Air Defence Marathon To Begin at Staveley Road Blast Site
Funds being raised to help protect Ukrainian cities from rocket attacks
The runners wish to highlight the parallels between the bombing of London and Ukraine
August 19, 2024
In 1944 the first ever V2 rocket landed on Staveley Road in Chiswick killing three people including a three-year-old girl.
With cities across Ukraine suffering similar attacks every day, three ultra-marathon runners have got together to raise funds to help those living under daily bombardment. They plan to use the site of the Chiswick blast as the starting point for an ‘Air Defence Marathon’ in which they will run 37 miles across London visiting sites where V1 and V2 rockets landed during the Second World War. The run is taking place on Sunday 8 September, the eightieth anniversary of the Staveley Road attack.
Dmitri Macmillen, Andrew Macmillen and Andy Lewis are aiming to raise £15,000 for Ukrainian air defence teams who are protecting Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure from Russian aerial attacks.
The aim is to commemorate the victims of the London attacks and highlight the parallels between what Ukrainians are facing today from the Russian Federation, and what Londoners faced in the 1940s from Nazi Germany.
The Air Defence Marathon will set off at 9:30am exactly 80 years ago to the day from the first V2 strike in Chiswick. Another 17 sites will be visited throughout the day, and the run will finish near the Imperial War Museum London in Lambeth at around 7:00pm.
The organisers are encouraging people to get involved and support the Air Defence Marathon in two ways by donating via the Air Defence Marathon JustGiving page.
You can also join a commemoration at one of the World War II impact sites along the route. There will be a short reading at each of the sites to recall the bombing that took place there and those individuals who were impacted, and also to recall those who face similar terror and tragedy in Ukraine today from aerial bombardment.
The people who died in the V2 attack. Picture: Chiswick Local Studies & Archives
Three people died and 22 were injured, 11 houses were demolished and 27 more were seriously damaged in the immediate area in 1944. The people killed were 68-year-old Ada Harrison who ran a newsagent and sweetshop opposite Chiswick station, Sapper Bernard Hammerton Browning who was on leave and walking towards the station at the time from his home in Elmwood Road and 3-year-old Rosemary Clarke, who was found dead in her cot, with no visible injuries but suffocated by the blast.
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