70th Anniversary of Guards Chapel Bombing

[BBMmk2]

Today at 11am, 70 years ago, the Guards Chapel, received a direct hit, killing a lot of bandsmen and including the Director of Music. The band in question was the Coldstream Guards. Amazingly, the Scots Guards Band, came to their rescue from changing of the Guard. RIP

[BBMmk2]

I do hope you intended "changing" rather than "hanging".

Duly edited, thank you Bryn. This is quite a poignant anniversary for bandsmen.

[Richard Tarleton]

Today at 11am, 70 years ago, the Guards Chapel, received a direct hit,

...by a V-1 rocket. Just been reading about them in Antony Beevor's "D-Day", so I hope you'll forgive a footnote BBM

They began the week after the D-Day landings, and were launched from the Pas de Calais

One landed on the Guards Chapel, close to Buckingham Palace, during a Sunday service, killing 121 people. On 27 June, according to Field Marshal Brooke, a War Cabinet meeting finished "with a pathetic wail from Herbert Morrison [the Home Secretary] who appears to be a real white-livered specimen! He was in a flat spin about the rockets and their effects on the population..." Brooke noted in his diary that Morrison wanted the whole strategy in France to be changed [to clear the launch sites]. "There were no signs of London not being able to stand it [wrote Brooke] and if there had been it would only have been necessary to tell them that for the first time in history they could share the dangers their sons were running in France and that what fell on London was at any rate not falling on them. Thank heaven Winston very soon dealt with him". "

In fact since so many were falling short, the chief anxiety of the War Cabinet was that the Germans might target the D-Day landing beaches, where the invasion was in full swing, instead, and they did everything they could to encourage the Germans to go on targeting London. Double agents passed messages to Berlin saying they were causing panic, the British government and military would be forced to come to a compromise peace with Germany, etc. The last V-1 launch site in range of Britain was overrun by the Allies in October 1944.

[BBMmk2]

RicahrdTarltonm thank you very much. My memory didn't have enough information for me with great detail, but that was most helpful. Thank you.

[Pabmusic]

...In fact since so many were falling short, the chief anxiety of the War Cabinet was that the Germans might target the D-Day landing beaches, where the invasion was in full swing, instead, and they did everything they could to encourage the Germans to go on targeting London. Double agents passed messages to Berlin saying they were causing panic, the British government and military would be forced to come to a compromise peace with Germany, etc. The last V-1 launch site in range of Britain was overrun by the Allies in October 1944.

This book is about Eddie Chapman - a British spiv and safe-cracker in prison on Jersey, who volunteered to work for the Abwehr (as Fritz) when they invaded, who turned himself in on his first mission, working instead for MI6 (as Zig-Zag), and who kept up the pretence so well that he was awarded the Iron Cross for being Germany's best agent. He faked the blowing-up of the Mosquito factory at Harpenden so effectively (with the help of an illusionist and the Daily Express) that aerial photos of the 'damage' were used in propaganda by Goebels.

He was a key player in convincing the Germans that the V-1s were falling on target when they were actually falling short.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Agent-Zigzag-Wartime-Chapman-Notorious/dp/1408811499/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403133463&sr=1-4&keywords=ben+macintyre

[Petrushka]

I first heard about this from the notes to an LP of music played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards that I had back in 1968.

Apparently, 121 died in the tragedy. According to the London Encylopaedia: 'As the chapel crashed in ruins, the candles in the six silver candlesticks, a present from King George VI, continued to burn on the undamaged altar. The spse was in fact the only part of the building to survive'.

The Director of Music of the Coldstream Guards, among those who perished, was Major James H. Causley-Windram.

http://www.ww2guards.com/ww2guards/Guards_Chapel/Guards_Chapel.html

http://www.ystradgynlais-wargraves.co.uk/guards-chapel-biographies.html

[BBMmk2]

Many thanks for the information there Pet. Quite a tragedy then ofcourse the IRA killing those bandsmen in Hyde Park!

[Petrushka]

Here are the doomed men of the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Major James H. Causley-Windram.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcv-GvIPWo8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onPqK87SMQ8&index=3&list=PL039d-mowy65s3bEcQam70LjhaThTegV3