The Oak Lane Rail Crash 1944 - Newington, Kent, UK.
Posted by: MeerRescue
N 51° 21.587 E 000° 38.015
31U E 335247 N 5692493
A railway disaster caused by a V1 flying bomb strike on a railway bridge, Newington, Kent, UK.
Waymark Code: WME6XG
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/11/2012
Views: 5
On August 16th 1944 the 3:35pm London
Victoria to Ramsgate train, carrying about 400 passengers, military as well as
civilian, headed off towards it's destination, stopping at Chatham to take on
board an unusually large amount of mail causing it, fatefully, to leave 4
minutes late, at 4:46pm. In the air above, the RAF were battling the new terror
threat being unleashed from the other side of the Channel, Hitler's V1 flying
bombs. No doubt clouded by the fog of time, various versions relate how a
Spitfire or Meteor aircraft tipped the flying bomb with its wing in an attempt
to down the bomb before it reached it's presumed target, London. Whatever the
real version, fact has it that the V1 flew horizontal until it impacted and
exploded against the railway bridge in Oak Lane, Newington, near Sittingbourne,
Kent, moments before the train arrived at that railway bridge.
Apparently the engine driver, a Charles
Barnett, saw the huge plume of smoke ahead of his train and had applied the
emergency brakes of the 'Sir Galleron', a King Arthur Class steam locomotive,
but to late to prevent the engine and two carriages from careering across the
downed bridge and overturning. Both driver Barnett and his fireman David
Humphreys, were buried amongst the coal and train wreckage, but somehow
Humphreys extracted himself from the wreckage, and after helping his injured
driver from the wreckage, went off down the railway line to try and prevent
following trains suffering a similar fate. He managed to reach the Newington
signal box where he gave details of the disaster. Unknown to Humphreys, the
signalman at the Sittingbourne signal box had heard the enormous explosion of
the V1 impact and had stopped the 3.35pm train travelling in the opposite
direction. That train was sent forward with 2 doctors and 2 RAMC orderlies to
assist in the rescue of passengers. To fireman Humphrey's relief, he found that
his driver, Charles Barnett had survived. Tragically, 8 others had not, and over
30 passengers were seriously injured.
Today, vehicles pass beneath this
ordinary railway bridge, heading more often than not to the new Golf Club to the
north of the bridge,without realising the tragedy that occurred here. No
plaques, no memorial, just another of the horrors that the V1 brought to our
shores during WW2