One of five fire-watchers killed on the night bombs fell on Chelsea Old Church and the surrounding area.
Aged seventeen and very tall for his age. He was waiting to go up to Cambridge but talking of enlisting in the Black Watch. He was staying at the Grosvenor Hotel with his parents and used to come down to Chelsea on Wednesday evenings by taxi. The fatal bomb fell on a Wednesday.
Andrew Behan has researched this man:
Fire-watcher Michael James Hodge was born on 29 November 1923 in the City of London, the son of Lt. Col. James Philip Hodge, M.P. and Anna Fortunée Hodge née Venture. His father, having spent the First World War in the Army Pay Department as an Inspector of Pay Offices, was a barrister at law, a chartered accountant and the Liberal member of parliament for Preston from 1922 to 1924. His mother was the daughter of a French shipowner from Marseille. The 1939 England and Wales Register shows him as Attending School and living with his parents and elder sister at 1 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He was killed, aged 17 years, by a German parachute mine in the early hours of 17 April 1941 in Chelsea.
Andrew points out that "The spelling of his first forename varies on records I have researched. His Civil Registration Birth Index record shows Michael J Hodge, the 1939 England and Wales Register shows him as Michal J Hodge and both UK WWII Civilian Deaths 1939-1945 and the Civil Registration Death Index records shows Michel J Hodge." The confusion was probably caused by his French mother (mothers, tut!). We've gone with the spelling on the plaque.
