John
Born in Peckham in March 1932, John went to Leo Street School from the age of 5. He was eventually evacuated from the school on 5th November 1939 to a small village called Washington in Sussex, following the outbreak of World War 2.
John was 12 when he witnessed the horror of a V2 rocket hitting his local Woolworths in Newcross (reader discretion advised) on a busy Saturday afternoon in November 1944. He remembers how frightening it was, especially as his friends had invited him to go to that Woolworths shortly before…
27 Hatcham Park Road in Newcross, where John lived at the time of witnessing the terrible Woolworths V2 rocket attack a short distance away on 25th November 1944
John’s home in Hatcham Park Road (shown by the arrow on this map of bomb damage from 1945) was just an 8 minute walk from the Woolworths, which was hit by a V2 rocket on a busy Saturday afternoon November 1944 (shown by the pink circle to the right of the map). John remembers witnessing the huge explosion from the top of his street.
Map image from https://www.layersoflondon.org/ © OpenStreetMap contributors
John was 12 when he witnessed a V2 rocket hitting his local Woolworths in Newcross, just a short distance from his home. The site was eventually redeveloped and is now an Iceland supermarket.
John’s Mother
