History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

To commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, we tell the story of Arthur Townsend Johnstone, a naval officer who was killed that day on HMS Defence. He is remembered on a family memorial in Hampstead Cemetery , Fortune Green Road . The Battle of Jutland took place on 31 May 1916 , off the west coast of Denmark . It was the only major fleet action of World War I and was the largest naval battle of all time. It only lasted 12 hours, but more than 6,000 British sailors were killed and 14 ships were sunk. The German loses were 11 ships and over 2,500 men. HMS Defence The battle cruiser Invincible had disabled two German light cruisers and Defence and Warrior from the First Cruiser Squadron were attempting to sink them when they were hammered by fire from the German battleships. The Defence was hit by two salvos and the rear magazine exploded, sinking the ship killing 900 men. The Warrior was set on fire, but managed to escape. Recent studies show ...

This is the first full account of the V2 and V1 weapons that fell in Kilburn and West Hampstead during the Second World War. Londoners had survived the Blitz which lasted from 7 September 1940 to 21 May 1941 . The RAF had defeated the Luftwaffe and had won the battle for air supremacy over London . Then after several years of relative quiet, on 13 June 1944 the first of Hitler’s new weapons arrived. This was the V1 or flying bomb, which was soon nicknamed the ‘Doodlebug’ although Eastenders gave it the more colourful name of the Farting Fury . People had no idea such a weapon existed, let alone what it looked like. Crowds stood and looked up at the sky in wonder as they watched the flying bombs spitting red flames from their tail. One father even called to his wife; Quick, get the children up and come and see this lot. The bloody Huns are sending over planes on fire!   Residents in Croydon even cheered when they saw a V1, thinking it was a German aircraft on fire...

After the War was over, the police in England and France and the FBI in America were searching for a gang who were forging US dollar bills. Several people had been arrested in England and Scotland for possession of counterfeit dollars, but they had all refused to talk about the source of the bills. On 29 August 1949 the International Criminal Police Commission (the forerunner of Interpol), met in Paris to look at information from Scotland Yard. Officers had searched Number 18 Sandwell Mansions, West End Lane , and made enquiries in the West End of London. Detective Chief Inspector Phillip Burney of the forgery department of Scotland Yard was in charge of the case, and he believed that the counterfeit dollars had not been printed in England but were from plates made by the Nazis during the War. Sandwell Mansions today Friedrich Oberndorfer in Sandwell Mansions In 1949 Friedrich Oberndorfer was a 61 year old man, who had been born in Nuremburg. At the start of the...