The Factory Workers
Bramble Island, Hamford Waters “Exchem” Munician Workers in 1918 (W.W.1)
Due to the war effort it was mainly women who were employed at the factory, with most men already drafted into the military. The “Explosives and Chemical Products Ltd” (Exchem) opened the factory after the sea walls were destroyed by floods in 1897 and later in 1905. The remoteness of the factory was ideal for such production, although further flooding occurred in 1928, 1949 and sadly again in 1953 (when a night watchman Henry Archibald drowned).
When the first French factory was built It was on a smaller scale, with cases of explosives ordered three or four at a time and these were loaded on to a cart and drawn by horse to Thorpe Le Soken station, six miles away and sent off by train. Later a dock was constructed and barges were used. The First World War caused the factory to step up production considerably, so it made a great contribution to the war effort. Once again during the Second World War its goods were again in great demand.
There have been a number of accidental explosions at the factory, one in 1942 when three employees died and three of the workers were awarded the Edward Medal later converted to the George Cross. In the east coast floods of 1953, three employees received awards for their bravery in disposing of explosives left in a very dangerous condition by the rising tides. For their courage they received the British Empire Medal.
The Refugees
German Reisepass
Kindertransport "Arriving in Harwich from Vienna" 12th December 1938
A Deutsches Reich Reisepass (Kindertransport passport,) naming Anna Heichler and dated 1938, together with a photograph showing Anna Heichler with hand written annotation verso "Arriving in Harwich from Vienna" and dated Monday 12th December 1938.
The Kindertransport (Children's transport) was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of WW II. The first Kindertransport arrived at Harwich, England on December 2, 1938, bringing 196 children from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of November 9. Most of the transports left by train from Vienna, Berlin, Prague and other major cities (children from small towns travelled to meet the transports), crossed the Dutch and Belgian borders, and went on by ship to England. Hundreds of children remained in Belgium and Holland. The transports ended with the outbreak of war in September 1939.
One very last transport left on the freighter Bodegraven from Ymuiden on May 14, 1940 – the day Rotterdam was bombed, one day before Holland surrendered – raked by gunfire from German warplanes. The eighty children on deck had been brought by earlier transports to imagined safety in Holland. Altogether, though exact figures are unknown, the Kindertransports saved around 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. None were accompanied by their parents; a few were babies carried by children.
Kindertransport "Arriving in Harwich from Vienna" 12th December 1938
A Deutsches Reich Reisepass (Kindertransport passport,) naming Anna Heichler and dated 1938, together with a photograph showing Anna Heichler with hand written annotation verso "Arriving in Harwich from Vienna" and dated Monday 12th December 1938.
The Kindertransport (Children's transport) was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of WW II. The first Kindertransport arrived at Harwich, England on December 2, 1938, bringing 196 children from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of November 9. Most of the transports left by train from Vienna, Berlin, Prague and other major cities (children from small towns travelled to meet the transports), crossed the Dutch and Belgian borders, and went on by ship to England. Hundreds of children remained in Belgium and Holland. The transports ended with the outbreak of war in September 1939.
One very last transport left on the freighter Bodegraven from Ymuiden on May 14, 1940 – the day Rotterdam was bombed, one day before Holland surrendered – raked by gunfire from German warplanes. The eighty children on deck had been brought by earlier transports to imagined safety in Holland. Altogether, though exact figures are unknown, the Kindertransports saved around 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. None were accompanied by their parents; a few were babies carried by children.