Witnessing the Bombardment
The day German shells rained down on Scarborough is remembered by a chauffeur who drove through the bombs and debris on a secret mission to York.
turned into Lonsdale Road.
Shells had hit 13 Lonsdale Road and seeing this made me stop suddenly. Bricks and debris was all over the road.
A house in Filey Road nearly opposite the entrance to Lonsdale Road was also damaged. It must have been hit at about the same time.
I got out of the car, looked around at the astonishing scene, saw no-one so then drove on to Granville Square and rang the door bell.
A man came to the door to whom I handed the note and he said “Oh it’s you wait a minute” and went into the house.
While waiting I looked down Granville Road and saw an elderly couple coming from the direction of West Street The old man was carrying an oil lamp and had hold of the old lady’s hand. He asked me where they could go as a shell had gone through their roof which was in West Street, nearly opposite Granville Road. I took them to Granville Square opened the house door and let them in.
The firing stopped and everything then seemed so quiet.
The door of the Granville Square house opened and the man to whom I had handed the letter came out, got into the car and told me to go to a house in Trinity Road where we picked up another man.
We then went on to a bank in Huntriss Row. They went in and after a few moments came out and told me to go along the Foreshore and back to Trinity Road and Granville Square.
I was told to go back to the garage and if more firing started to come back immediately.
I heard later that there were some documents that had to be got out of town and we were to meet another car on the Pickering Road which would collect them from us.
Returning to the garage I got as far as the Belle Vue Parade/ Victoria Road junction.
There were two St John’s Ambulance men attending a man in the road.
They stopped me and said they needed to get the man to hospital so we lifted him into the back of the car and off we went.
I then returned to Belle Vue Street which was a shambles. There was hardly a house which had not been damaged and few windows left in any of the houses.
When I got to our garage I could not get into the entrance. A shell had gone through the roof and out of the end of the building without exploding.
This shell must have been the one that wrecked the house in Gladstone Road at the bottom of Belle Vue Street.
Luckily for the girls who worked in the printing shop my dad had met them as they arrived for work and had sent them home, so the top floor was unoccupied.
The doors had been blown off our house and the windows blown out.
It was a horrendous sight but my mother who had been in the house at the time said that she and the family were all right and then, typically, told me “you’re wanted at the Grand Hotel”.
I found four officers waiting for me. They jumped into the car and said “York, quick”.
On arriving at Fulford Barracks in York they got out of the car and went in, telling me to wait outside.
A crowd gathered around me and wanted to know all about the bombardment. They had been told that the Germans had landed and the town was on fire.
They said I shouldn’t go back. I told them that when I left Scarborough all was quiet.
As I had been driving around the town I had seen no signs of panic but people were very scared.
I remained outside the barracks for two hours before the officers came out and told me to get back to Scarborough.
I told them what the York people were saying and they then told the crowd that there had been no further action on the coast.
We got back to the hotel late in the afternoon.
One of the officers thanked me. He told me to have the car ready for the officers as the car may be required again at a moment’s notice.”