Chesham Bombed By German Raider!
There was only one occasion when Chesham was bombed, leading to casualties. This took place
on October 20th, 1940, when a lone German bomber dropped a stick of bombs along Germain St. from Gooding's smithy to
the old Victorian school which had been pressed back into service on the outbreak of war. Fortunately, the bombs fell during
the night and the school was closed.
The Bucks Examiner's front-page report on the attack is reproduced below. Reporting restrictions at the
time meant that no location for the raid could be given, other than a 'Home Counties town'. The
government believed that giving precise locations for German raids would help them establish the
accuracy of their bombing.
Blackout penalties
Many Chesham residents must have thought that the blackout restrictions were both a waste of
time and an unnecessary inconvenience. In October, 1939 a motorist visiting from Southall was fined
a rather hefty £5 (about £175 today) for 'driving a motor car with a brilliant headlamp' (Bucks Examiner).
However, it seems that the authorities had relented a little by June, 1940. Elizabeth Steele, of Weedon Lane, Amersham,
was fined just £2 for travelling with both an unauthorised headlamp as well as an unscreened one. Perhaps,
by this time, fears of mass German air raids had somewhat diminished. Events in September were to prove
that those fears were well-founded.
A couple of months later, Mabel Culverhouse of Blucher St. was fined £1 (£35) for allowing a candle light to
be seen through her blackout curtains. It would have to taken a particularly eagle-eyed German pilot
to have spotted a candle light from 20,000 feet!
Air Raid Shelters
On June 28th, 1940, the Council decided to build six air raid shelters to meet the requirements of people
'in emergency'. The Council recognised that these would be insufficient to meet the needs of the
entire population but the townspeople were expected to stay in their own homes in the event of a raid.
One of the reasons given - logically enough - for the relative lack of provision was that 'It is
unlikely that Chesham will be the target for deliberate and sustained attacks from the air...'
Less reassuringly but all too familiarly, the Council also authorised 'tenders [for their construction]to be invited and
lowest accepted as soon as possible.'
The Balance
In May 1945, the Sub-Controller for Area No.5 (Chesham, Beaconsfield, and Amersham), WG Garrett-Pegge
wrote to the Examiner summarising the impact of enemy action as follows:
- the longest air aid alert was 13 hours in December, 1940
- there were seven major incidents which involved the destruction of houses and fatal or severe casualties
- two hundred and seventy-nine bombs fell on the area
- five parachute mines (these were much bigger than conventional bombs and were designed to explode
on impact or with a delayed fuse. Unlike normal bombs which could bury themselves deep into the ground
before exploding, the full impact of a parachute mine's blast was felt above ground level)
- twenty-five incendiary bombs
- eight flying bombs (not stated whether these were V1s or V2s)
- of all these, 45 bombs fell on the Chesham urban district, killing nine people.
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