Not forgotten

Early last year I wrote about past efforts to individually identify people who died in incidents relating to the London Underground during the Second World War, and mentioned that I had arranged for the details of one such person to be passed on to the Commonwealth War Graves Commision, as she was not included in the Register of Civilian War Dead. Today I was informed that Gladys Bessie Benbrook - who died in the bombing of Balham station on 14 October 1940 - has now been accepted as a war-related casualty, and her name included in the Register. This takes the number of identified deaths at Balham to sixty-six, the highest number in a single incident due to direct enemy action.

My thanks go to Howard Benbrook for alerting me to this omission and also supplying Miss Benbrook's death certificate, and to Terry Denham for successfully raising the case for her inclusion with the Commission.

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