Events & exhibitions

Docklands at War - 1941 air raids

The Luftwaffe timed their attack to coincide with a very low tide on the river so there was little water for fire fighting.  2,200 fires raged from Hammersmith to Romford and 1436 people were killed.  Parts of West Ham resembled an abandoned ghost town and at least 40% of housing in Stepney was damaged or destroyed.

By the summer of 1941, the air raids became much less intensive as the Royal Air Force began to win the control of the skies over south-east England.

However, enemy action led to food imports falling to half their pre-war level, and the government imposed new food rationing.  Tinned meat, fish and vegetables were rationed first, then later in the year, other food stuffs like dried and tinned fruit, rice, tomatoes and peas, breakfast cereals, biscuits joined the list.  Soap, chocolate and sweets were rationed in 1942, and the use of petrol for leisure purposes was prohibited.

Bread was not rationed during the war – though there were many complaints when white bread was replaced with wheat meal !
 When the West India Docks were bombed in the early part of the blitz, warehouses containing around 75,000 tons of sugar were destroyed in a massive fire.  In the days that followed, teams were sent to shovel the mess of syrup and rubble into casks and dispatch it to refineries.  About  61,000 tons of it was recovered for human consumption.

The port itself never ceased to operate throughout the war and, indeed, it played a valuable part in both the defence of London  and offensive operations.  During 1941 seven iron and steel gun-platforms, known as ‘Maunsell Forts, were constructed on the river and sunk in position in the Thames estuary to deter enemy bombers.  These were so well built that a number of them are still standing.

From 1942 onwards the port was involved in the preparations for the eventual liberation of Europe.  Hundreds of Thames lighters were converted to carry supplies and equipment for landing on the coast of France on D-Day.  Many of these were crewed by Thames waterman, recruited into the Navy for ‘Special Combined Operations’ for the duration of the war.

To ensure that the liberation forces had enough oil and fuel, two flexible pipelines were redesigned in great secrecy at the Siemens Brothers factory at Woolwich.  The pipelines had to be flexible enough to be unwound from a giant floating drum, called a ‘Conundrum’, and laid on the floor of the Channel from England to France.  The pipeline – known as PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean) – supplied a million gallons of oil a day to the Allied forces after D-Day.

A further contribution made by the port and it’s workers to the liberation of Europe was the construction of the sections of the ‘Mulberry Harbours’ for use after D-Day.  The harbours were artificial structures made of concrete sections.  These were towed across the Channel and sunk in position to provide shelter for ships and quaysides for unloading  supplies for the army.  The huge concrete sections were built in drained dock basins at the East India and the Surrey Commercial Docks.  Once constructed, they were towed down the Thames and sunk a mile off shore until they were required.

In the build up to D-Day thousands of troops and masses of equipment were assembled amidst the bombsites of Canning Town and Silvertown – and some were even camped in West Ham’s Upton Park football stadium.