At about 6.43 p.m. on 8 September 1944, a German V-2 rocket struck Staveley Road in Chiswick, west London. It was the first V-2 to fall on British soil.

Three people were killed. Three-year-old Rosemary Clarke was in her family’s house at number 1 Staveley Road. Ada Harrison, aged 68, lived at number 3. Sapper Bernard Browning of the Royal Engineers was on leave and walking towards Chiswick station when the rocket struck.

The explosion left a deep crater in the road. Eleven houses were subsequently demolished, and hundreds of buildings in the surrounding area were damaged.

The rocket had been launched from the Netherlands. Unlike the V-1 flying bombs that had been attacking Britain since June, the V-2 followed a ballistic trajectory and travelled faster than sound. People near its target therefore received no audible warning. The explosion came before the sound of the approaching rocket could reach them.

The British authorities did not immediately acknowledge that Germany had begun using a new weapon. Reports of the explosions were suppressed and explanations involving damaged gas mains circulated instead.

The secrecy could not last. More V-2s followed, and Germany eventually announced that it was using the weapon. The British government publicly confirmed the attacks in November.

The explosion in Staveley Road began a different form of attack on London: a missile launched from continental Europe that reached its target without aircraft overhead and without warning from the weapon itself.