Subject

The dead included 62 members of the 130th Chemical Processing Company (billeted at numbers 4, 6, and 8 Sloane Court) and 3 members of the G-5 Division of SHAEF (stationed at Sloane Court). Members of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) (also stationed at Sloane Court) were among those injured, but none were killed.

For the names of the military dead see the splendid London Memorial, the website dedicated to this event. We have used their photo of the 130th CPC. Their list of names is keyed into this photograph, and they have the larger, original version on-line.

The name 'Chemical Processing Company' is intriguing and rather worrying. London Memorial reports that "according to the official military history" its role was to ensure the provision of appropriate protective clothing, presumably in the event of chemical weapons being deployed by the enemy, so, on the face of it at least, the remit was purely defensive.