1943 Memorial at Bethnal Green Underground Station

please see In Memory of May and Doreen

A Plaque at Bethnal Green Underground Station commemorating those killed:

in Memory of the 173 Men, Women
and Children who lost their lives
on the evening of Wednesday
3rd march 1943 descending these
steps to Bethnal green
underground
air raid shelter

Not forgotten

Breaking News 2008 a new memorial site Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust - do visit - it has the names of those who fell

Bethnal Green - March 8th 1943
Fifteen hundred people were on their way down the stairs into the Bethnal Green tube shelter. Someone at the front stumbled but the crowd pushed on, falling one on top of each other. A hundred and seventy three people were killed in the crush. The government insisted that news of the disaster mentioned neither the place nor the number involved.

The first Policeman there http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~janp/penn.htm
The BBC article on the Disaster
More on the Tragedy

Articles from eastendlife with much thanks

Secrets of the Night 173 Died

One-hundred and seventy three men, women and children died when disaster struck Bethnal Green during the wartime blackout nearly 60 years ago.
It was a numbing experience for the East End. Yet, news of the tragedy spread only by word of mouth. For two days the government put a gag on the news to prevent the enemy finding out. Winston Churchill knew that Lord Haw-Haw, Hitler's sneering mouthpiece, would try to take advantage of the situation in his propaganda broadcasts beamed at Britain.
Haw-Haw thrived on making false accusations in his efforts to demoralise Londoners and, through them, Britain's war effort. But the enormity and unexpectedness of the tragedy at Bethnal Green Tube Station made it imperative that an inquiry was held. So two months later the inquiry opened - in secret.
Eighty witnesses were called and this is what they told.
Half of the area's population had been evacuated during the Blitz but this was March 1943, and many families were now drifting back to their East End homes. Some had indoor Morrison shelters: 6ft long metal tables with mesh sides, under which it was possible to huddle in your own living room with limited safety during raids.
The more fortunate, with gardens, had small Anderson shelters buried in the earth. But many others relied on hurrying to the nearest Underground station, like Bethnal Green, once the sirens wailed. There you could descend to the deep platforms and sleep tight the night through.
On the fateful Wednesday evening of March 3, the War Office was expecting trouble. Night raids on London were carried out by the German Luftwaffe with almost monotonous regularity, but Britain knew that Nazi deputy leader Hermann Goering was planning 'massive' reprisals for the fact that the RAF had dared to bomb Berlin earlier that winter.
Sure enough, soon after 8pm, the sirens sounded and people made their way to the shadowy Tube entrance at the junction of Roman Road and Cambridge Heath Road, now the closest station staircase to Bethnal Green library. Two local cinemas flashed warning notices on screen and patrons filed out towards the safety of the station.
Three buses pulled up at the junction and disgorged their passengers into the dark night. In the distance, the crump of exploding bombs could be heard. They seemed to be getting ever nearer and, in the next 10 minutes, some 1,500 people clattered down the station steps, nervous but in good order. Some cursed, others giggled.
The narrow, awkward steps leading to the booking hall were badly lit. Strict regulations banned naked lights which might attract bombers to built-up areas. So the only illumination the people had to light their way into the station was an extremely dim 25-watt bulb. Worse still, most of its glow was obscured behind a narrow slit.
At nearly 8.30pm, people were still coming in from all directions above ground. Then a salvo of anti-aircraft rockets was fired into the sky from a battery in Victoria Park. The noise galvanised those who had not yet reached cover. Somebody said it sounded as if the Jerries were dropping landmines and a crowd surged towards the already congested entrance. Those on the 19 steps leading down to a small landing cried out with concern at the pressure on their backs and a woman with a child fell over just three steps from the bottom. A man, trying to avoid her, also stumbled and in seconds others piled helplessly on top of them. The staircase was hopelessly jammed with bodies but, upstairs on the pavement, up to 200 other people were agitatedly waiting to descend and pressed forward on hearing a burst of ack-ack fire.
Overhead, the night sky was lit up by searchlights and the flash of exploding ammunition. Below, muffled shouts of anguish and a terrible confusion were hooded in darkness. The terrible event, which stunned the East End, was under way.
Tragedy at Bethnal Green, a report on the official inquiry, has just been republished in paperback by The Stationery Office (£6.99).
* Part 2 next week: Babies rescued from death crush.

Babies Rescued From Death Crush

When a frightened woman and her child tripped on steps leading down to the booking hall at Bethnal Green Underground station on the night of March 3, 1943, it caused an accident of horrifying proportions.
One hundred and seventy-three people died, as they were crushed or suffocated. But for nearly 20 minutes, between the initial stumble and police action, hardly anyone else realised what was going on or came to help.
Local residents had hurried to the dim station entrance, at the junction of Roman Road and Cambridge Heath Road, seeking shelter from German bombers. The thud of anti-aircraft gunfire from nearby parks and the glow of burning buildings added to their fears. Their only thought was to get under cover as they pushed into the backs of more than 200 people, bunched in the blackout around the dim station entrance. They were understandably frightened and, to them, those in front seemed ridiculously slow getting down the 19 steep steps to a dimly-lit landing.
From there, a right-hand turn led to more steps and the booking hall. One or two wardens on duty further down, by the escalators, were the first to realise the enormity of what was going on.
The noise of aircraft, gunfire and bombs filled the air and it was some time before cries from the upper stairway drew them to the narrow steps. There in the half-light, to their horror, they saw a wall of petrified bodies.
It was almost impossible to extract anyone, so tangled were arms and legs and so tight was the pressure from above and behind. There were muffled groans, but most of the victims were already lifeless.
Miraculously, the wardens did manage to pull out seven or eight babies. By 8.45pm, half a dozen policemen had arrived on the pavement and pushed back the crowd still trying to get down the blocked stairs, unaware of the tragedy taking place below.
It took rescuers until nearly midnight to free the terrible press of bodies and take away the few who were still alive. The work was slow and laborious, but when the inspector carrying out the governmentÕs official inquiry into the accident reported to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, he emphasised the speed of the disaster.
"The stairway was, in my opinion, converted from a corridor to a charnel house in from 10 to 15 seconds."
Most of the victims were women and children, and 62 of those who died were under 16. Dozens more were taken to hospital. One who died was Dick Corbett, a boxer who had been training for his next fight.
One of the survivors was East Ender Mrs Ivy Brind. At a service held at St John's Church, Bethnal Green, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, Ivy said: "My mother took me and a little cousin to the shelter that night. When we reached the top of the steps, we heard a terrific bang in the distance and people pushed forward. It was terrible. They fell over like a pack of cards."
Somehow, little Ivy escaped the crush, but she discovered the next day that her mother and cousin were lying dead in a mortuary. Her mother's dark hair had turned white. Ivy herself was left with a nervous tic, and she has never since used the station in all the years since the tragedy.
Today, apart from memories in the minds of relatives, friends and a handful of survivors, the only reminder of that awful night is a wall plaque at the station. It remembers the innocent dead and ends with the word 'Not forgotten'.
Tragedy at Bethnal Green, a report on the official inquiry, has just been republished in paperback by The Stationery Office (£6.99).