Five North East bomb raids
BBC1 BEGINS NEW SERIES ON THE BLITZ TONIGHT
DURING the Blitz more than 450,000 bombs dropped on Britain - and every bomb had its own story.
A four-series, Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain, begins tonight on BBC1 at 9pm.
The series examines the specific effect of four bombs, from their initial impact on individual lives, right through to their wider consequences for the Second World War and all the way to the present day.
Each episode begins with a single bomb in a single street in a single place: London, Hull, Clydebank and Bristol.
Hitler’s Luftwaffe, of course, were also regular visitors to the North East, especially in the early years of the war when they targeted the region’s crucially important shipyards and heavy engineering works.
Sadly, the bombs would often go astray and hundreds of men, women and children were killed, maimed, and made homeless.
More often than not, newspapers like the Chronicle were required to radically tone down the bad news, so as not to damage civilian morale or give potential propaganda to the enemy.
It’s perhaps had to comprehend that the terrifying experience of bombs falling on Tyneside, amid the wailing of air raid sirens, is still within living memory for many people.
Among the many bomb raids on Tyneside, we recall five which had devastating results. ■■Newcastle East End
On the night of April 25, 1941, a series of high explosive bombs, showers of incendiaries, and a parachute mine dropped from the darkened skies.
47 people were killed in the raids and whole families were wiped out. The youngest victim was nineweek-old Joseph Reed, the oldest was 77-year-old Isabella Harrison.
Among the areas hit that night were Shields Road, Jesmond Vale, Heaton Park, Grace Street, Heaton Road, Guildford Place and Cheltenham Terrace.
Bodies were still being recovered five days later. Those who remained unidentified were buried in a common grave in Heaton Cemetery. ■■Jarrow
Death and devastation struck in the early hours of April 10, 1941.
German bombers targeting the industries of the Tyne unleashed a hail of bombs over Jarrow.
Houses on Station Street and Sheldon Street were destroyed and damaged.
24 people were killed including a family of seven which was wiped out.
A Roman Catholic priest, Father McDonnell, died from shock. ■■Whitley Bay
On April 16, 1941, the Germans launched heavy air raids targeting the newly commissioned aircraft carrier HMS Victorious which was due to steam out of the Tyne.
During the Luftwaffe attack, landmines rained down, several of which brought utter destruction to Charles Avenue, Oxford Street and, Ocean View in Whitley Bay.
In the event, 16 people were killed in the attack and many were injured and left homeless. ■■South Shields
On the night of October 4, 1941, a German plane dropped its bombs on to the Market Place and nearby rows of terraced houses and swept the streets with machine gun fire.
One bomb killed several people and injured many more who were huddled in an air raid shelter.
Meanwhile, a 60ft pillar of flame shot into the sky from a fractured gas main adding to the apocalyptic scenes.
Finally, 68 men, women and children lay dead or dying and 117 were seriously injured.
More than 2,000 folk were made homeless. One little girl was discovered wandering the streets in her pyjamas, sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother had been killed. ■■North Shields
The night of May 3, 1941, witnessed one of the most the most shocking incidents of death and destruction ever to affect the North East.
As German planes targeted Tyneside industry, a single bomb took the lives of 107 people sheltering in the basement beneath Wilkinson’s lemonade factory in North Shields.
Forty-two of those were under the age of 16 and whole families were lost.
It stands as the largest incident in terms of loss of life from a single bomb in wartime Britain.