Bethnal Green Memorial
Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster
On 3 March the air raid warning sounded at 8.17pm. People made their way in the pitch dark of the blackout to file in an orderly manner down the steps of the single entrance to the unfinished Bethnal Green underground station next to this memorial. It had been in regular use since 1940 as a deep air raid shelter.
Over the next 10 minutes local pubs and cinemas emptied so that some 2000 people were already in the shelter by 8.27pm when the searchlights went on. Those still waiting to enter were alarmed by the deafening sound of a new anti-aircraft rocket battery opening fire for the first time nearby. They assumed it to be enemy bombs falling. At that time three buses set down their passengers at the unsupervised shelter entrance. The crowd hurried down the poorly-lit 10 foot wide first flight of 19 concrete steps which had no central handrail. On this wet, slippery stairway a woman with a child fell on the 3rd step from the bottom and others tumbled over her. The crowd above continued pressing forward unable to see the horror of what was happening below. Within seconds the whole staircase was a solid, tangled mass of 300 people trapped five or six deep.
Despite heroic efforts, rescuers working above and below found it difficult to release them before they suffocated
in the crush. It was 11.40 pm before the last of the total 173 dead was pulled out — 84 women, 62 children and 27 men. Sixty-two people were hospitalised and at least 30 more walked away wounded. Many more suffered life-long trauma. This was the worst civilian disaster of the Second World War.
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