Royal Hospital Chelsea

In 1945 at the age of 16 ,I was employed as an assistant to an Installation Inspector of the Central London Electricity Co in the Chelsea Area .On the morning of the 3rd of January the same year we were walking towards our destination somewhere in Chelsea which took
us past the Royal Hospital in Royal Hospital Rd in the direction of Albert Bridge , I was a few paces behind Jim because I was carrying a testing instrument ( Megger ) and Jim was carrying a small leather bag containg a few essential tools. We were walking just outside the perimeter railings of the Hospital grounds when there was a massive explosion to our left followed immediately by dust and debris,all I could see was a succession of sparks which I thought was an electrical explosion in the pavement. In what appeared to be a few seconds the dust dissapeared and it became obvious that a V2 rocket had dropped on the Hospital.
There was not an air raid at the time and no noise of a bomb falling. I could feel something burning my left side which assumed was a piece of the burning debris on my overcoat .Trying to brush it off, I saw blood on my hand, but strangely no pain. Jim ,in the meantime had stepped back asking if I was OK, he didn't appear to be injured at all.
First on the scene was a Canadian ambulance from Tite street which took me to their emergency base in Tite St where they determined that I had a wound in of all places my left buttock ,I was put back in the ambulance and taken very quickly to St Georges Hospital, Hyde Park Corner to await attention. After a trip to the operating theatre I was found a bed in one of the wards, this is where I came out of the anaesthetic to find my parents trying to get some sense out of me.
My father had driven like the clappers from an american air base after ferrying
some americans from the Cumberland Hotel, near Marble Arch .
All seemed well until a nurse who was trying to clean me up discovered another injury on my left shoulder blade which I could not feel , so another trip to X-ray and operating theatre to remove another piece of shrapnel. This incident spoilt by first date with a girl named Pauline. At my request my father wrote a note explaining the situation and Pauline turned up at the hospital. Ten days later I left the Hospital to return home.
My father ,a coach driver employed by United Transport of Stockwell was ferrying americans from London to the air base during the day and at night being in the Home Guard
used to do a shift on the 3.7inch A.A.guns on Clapham Common .He was so dissapointed
because during that time they only claimed one kill. But the guns and barrage balloons kept the german planes at high altitude.
In 1952 Pauline and myself were married ,and are still together today.

Bill Dearing 21/10/2005

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