Vera Martin
On the Shoreham war memorial by the bridge, of the 45 names of service personnel lost in the two world wars, only one belongs to a woman – Vera Martin. She was a private in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the army, when she was killed in August 1944, aged 19.
One of four children of Horace and Ann Martin, Vera seems to have been a spirited teenager. In June 1942, at a concert and dance for young people in the Village Hall, she gave a rendition of “Kiss the Boys Goodbye”. She joined up at seventeen-and-a-half and was serving with her older sister, Gwen, at Biggin Hill when the two of them went by train to a posting at a gun site near Sittingbourne.
A V-1 rocket was passing overhead when it was intercepted by a plane, which tipped it over with its wing. The “doodlebug” crashed and exploded on a bridge ahead of the train, near Newington. Gwen recalled: “The train went over the embankment. My sister went under the train and was killed instantly… I was buried… I came to and wondered immediately where my sister was… I got free and helped everyone get free. I found my sister under the train.” The sisters had been in the carriage right behind the engine.
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Gwen suffered leg injuries and spent some time recovering from the trauma. She went on, as Gwen Gilham, to be a founder member of the women’s section of the Shoreham British Legion and later branch chairman. She died in 2013. The wartime vicar said that Vera Martin was “a genuine favourite here – her cheerful and kindly disposition ensured this. She remained brave and an encourager of others to the end.”
You can read more about wartime Shoreham in our book “Shoreham at War”