TERROR RAINED FROM THE SKIES

THE BOMBING OF PONTEFRACT 1942

FRANK H. W. HOLMES

Notes of the first Pontefract Air Raid recorded by Frank Hubert Worral Holmes, a well-known chronicler and photographer of the period as published in the Pontefract and Castleford Express 16th November 1989.

Pontefract’s first air raid took place on the night of Saturday 8th August 1942. Distant bombs and gunfire had been heard at about 11.30pm (it became known later that it was at Headingley, Leeds, where two were killed and some injured).

At midnight, sirens sounded the alert, and within a few minutes the sound of a plane was heard, apparently coming in from the west or north-west, and a string of four flares were seen over Kings Mead.

In this district, at practically this moment a number of incendiaries were dropped and the plane passed on, but circled round at a short radius. Within a very few minutes, probably not more than five or seven, it approached again in a power dive and loosed another string of four flares, this time over the Town End. Almost simultaneously it sent more incendiaries and, in very quick succession, four explosive bombs, later estimated to be about 250lbs each.

At Kings Mead one unopened canister containing 15 fire bombs fell harmlessly in the garden of Councillor F. W. Lane, of 15 Kings Mead, who was blown over [without hurt] when another exploded after he had almost smothered it with earth beneath a little tree in his front garden. Practically opposite the house at number 19, Mrs Hutchinson, an elderly widow, had gone into her Anderson shelter at the back, when neighbours in the street found that a fire bomb had lodged on the upper floor, at the top of the stairs.

One of her two sons was out of town on a visit and the other, [both were bachelors in their thirties] was in another part of the estate, and the first-comers were delayed by finding that the front door was locked, although the back door was open. By the time they got into the top part of the house it was burning strongly, and when it was finally extinguished the home was wrecked and had to be evacuated in order that it could be reconditioned. Several houses had bombs through the roof but these were all dealt with expeditiously by residents and neighbours working together, so well that in no other case was the damage heavy.

Mr. J. Leason, at 217 Kings Mead, had a bomb pass through a ridge tile and down outside the roof. Another broke through into a bedroom, but he extinguished it before it had gained much hold. Conspicuous among those who extinguished bombs was Mr. John Stubbs, the school attendance officer, who had put several out when one exploded, possibly because of water thrown on it. He was badly cut and burned about both knees and one elbow, and was taken to hospital. Several more bombs fell into the Barracks and were dealt with by the A.T.S. and others.

At 70 Avenue Mount, Miss Mary Robertson, the singer, had shepherded her crippled mother, her deaf father, aged 72, and two big dogs into the family Anderson shelter [small size] when neighbours called to them that the house was on fire. In her nightdress she sought to help them against the fire in her bedroom, but they sent her back to the shelter where she found another bomb burning brightly on top of it. This she attacked herself with a spade and soil from the garden.

In the house at the corner of Banks Avenue and Love Lane, Mrs Clay, along with Brian (11) and John (9), were sheltering under the kitchen table with a mattress on top when within a yard of them a piece of bomb weighing about 5lbs hit the floor after passing through the roof, two ceilings and the floor above them.

The house of Mr. E. Morton, of Ropergate End, had a piece of a bomb pass through a downstairs window. All these however, were trifles by comparison with what happened at Friarwood.

The raider was evidently giving attention to Baghill Station, but missed. He scattered firebombs over the cattle market and adjoining gardens where they were rapidly dealt with, without notable damage, except for one place, where matters were more serious.

EWBANKS HIT

At Ewbank’s confectionery works, the fire watch party for that night included some of the girl employees [normally some hundreds in number] and although the party put out a number of incendiaries there were ultimately too many of them and the gum department caught fire. This was a two-storey building with a wooden floor and wooden drying rooms, and although the Fire Service brought many men and a number of appliances to the scene, the whole building was gutted.

It was nearly 2am before the glare was reduced to no more than a glow. The damage was substantial, though less than half the factory was affected, and much unprocessed stock was damaged by water. The explosive bombs were all on the south side of the town, but only one reached the railway. As it did little more than scatter a little coal dust in the goods yard and put a few holes in a number of trucks it cannot from the Germans point of view be considered to have been very successful.

The first of two High Explosives fell one each side of Mayors Walk Avenue. The one on the eastern side of the Avenue fell in the garden of Mr. Penty and failed to explode, the other fell in the garden of Mr. Harry Josh, Joiner, and caused serious damage to about five houses. Several others had less important harm.

HOMES EVACUATED

A number of homes in these parts were evacuated immediately and others within the following hours, after some lapse of time, until the bomb had been dug out and taken away. This process was not complete until the evening of Tuesday, August 18th, by which time the bomb disposal squad had dug about 18 feet down through the very wet clay. They found the bomb was a semi-armour piercing type, 500 kilogram size, [about 1,125lbs] about 18 inches in diameter and 4ft 6ins long. It had in it a fuse of French make and in this was found a piece of paper, which made it ineffective.

The fourth explosive caused one of the most serious incidents of the whole night, apart from the Ewbanks fire. It fell at the junction of No.1 and No. 2 Walkergate and brought down the whole front and roof and most of the interior of the two houses. In No.1, Mr. Robert Fisher, a milkman, and his wife, Alice, were at the back, and were able to leave the house with no assistance. But at No. 2, Mr. Fred Ward, a miner, his wife Hilda, and daughter Phyllis (5), were trapped behind a piece of up-ended flooring and a quantity of furniture. Their cries for help were heard by neighbours including Mr. Gregory Carter, a local head of Street Fire Guard, and Mr. Albert Jewitt, who was reporting for fire watch in the adjoining bakery of the Pontefract Co-operative Society. These and a number of others, among who were two passing sailors, set to work and succeeded in extricating the Ward family, each of the parents with a broken leg, and Mrs Ward with many cuts and wounds about the head and neck. The child had severe cuts and bruises. It was afterwards seen that the point from which they were rescued was less than 10ft from the lip of the crater.

Across the road, the end wall of the house occupied by Mrs Waterton, a widow aged 62, was cracked in several places with a chimneystack lying across the roof, just above the bed of Mrs Waterton, who was sleeping downstairs. Mrs Waterton was hurt about the head but very pluckily set out to walk to the Infirmary where she was detained - shocked as well as physically injured.

Pieces of bomb were found in many parts of the town. In the Shoemarket, where a windowsill was chipped; near the Municipal Offices, and in the Gas Cleansing Stations in Headlands, where a fragment fell through the roof, some 830 yards from the nearest bomb.

Two plate glass windows in Gillygate, one in Woolmarket, one in Southgate and one in Micklegate, were broken, and house windows by the dozen were smashed for hundreds of yards in the vicinity of each explosive bomb. The limit of distance must have been the piece of bomb found near the Prince of Wales Colliery.

At Baghill Station much of the roofing was dislodged and many windows were broken. In Mayors Walk Avenue, a garage was laid flat round a car which it had previously sheltered. An incendiary container clattered down a roof in Hartley Park removing tiles in patches and on Sunday, wardens had already collected a barrow load of pieces of bombs, fins and casings. It was remarked that many of the firebombs were dated 1939 and 1940, some as early as 1936.

To sum up, no one was killed, and twenty people were injured. Of these, 12 went to the Infirmary, where only eight were detained. They were [besides those already mentioned] Mr. Albert Steel, Caterer, Mayors Walk Avenue (ribs), Mr. John Gowthorpe [56], of 15 Walkergate (arm and leg injuries) and Mrs Fisher (injuries to chin, neck and wrist).

Material damage was heaviest at Ewbank’s factory. Two homes in Walkergate were wrecked and one other about half destroyed - two or three more were badly damaged in Mayors Walk Avenue and about a dozen were damaged with varying degrees of severity. In Kings Mead one was badly burned and many other buildings were more or less lightly damaged. Many fragments of bombs being found fully half-a-mile from the nearest bomb crater.

It wasn’t the most dramatic of bombing raids to be suffered by a British town, and it certainly couldn’t be classed alongside the blitz. Nonetheless, on that Saturday night in 1942 the war arrived on Pontefract’s doorstep. The sky glowed red from firebombs and it brought out that spirit in people, which has become a National legend.

FRANK H.W. HOLMES

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