| Last updated : 26/4/2008 |
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| Croydon CR7 Thornton Heath, was badly battered during the V1 attacks.In total 15 Flying Bombs exploded in this fairly small district killing about 61 people. Thornton Heaths worst tragedy was on 1st July 1944 09.56 when a Flying Bomb exploded in Nursery Road. This killed 9 people and demolished 14 houses. There are several facets of the Thornton Heath bombings that are worthy of mention. Firstly, of the 15 V1's 10 struck in the 5 days between 1st and 5th of July 1944.Now, although this is only conjecture, it would seem that it is possible that all the missiles were launched from one site in France. It would also possibly indicate that the range setting of the V1 was good,even though the aim point was wrong. It is also interesting that the first missile did not fall until 1st July, most districts received impacts in the last two weeks of June. Now this could possibly point to the range of the launch site in question being reduced at this time because of the false intelligence that Britain had fed the Nazis that the V1's were overshooting. A further point about Thornton's Heaths suffering is the high death rate per missile,4.07. Thornton Heath is an outer London Suburb and equivelant areas such as Streatham or Upper Norwood had a much lower (1.88 and 1.00 respectively). The key to this is the nature of the housing of the area. Whilst much of Upper Norwood and Streatham had larger houses and areas of open space Thornton Heath was much more tightly packed with smaller terraced houses. In Thornton Heath 80% of the V1's resulted in fatalaties whereas in South London as a whole only 50% were fatal incidents. |
| V1's and V2's CR7 Thornton Heath |