(Mark Brader) wrote in message ...
Two weeks ago, Nick Cooper wrote:
I'm currently wading through the wartime daily bombing reports for
"key points," sifting out all the LU-related railway incidents ...

Also almost finished identifying by name the vast majority of the
wartime fatalities on LU property, including - on an even more
melancholic note - a certain amount of myth-shattering r.e.
Bounds Green.

"Rails Through the Clay" says that at Bounds Green "19 shelterers
were killed and 52 injured ... when a bomb reached the platforms of
the Piccadilly Line, which is ascending at this point to reach the
surface just beyong the station." This was on 1940-10-13, the day
before the bomb at Balham that killed considerably more people.
There's myth to shatter here?

Definitely, quite apart from the fact that the bomb demolished houses
above the tunnel, causing the collapse, rather than it actually
reaching the platforms.

Most sources - including the plaque on the platform itself - say 19
people, specifically 16 Belgian refugees and 3 British citizens. Many
writers have come up with prosaic - almost romantic - accounts of the
aforementioned Belgians fleeing the invasion of their country, forming
a little enclave at the "unpopular northern end" southbound platform
(the escalators come down to the opposite end of the platforms), etc.

In fact, the civilian casualty records of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission - which are arranged by borough - show only 16 people
killed in the station itself, with one more dying in hospital the next
day:

13/04/40 - "Died at Tube Station, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal
Borough of Wood Green):
BOULLE, FRANCINE (age 5) [Belgian Subject]
JEMMETT, ALBERT GEORGE (Age 67)
JEMMETT, CHARLOTTE SARAH (Age 58)
JEMMETT, FLORENCE MAY (Age 23)
KINGATE, HENRY MARK (Age 59)
MANDALL, HENRY MARK (Age 8)
MANDALL, PAULINE LOUISE (Age 18 months)
MANDALL, RACHAEL LOUISE (Age 11)
MEARS, WINIFRED JESSIE (Age 35) [W.V.S. worker]
NECCHI, GIULIO (Age 9)
NECCHI, MAFALDA (Age 15)
NECCHI, MARK JOHN (Age 41)
NECCHI, ROSE (Age 40)
WATTS, ELLEN MARY (Age 64)

14/04/40 - "Died at Tube Station, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal
Borough of Wood Green):
NEUCKERMANS, ROBERT JOSEPH AUGUSTE (Age 26) [Belgian Subject]
VAN HAELTER, DAVID (Age 28) [Belgian Subject]

14/04/40 - "Injured 13 October 1940, at Tube Station, Bounds Green
Road; died at Friern Emergency Hospital" (Urban District of Friern
Barnet):
MANDALL, WILLIAM ALFRED (Age 33)

In addition, four people were killed in the houses above the station:

13/04/40 - "Died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal Borough of
Wood Green):
BOWDICH, BARBARA ANTOINETTE (Age 11, died at Cedars, Bounds Green
Road)
PAGE, MAUD JEAN (Age 35, died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road)
PAGE, MOYA (Age 16 months, died at Cedars, Bounds Green Road)

13/04/40 - "Died at Cranbrook, Bounds Green Road" (Municipal Borough
of Wood Green):
NORRIS, CHARLES VICTOR (Age 63, died at Cranbrook, Bounds Green Road)

So, you've got 17 people killed or fatally wounded in the station,
only three of whom were Belgian. Of the rest, the surnames are either
British or Italian. I still need to check a few things r.e. this
particualr incident, so I've not yet added the above details to my
web-page, but those for most other fatalities are available:

http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm

It seems unlikely that there are another 13 Belgians unaccounted for
by the CWGC, or that anyone could have overlooked the "extra" ten
(plus one fatally injured) Brits at the time, so in all probability
this is a simple confusion at an early stage of "16, of whom 3 were
Belgian" with "16 Belgians plus 3 others." I've also had sight of a
1943 report on damage done to tube tunnels by bombing, and even that
notes both totals and that there is some disagreement over the number
of casualties.

The reason the wrong figures have gained such common currency is
because Charles Graves used them in his 1947 book 'London Transport
Carried On' (a.k.a 'London Transport at War'). Graves seems to have
relied a lot on "immediate" contemporary witness reports held by
London Transport, which in this respect are more annecdotal than
accurate. The nationality of most of the victims seems to have been
attributed merely to the fact that the collapse was at the end of the
platform where most/all of the Belgians were. The CWGC, on the other
hand, had the benefit of being informed once the victims were properly
identified afterwards. Unfortunately, it seems that many other
subsequent authors have simply relied on Graves's account. It was
only when I contacted the CWGC asking if they could do a database
extract of all civilians killed at tube stations that what actually
happened became apparent.