Bomb Crater Pond is a pond in the Walthamstow Marshes in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, England. It formed in the crater left by the explosion of a German V-2 rocket on 11 February 1945, during World War II.
| Bomb Crater Pond | |
|---|---|
 Bomb Crater Pond, from the South West footpath by the River Lea. | |
  Bomb Crater Pond | |
| Location | Walthamstow, London |
| Coordinates | 51°34′01″N 0°02′55″W / 51.566948°N 0.048746°W |
| Type | pond |
History
editIn February 1945, near the end of World War II, the German 485th Artillery Regiment of the Wehrmacht was renamed 902nd Artillery Regiment and relocated to Holland.[1] The regiment's special purpose (German "z.b.V." i.e. "zur besonderen Verwendung") was to launch V-2 rockets.[2] On 11 February 1945, its 3rd Artillery Battery launched one of its many attacks against London.[3] The V2 rocket, however, did not hit its target and ended up in the Walthamstow Marshes instead.[4] Nobody was killed, but one person was injured, and the nearby Latham Timber Yard was covered in thick mud.[5]
The crater was left untouched. Over the following years, it gradually filled up with water. Today, it can be seen in a cattle enclosure by the footpath following the River Lea on the south-west corner of the Walthamstow Marshes.
References
edit- ^ "Artillerie-Regiment z.b.V. 902". Lexikon der Wehrmacht (in German).
- ^ "Division z.V." Forum der Wehrmacht (in German).
- ^ "Bomb Crater Pond". The Shady Old Lady's Guide to London.
- ^ "The Ministry of Home Security, Document AIR 20/4126, Incident Number 731, 14:52 on Sunday 11 February 1945". WRS Online.
- ^ "Bomb Crater Pond". Lea Bridge Heritage. Archived from the original on 1 August 2013.
Further reading
edit- Ashon, Will (2017). "2, Walthamstow Marshes". Strange Labyrinth: Outlaws, Poets, Mystics, Murderers and a Coward in London's great forests. London: Granta.
- Campbell, Sue Ellen (2011). The Face of the Earth. Natural Landscapes, Science, and Culture. Berkley: University of California Press. p. 129.