8th September 1944

[Dave Monroe]

On the 8th September 1944 a huge explosion occured in Staveley Road
Chiswick in SouthWest London.

There was no siren, no warning. This was the first ballistic
missile,Hitler's much vaunted V2 Rocket. It weighed 13 tons and had
arrived via
the stratosphere at 3,000 miles an hour.

3 People died and 17 were seriously injured in the tragedy which
reduced rows of houses to the apperance of a battle field.
Londoners would have heard for the first time the distinctive sound of
the Rocket.

Firstly the explosion,secondly the roar of the rocket motors catching
up (because it travelled slower than the supersonic Rocket) and lastly
the noise of the sonic boom from the upper atmosphere. The noise could
be heard all over the capital.

A second V2 hit Epping at around the same time but fortunately in this
case there were no casualties.

[...]

http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V2_intro.html

After Hitler's 29 August declaration to begin V-2 attacks as soon as
possible, the offensive began on 8 September 1944 with a single launch
at Paris, which caused modest damage near Porte d'Italie. Two more
launches by the 485th followed, including one from The Hague against
London on the same day at 6:43 p.m. – the first landed at Chiswick
which killed 63-year-old Mrs. Ada Harrison, 3-year-old Rosemary
Clarke, and Sapper Bernard Browning on leave from the Royal
Engineers...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2#Operational_history