Chelmsford in the Second World War Talk

Chelmsford in the Second World War; this talk shows how Chelmsford with

its important industries – Marconi radar, Hoffman’s ball-bearings and

Crompton Parkinson’s electrical works – were vulnerable to targeted

Luftwaffe air attack and later random rocket attacks from V1s and V2s.

Yet some of the most damaging events came from lone bombers and the

chance jettisoning of bombs from damaged aircraft on their return journey

to the continent The town was also in receipt of evacuees from the nearby

dockland of East London (and from the less well-known evacuation from the

county’s coastal towns as invasion loomed) which presented its own

educational and social challenges. Air power was vital in this war. Grammar

School boys flocked to the RAF and were distinguished by their skill and

their sacrifice. Chelmsford’s MP 1934-44, Jack Macnamara, was killed on

the Italian front. One of a group of gay MPs who saw in the mid-1930s

what was happening to homosexuals in Dachau concentration camp, he and

other like-minded gay men became early supporters of Churchill and

rearmament. They were vilified by Neville Chamberlain’s spin doctors as

‘Glamour Boys’ but Churchill recognised their bravery and Jack’s ultimate

sacrifice.