack guns make a hollow booming noise and the Bofors make a rapid staccato rattle. It seems to go on for hours and then, suddenly, there is a pause, then the 'all clear'.

Stunned by the noise, we emerge. The house is still standing and doesn't seem damaged. We go out through the front door to see a scene which even now I recall as vividly as when it happened. The entire street is choked with emergency vehicles - ambulances, fire engines - all clanging their bells. The gutters and pavements are full of writhing hoses like giant snakes, and above... the sky. The sky - to the south, still a deep, beautiful blue, but to the north a vision of hell. It is red, it is orange, it is luminous yellow. It writhes in billows, it is threaded through with wisps and clouds of grey smoke and white steam. All around there are shouts and occasional screams, whistles blow and bells clang.

The neighbours stand around in small groups. They talk quietly and seem as dazed as us. Apparently most of the flames are from the Lloyd Loom factory down the road, which has taken a direct hit. The gutters run with water, soot and oily rainbows and the reflections of the fiery sky. Our respite does not last long. About 20 minutes later, another alert, we are back in the Anderson, and it all begins again.

The noise makes my knees hurt. When I tell my mother, she laughs and says it's growing pains. Maybe, maybe, but for the rest of the war; whenever there was a raid my knees always ached!

One evening my friends and I were playing along the road with a ball. We noticed that several people had come out of their houses and were talking together, then some more came out. It was a lovely sunny day but it was very unusual as some were crying, others just talking.

We stopped playing and went to see what was happening, thinking someone might have died. As we drew near, one of the men could see we were uneasy and put his arms around us and said "don't worry, nobody has died" but the news on the wireless said war has been declared. Some of the older people were upset because they had lost family in the last war - killed or wounded. We went to school and were told all that we were to do was not to wander off from our homes when playing.

When the planes came over dropping bombs it was frightening. Such noise - all our windows were blown out. My father covered the windows with boards of wood, so it was always dark so we had to keep the lights on all day. At night outside it was dark too as no street lights were on. That was so that the planes could not see what they were bombing. We were issued with gas masks. One day at school we were all given a letter to give our parents. It was to ask if our parents would like us be sent off to a less dangerous area. My parents said yes so I was sent to school with a change of clothes to be kept at school until arrangements were made for our evacuation.

We all had to take a pack of sandwiches. This same routine went on for about six weeks. Then one day we were told to keep our coats on, pick up our clothes, gas masks round our necks and we walked in rows of two's, all excited at this new adventure, marching off to the railway station. We did not know where we'd be going. Some of the children were frightened of going away, but the teachers were very kind and held their hand as they walked along. At the station the teacher called out our names and we got onto the train.

It took several hours before we got to where we were supposed to be going. Some of the children had fallen asleep, with one of their friends cuddling them. We all looked after each other and sang some songs. At last the train stopped. We had to go in two's again and marched off to a big hall. We were given drinks and sandwiches and told to keep close to our teacher and friends. We had arrived at last in Bath in Somerset. It looked so peaceful.

Then a lot of people arrived and we gradually sorted out to go with different people who would be kind enough to take us in their homes and look after us. This all took time as we all had to have our new address to be added to our teachers list and these people to sign their names and our names on a special register. Some of the king people wanted very young children to live with them. Some of them wanted children a bit older. One of the girls who lived down my road was picked out with me by a man and his wife.. We were asked if we would like to go with them and we went with them to 14 Walcatt Building, Bath. It was out of the busy area. It was a four story building, terraced with a very long garden with a vegetable patch, lots of flowers and some apple trees and a river running along at the bottom of the garden - it looked lovely.

Inside the first floor was a sweet shop, next floor an elderly aunts flat, third floor Mr Barrows and top floor our flat. Lovely bedroom, 2 beds, wardrobe, dressing table, window that looked out onto the street.

We soon unpacked and went downstairs again. By this time the shop had been shut. We had an early meal and then bath and bed.

We were taken for a walk around Bath and then for a walk by the river. Mr Barrow had a boat and I used to go out with him. I learnt how to undo the locks to let the water through till we could carry on again. We could not go to school until arrangements were made to slot us into ability groups, so we had about 6 weeks of helping out in doors, then off for picnics, blackberry picking, making jam, looking after our friends, We wrote home and were soon receiving letters from parents, brothers and sister. They were still alright but very tired with loss of sleep with the guns and the docks when the planes kept dropping the bombs, mostly at night. After a while things in London quietened down and by now I was getting on well at school working my way up in class and sport wise. I was getting very used to this new life when my mother came down to Bath for a visit and then told Mr and Mrs Barrow that she was taking me back to London, as it was much quieter. In a way I was a little bit disappointed as Bath was such a lovely clean place to visit with clean air. Mum and I traveled to London by coach back to my family. It was dark and rubble where houses had been knocked down by bombs and blast. But people were getting on with their lives in the day time but not many people ventured out at night - only those who had to work at night or went to the pub for a drink. It was very different. A lot of my friend had moved right away and I never saw them again. After a while the bombing started in our area again. One night there was a very big bomb dropped.

The next morning we made our way around to one of our friends, but there were no houses standing there, they had all collapsed. My mother turned me around quickly and we went home for a cup of tea.

I remember that my father had to walk home from work and he looked warn out. He worked at the Gas works with over 100 men and a lot of the men had been killed or moved away.

When we went to church on Sunday morning my father and i were in the choir. The parson has a talk with my father and asked if he would like me to be evacuated as times were worse now than ever. So I was sent away again, through the church. Again we were taken to a village hall. It was in Verwood in Dorset. I was soon picked out by a Mr and Mrs Brown who had a daughter two years younger than me and a son about eight years older.

They had a small farm with three cows and some farm land against the moor where some ponies roamed. I was Starlight Farm, Verwood,Dorset. I soon settled in and Eileen liked having someone to play with. Her big brother Victor was deaf and very nice. One week later I was in school and it was so different. I had already done the work they were doing in London, but they didn't do much sport as it was a small school with few facilities for sport.

Girls did not play much with boys. Some skipped by otherwise stood in little groups. At the weekends Eileen and I would take the milk and cream to the people who lived in the lane to the farm. At one house the man and woman were both artists and they had five kittens. I liked them. The mother to the kittens had got knocked down and the vet could not save her so we used to help feed these baby kittens and it took quite a while. Mr and Mrs Browns were about 10 years older than my parents and had their children later in life. One day they had a letter from my father to pay for my coach fare back to Victories Station. My father would be there to meet me and take me to Mount Bures to stay with him and my cousin Bertha. Mother would be traveling down with furniture. Phylis helping her two days later.

Father looked really ill. We walked down to the rectory, where we lived till we could find a bungalow to rent. Everybody soon looked a lot better.

Forty years later I visited Mr and Mrs Brown and took her a large bunch of flowers fro being so kind to me. Mr and Mrs Barrows had died several years before in Bath.

I was grateful for all of the kind people who took care of us, especially our teachers who visited us as often as they could at the school or in the homes we were at. They never went back to London anymore they moved down to Bath for good.

I was born in Prince Regent Lane, London E16 in 1933. My father, William Johns, managed a small grocery shop with my mother Olive assisting him and we lived over the premises. It was about half a mile from the Victoria and Albert docks and this was to have profound consequences when war was declared in 1939.

Things began to hot up in the autumn of 1940 when the Luftwaffe began their raids on London. The docks were a prime target and every night the family took refuge in the Anderson shelter in the garden behind the shop. Though only six-and-a-half at the time, I can clearly remember the nightly fall of bombs close by. One night in particular was different when a new explosive sound punctuated the crash of the bombs and the banging of the anti-aircraft guns sited in the recreation ground just up the road. An almighty barrage of a different nature made us wonder what was happening. The next day we learned that HMS Cossack had been moored in the docks and had contributed its gunfire to the assault on the enemy bombers. This was a tremendous morale booster to everyone.

As the Blitz reached its heights in September, it got too hot in West Ham and my father decided to move us to my aunt Rose's house in Aveling Park Road, Walthamstow. Even this got rather fraught after a while and the two families decided to pack suitcases and get out of London. They had no real idea of destination, but the men decided to get tickets from Euston and go to Bletchley. Why they decided this I do not know.

Suffice to say, we ended up at Bletchley railway station and my father, my Uncle Ernie Young and his teenage son Ken walked off down the road to find somewhere for us to stay. We were refugees in the truest sense. Finally, after a very long time, the men returned and told us they had found an old couple in Fenny Stratford who would give us lodging for a few days.

A long walk ensued and we finally reached the home of Bill Busler and his wife. The 'few days' extended to a couple of years for my family (my uncle and family returned to Walthamstow when the Blitz quietened down). My father commuted to the business in West Ham coming home at weekends, only to find one Monday morning that the shop had received a direct hit the night before.

My sisters were called up for war work. Marjorie, the eldest, ended up at the famous Bletchley Park working with the code-breakers whilst Eileen, my younger sister, joined the ATS and was stationed at the RAOC depot at Bicester.

Our war culminated in a most amazing coincidence. Marjorie's husband, George Alexander, was a Bombardier in the Royal Artillery serving for a time in Iceland. As D-Day approached his unit was billeted in the old West Ham speedway stadium just across the road from dad's shop.

One of George's officers, a Lieutenant Pepper, happened to say that he was short of cash and needed to cash a cheque. Although the stadium was sealed off, officers were allowed out at this time and George said to him 'I can help you there'.

He suggested he visit the shop at the top of the road and say to the shopkeeper (my father) that George had sent him. The cheque was duly cashed and dad told the glad tidings to Marjorie. Despite tight security George managed to wangle a pass out of the stadium for a brief but emotional reunion with Marjorie.

Not long after, the unit embarked at the docks for their journey to Normandy a few days after D-Day, landing at Arromanches Gold Beach.

This is on behalf of my father as he does not have Internet access.

Some Experience of the London Blitz, 1940

My name is John Davey. I was born on December 27th 1924 in South Moltom Road, Custom House, West Ham, and a couple of miles from the Royal Docks. In September 1940, on the Friday evening of the weekend the docks were first blitzed, I was sitting with my friend in his house. At about 7 p.m. there was a series of explosions and the shattering of glass. We ran into the road and saw at the end a flame that shot into the sky, seeming to light up the whole area. My friend and I and lots of others ran towards the fire.

On the way we passed our old neighbour calmly sweeping the broken glass from the pavement as though this was an everyday thing. We reached the end of the road and saw that the first house or two were demolished and several others damaged. It was then I noticed something lying on the pavement, covered up. I lifted the cover and saw my first ever dead person, an occupant of one of the demolished houses.

My father, who had worked as a stevedore in the docks until he suffered a head injury, played an active part in the rescue operations. It appeared that a couple of bombs had been dropped, the first hitting a gas main in the road behind the house facing the top of our road, the second hitting the houses. The plane was visible circling above the fire; the bombs had missed a nearby factory by about 50 feet.

Another friend, Jackie McCall, normally came home from work at about the time the bombs dropped. He was not seen after that day. His body was never found. A few months later workmen were repairing the roofs and a body was discovered on top of one of the gables. The blast had carried it there from the pavement below and it was assumed to be Jackie.

On the night of November 12th 1940 I was standing in our porch behind my dad and an old neighbour called Mr. Cicanowitz (Dutch and known as “Mister” because we could not pronounce his name) and his dog. It was a still night. Suddenly we heard the drone of a plane that dropped several flares, like a gigantic firework display. I asked my dad whether we should go to an Anderson shelter at another house down the road (our shelter was only brick built). He said, “Yes, we’ll go in a minute”.

The next thing I knew everything went grey and I was falling sideways. Eventually I settled on my side, trapped by the rubble of our demolished house. I was screaming abuse. My dad’s voice from somewhere near said “don’t worry son, they will get you out”. ‘Mister’ just called my dad’s name a few times.

After a while I heard voices above. They heard my shouts and the rescue operation began from then. I could see the stars in the sky through what appeared to be a small gap. I could hear the dog trying to find its way out and shouted up for them to see where it appeared. They saw him, giving them some idea as to where I was. I eventually shouted up to them to lower a torch, which they did, and was able to guide them to me.

The marvellous rescue workers toiled throughout the night. I was finally rescued after eight hours or so. Unfortunately, my dad, aged 41, and ‘Mister’ did not survive. They found a pocket watch on my dad, stopped at 8.45 p.m. My mother and younger brother were evacuated when all this happened. I was sixteen at the time but it still remains in my thoughts.

The bomb was evidently a 2000 pounder that landed just 50-60 feet from the house. I never heard it coming or explode – it is strange but true when they say that you do not hear the one with your name on it and I can vouch for that.