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HERITAGE
Launch pad
Elliot Tucker reveals the important role Teddington played in WWII
T
eddington is sometimes
overshadowed by its better-
known neighbours Hampton
Court, Twickenham and Richmond, yet
during the latter stages of World War II,
it played a pivotal role in the war effort
as two major turning points in the
Allied victories came out of this little
town; the D-Day landings and the
bouncing bomb.
By 1942, Bushy Park was home to a
large US military base known as Camp
Grifss. Legend has it that the camp
was originally intended to be in Bushey,
Hertfordshire, but an error in planning
meant it was built in Bushy Park
instead. It seems a little inconceivable
that an entire American army base
could be built in the wrong place
without someone spotting the error but,
whatever the truth, Teddington became
a vitally important part of American
involvement in the war.
In December 1943 President
Eisenhower established the Supreme
Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
Force (SHAEF) to co-ordinate the next
steps in the war. He didnt want to have
Allied military headquarters in central
London for fear of air attacks and so
moved SHAEFs operation centre
to Camp Grifss. Teddington was
now at the centre of Operation
Overlord, which drew leading
Allied gures together to plan the
invasion of Nazi occupied
Northern Europe; beginning with
the D-Day landings. Eisenhower
and Air Chief Marshall Tedder planned
the attacks whilst Field Marshall
Monty Montgomery co-ordinated
from the ground.
At around the same time, British
scientist Barnes Wallis was carrying out
tests on a new kind of weapon at the
National Physics Laboratory in Bushy
House. The bouncing bomb was a step
forward in weaponry that allowed
planes to drop a bomb that bounced
over water before sinking and exploding
at a precise location, generally the wall
of a dam. Wallis used the ship tanks at
Bushy House to perfect the physics of
his new weapon before their
deployment. Bushy House had also been
used in developing the Spitre plane
and the Mulberry oating harbour that
was successfully used in SHAEFs
D-Day landings.
Operation Overlord proved an
unqualied success with Nazi forces
being repelled back, the liberation of
Paris and, ultimately, was a decisive
turning point in the Allied victory. The
bouncing bomb was deployed in the
Dambuster raids with the Mohne, Eder
and Sorpe dams sustaining heavy
damage and ooding the Ruhr valley. In
1955 the classic lm The Dam Busters
told the story of those who took part in
the raids. SHAEFs headquarters were
eventually moved to France although
Camp Grifss remained in place until
the end of the war.
Today there stands a pentagonal
memorial to the camp and a ag marks
the spot that Eisenhowers ofce stood
on, whilst an adjacent street is still
named Shaef Way. All of these pay
tribute to the crucial, but largely
unsung, role this small corner of south-
west London had during a world war.
anned nq alied s ccess with Na i forces
Bushy Park was home to a US
military base during WWII.
Today, the site is marked by
a memorial (right)
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