Monday
Glorious morning. Saw in the “Times” that there was an attack on the S.E. coast yesterday, in brilliant sunshine, by 12 planes, of which only two were brought down. Ten people dead, and great damage. So even in the finest weather we are not safe.
Committee this afternoon. Nothing special. Out at 6. Came back to Colchester with Mr. Page, got there just after an alarm, which had lasted about 10 minutes. Saw a very elderly warden leaving the Post at Drury Road
Joy told me tonight that Dorothy died just before 6 this morning. What a tragedy. A young couple, far from all war dangers, in secure work, and the girl looking so strong and healthy dies like this. Poor Fred must be in a terrible way.
Joy told me that the railway men in the village are saying that the damage last Wednesday was as great up the line as in any of the raids two years ago. It this is true, the papers have been lying even more than usual. Poulter says the line was still shut on Saturday afternoon, and there was a bus service from Shenfield to Ingatestone. One of the Harwich men who was killed, the fireman, was uncle of the boy who drives Joy’s salvage van on Wednesdays. The deaths of these men were mentioned in the “East Anglian [Daily Times]”, but there was no hint that they had been on a train.
Bombs had fallen on the main line near Ingatestone in Essex on 3rd March 1943 and a passenger train from London to Harwich fell into the bomb crater killing both the driver and fireman. More details on this tragedy appear in E.J. Rudsdale's book. CP
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