ARNOLD Peggy Louise May

Peggy Arnold was born on the 7th December 1919, the daughter of George Minter Arnold and Dorothy M. Sauders who married in the Lambeth registration district during the September quarter. Peggy’s brother, George, was born in 1922. Sadly, one year later in October 1923, their father died leaving Dorothy with two very young children to raise alone. At the time of his death the family were residing in Walthamstow.

In 1939 Peggy was employed as a telephonist and was living with her widowed mother at 67 Canning Road, Islington. In 1942 Dorothy married Albert Tongue in Islington. By 1944 Peggy was working as a nurse at Westminster Hospital, residing at the Queen Mary Nurses’ Home in Page Street.

On the 18th June 1944 at 11.20am, the engines on a V1 rocket cut out and the bomb scored a direct hit on the Guards Chapel at Wellington Barracks on Birdcage Walk. The blast demolished most of the building with the falling rubble killing 121 soldiers and civilians, including Peggy, and seriously injuring 141 others. Those killed included the officiating Chaplain, the Reverend Ralph Whitrow as well as several senior military personnel.

Peggy was interred alongside her father in Walthamstow Cemetery in grave 1286D on the 24th June 1944. She was 24 years of age.

The following information was taken from a website that is no longer online:
On Sunday, 18 June 1944, a mixed military and civilian congregation had gathered at the Guards’ Chapel for morning worship. The choir had just started the Sung Eucharist when a V1 flying bomb cut out and nosedived onto the Chapel roof. The direct hit completely destroyed the roof, its supporting walls and concrete pillars and the portico of the Chapel’s western door.

Tons of rubble fell onto the congregation. 121 soldiers and civilians were killed and 141 others were seriously injured. The high death toll included the officiating Chaplain, Revd Ralph Whitrow, several senior British Army officers and a US Army Colonel. The Bishop of Maidstone, senior cleric present at this morning service, was one of the few left uninjured.

As the clouds of dust subsided, first aid teams and heavy rescue crews arrived to find a scene of utter devastation. An initial City of Westminster ARP assessment put the number of casualties at 400-500. At first, the debris appeared impenetrable; the smashed remains of walls and the collapsed roof had trapped dozens. The doors to the Chapel were blocked; the only access point for the rescue teams lay behind the altar. Doctors and nurses were obliged to scramble in between the concrete walls to administer morphine and first aid. Several rescuers and survivors later recalled that the silver altar cross had been untouched by the blast and candles continued to burn. The rescue services and Guardsmen from the Barracks immediately began freeing survivors from the wreckage and carrying them out. The operation to free them all took 48 hours.

The Guards’ Chapel incident was the most serious V1 attack on London of the war. The flying bomb left only the apse of the Chapel intact. Nearby mansion flat blocks – among them Broadway Buildings and Queen Anne’s Mansions in Petty France – also suffered blast damage, including one used by US news correspondent Walter Cronkite.

Dr R.V. Jones (Churchill’s principal scientific adviser tasked with countering the V-Weapons threat) was working nearby, in the SIS (MI6) offices at 54 Broadway. He recalled:
“One lasting impression I had was that the whole of Birdcage Walk was a sea of fresh pine leaves, the trees had all been stripped and I could hardly see a speck of asphalt for hundreds of yards” (R.V. Jones: ‘Most Secret War; British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945′).
As the V1 campaign against London intensified, the Guards’ Chapel attack received much publicity in the international press and was highlighted by journalists and in government statements as a particular atrocity.

The Chapel itself was almost completely ruined. The rubble included the remnants of over two thousand small memorial plaques, dedicated to the service of Guardsmen since 1660.

Despite the damage, part of the Chapel was re-opened for services in time for Christmas 1944. Today’s Guards’ Chapel was rebuilt on the same site during 1962-1963. Just inside the Chapel’s west entrance, a large engraved wall memorial and book of remembrance record the soldiers and civilians who died in the 1944 attack. The original altar cross and six silver candlesticks still adorn the Chapel’s altar.

The following information is courtesy of Jan Gore:
Peggy Arnold was working as hospital nurse at Westminster hospital and living at Queen Mary Nurses Home, Page St, Westminster.
Nurses often attended morning service at the Guards’ Chapel – places were kept for them and she was living not far away. A V1 hit the Chapel during morning service, killing 124 people. Sadly, Peggy was one of them.

A list of casualties and details of the attack can be found in the book ‘Send More Shrouds: The V1 Attack on the Guards’ Chapel 1944’.