London: Bethnal Green tube disaster memorial unveiled

A memorial has been unveiled to the 173 people who died in one of London’s deadliest single disasters of World War Two.   

On March 3, 1943, the BBC reported a 300 bomber raid on Berlin, and Londoners braced themselves for retaliation.   As sirens sounded, people headed for the shelters.   Then 500 yards from Bethnal Green tube station (pictured), a new battery of anti-aircraft rocket launchers opened fire.

There was a rush for the steps leading down to the station, and close to the bottom, a woman stumbled.     Others fell over her, and a deadly crush began.    Altogether 173 people were suffocated or crushed to death, including 62 children, and another 100 people were injured.    In fact, no bombs fell on the East End of London that night.

A survivor who was 8 at the time, said at today's ceremony that it was 'fantastic' to see the memorial finally unveiled 73 years after the event. He spent nine months in hospital after suffering injuries to his spleen, legs, neck and arms.

For more, see London's Disasters from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis. 

East London Disasters

Thank you to the East London History Society for inviting me to talk to them last night on 'East London Disasters'.

There was a good turnout, with some fascinating stories from members of the audience: two men who had been working at King's Cross underground station on the night of the fire, and a woman whose mother had been caught up in the Bethnal Green tube station disaster of 1943.

That was one of the disasters I covered in the talk, along with the Barking flood of 1377, cholera, the Princess Alice, the Forest Gate school fire of 1890, the HMS Albion launch disaster of 1898, the Silvertown explosion of 1917, Ronan Point and the Dudgeon's Wharf explosion of 1969.

A great time was had by all!

http://www.mernick.org.uk/elhs/

7/7 bombings memorial vandalised

While mourners and survivors prepared to mark today’s ninth anniversary of the London bus and tube bombings of 2005, vandals sprayed the 52 steel columns which commemorate the victims of the attack with slogans such as ‘4 innocent Muslims.’

Royal Parks staff cleaned off the graffiti before the event began. There is one column for each of the 52 who were killed by four Islamist suicide bombers a day after London won the contest to host the Olympic Games of 2012.

The then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, described it as an attack on ordinary Londoners – ‘black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old’. And the names of the victims reinforced his message – Adams, Ciaccia, Gunoral, Ikeagwu, Islam, Rosenberg etc.

The radical imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was said to have inspired the bombers was killed by a US drone in Yemen in 2011.