Tynedale at War, 1939–1945

By Brian Tilley

Barawling Australians, Polish pilots burning to avenge themselves on Germany for the invasion of their country, the German officer who drowned while trying to escape from a South Tyne PoW camp, and the pub landlady who watered down her gin in order, she claimed, to prevent naive Land Army girls getting drunk it was all part of life in Tynedale as the district went to war for the second time in twenty-five years.Although well away from the battlegrounds of Europe, Tynedale did not escape the ravages of the Second World War. The rolling moorlands of the heart of Northumberland are still pitted with dozens of craters, where both Allied and Axis aircraft crashed in flames, and there were tragedies on the Home Front too.At remote Coanwood, twenty-four men were left dead or seriously injured when a training exercise went badly wrong, and an exploding ammunition train at Hexham railway station left three men dead. Even before the conflict began, founder of the British Union of Fascists Sir Oswald Mosley and the hated Nazi propaganda broadcaster, William Joyce better known as Lord Haw Haw both came to the heart of Northumberland to preach the Fascist gospel in Hexham.This book deals with the everyday impact of six years of war on the district, from the arrival of gravely wounded soldiers from Dunkirk at Hexham Emergency Hospital, through to dealing with thousands of often louse-ridden evacuees from industrial Tyneside, the heroics of local servicemen and the antics of the Home Guard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473863972

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The Gathering Storm

The two squadrons of German bombers swooped on Hexham out of the setting sun one evening in late May. Thwarted in their intended plan to blitz industrial Tyneside, the Luftwaffe pilots broke to the northwest and then headed for home along the Tyne Valley and, in order to lighten their heavy payload, opened their bomb doors over defenceless Hexham. Hardly had the newly-installed air raid siren on top of the police station in Beaumont Street begun to wail before the bombs started to rain down, causing havoc throughout the town.

The first high explosive bomb fell at Lowgate, blocking the Allendale Road, and seconds later, a mustard gas bomb exploded in woodland to the west of the Hydro building. There was a direct hit on Tynedale Cricket Club’s pavilion at Prior’s Flat by an incendiary bomb, and within seconds the wooden structure was a mass of flames. The upper storey of a house in Hextol Terrace was also ablaze after being hit by an incendiary bomb, while in Shaftoe Crescent, a high explosive bomb fractured a gas main which was belching flames high into the sky.

The destruction continued in the Market Place, where a strong smell of garlic indicated that a 250lb bomb dropped there had been packed with gas. The road surface, the market cross and the roof of the Shambles covered market stalls were all splashed with a brown liquid, as were two members of the public.

The Northumberland Hussars at summer training in Welbeck in July 1939. The Hussars were one of the few units to have retained their horses.

Incendiaries continued to rain down, with one lying unexploded in Beaumont Street while yet another set fire to a house close to the gates of Hexham Hospital. Another hit Gibson’s sawmill yard and huge stacks of timber were well alight. A high explosive bomb landed close to the entrance of Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, but failed to go off, and the deadly device was lying deeply embedded in gravel.

There were casualties in Priestpopple where more bombs had severed water mains and cut off the electricity supply. Many shop windows were blown in, and disgracefully, a number of teenage boys were seen looting the damaged shops.

Thankfully, there were no fatalities and indeed damage was entirely superficial – those looters were in fact Boy Scouts doing their good deeds for the day for the ‘air raids’ happened in May 1939, several months before the Second World War began. It was all part of a major exercise, planned in total secrecy, to test the readiness of the civil defence and air raid precaution services of the town as Germany flexed its military muscles across the English Channel.

The event was deemed a great success, for when the new air raid siren began to moan, motorists and pedestrians alike showed commendable zeal and promptitude in seeking shelter and the streets were cleared in a remarkably quick time. There was a total of fifteen supposed incidents, with police, fire, ambulance, decontamination units and military authorities all dispatched to deal with the chaos caused.

A post mortem on the mock raid was held the following week at Hexham Infants School, where chief organiser Major MacVicar Munro said: ‘The exercise reflected considerable credit on those who were involved. I was pleased too with the way in which members of the general public co-operated. Even passing motorists got out of their cars and sheltered until the all clear signal.’

Major Munro acknowledged there had been errors, the identifying of which had been one of the main reasons for the exercise. He urged wardens to be as quick and concise as possible with their messages, saying: ‘Remember that the control room is the heart and pulse of the whole exercise, and if there is not complete cohesion between the wardens and the control room, then the practices will be a complete fiasco.’

The newly installed air raid siren on the roof of Hexham police station in Beaumont Street in May 1939.

Chairman of Hexham Urban Council, Councillor Tom Wheatley, said the air raid had made it plain there was a shortage of twenty to thirty volunteers to make the warden services in Hexham complete.

It was the first time the new air raid siren, weighing 5.5cwt, had been used since its installation on the police station roof, which had to be specially reinforced to bear the weight. It was quickly pointed out that the new siren could not be heard at Lowgate, only a mile outside Hexham, while it was clearly audible at Ovington, 12 miles further away down the Tyne. A strong west wind was blamed for the problem.

Back in 1939 Tynedale, like the rest of the country, was starting to come to terms with the fact that the ‘Peace in Our Time’ pronouncement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain a year earlier might not be worth the piece of paper it was written on, as Hitler and the Third Reich were behaving in an ever more provocative manner.

However, there were still hopes for peace, decorated First World War soldier Benny Plummer, proprietor of the Hexham Courant newspaper, told fellow members of Hexham Rotary Club after a visit to Freiburg in Germany’s Black Forest region. With a reference to the German re-armament mantra ‘guns, not butter’, Mr Plummer commented wryly: ‘Although we saw plenty of butter, we did not see a single gun, except in a railway siding on the way home.’

Mr Plummer said he found the German people warm-hearted and he had met with nothing but friendliness and kindness. He added: ‘You might force people to be cordial by propaganda, but you cannot beat human kindness into people if it is not there already. I was left with the feeling that the German people do not want war any more than we do and the last thing they want to contemplate is war with us. The German regular army is against the war, but it appears that by degrees, the Nazi storm troopers will become top dogs and the regular army will be pushed into the background.’

Mr Plummer said that in Freiburg at least, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was looked upon as a god, as the one man whose efforts had averted war in September 1938, while Herr Hitler was also seen as something sacred. ‘His photograph is everywhere. He must have had thousands taken because there seemed to be a different one in every place we visited.’

While Hitler was revered, the other German leaders were not so popular, with Mr Plummer declaring: ‘Goebbels is hated and Streicher is cordially disliked, while Goering is treated as a general joke. Whenever he appears on the screen the audiences break into howls of laughter. If they can laugh at a man like Goering, perhaps there is hope for them.’

He also noted that everywhere in Germany was spotlessly clean and everyone wore a uniform of some kind, so he never knew whether he was speaking to a soldier or a postman. He was also aware that while Freiburg lay only 10 miles from the French border, there was no sign of any air raid precautions being taken.

Ready for action – men of the Hexham, Haltwhistle, Newburn, Bellingham and Prudhoe detachments of the 4th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers on the march for their St George’s Day parade in April 1939. St George was the regiment’s patron saint.

It was clear the ordinary Germans did not even pretend to like the Jews, but he felt that many of them were unaware of the atrocities being committed against them. The Germans made it clear though that they preferred the Jews to the Italians. Shortly after the Axis agreement was signed, a party of Italians had gone into Freiburg for a night out, but the young women of the town had refused to leave their homes after seven o’clock at night.

However, in other quarters there was still a deep mistrust of Germany and its Italian allies, with Judge John Richardson warning the annual dinner of the Corbridge branch of the British Legion in February of the unpredictable nature of the dictators Hitler and Mussolini. He said:

‘There is no doubt that the individual German desires to be friendly but when you get a lunatic dictator in charge, anything can happen. There is no doubt that Hitler and Mussolini have done a good job for their countries but they have got their people under their thumbs. If they question anything their government does, it means the concentration camp or worse.

There are authenticated cases where children have reported their parents to the authorities for private conversations in their own houses, for the children have been brought up to believe there is only one loyalty and that is to the German nation. I cannot believe that the majority of the German people approve of the horrible persecution of the Jews, but they dare not say anything because of the thraldom they are under.

It is quite clear that the only thing which will avoid war is to show them we are prepared, and then these dictator nations will not dare to trample on the lion’s tail.’

Even though memories of the First World War were still all too fresh in the memory, with empty chairs round every fireside, a call to register for National Service – the civil defence force – was met with an eager response across Tynedale. Among those registering, within the first days of booklets being issued, were an 84-year-old man and his wife.

At Prudhoe, there was concern the town was right on the edge of the Tyneside heavy industry zone and would be in potential danger from German air raids. Prudhoe Urban District Council therefore launched an investigation into whether any of the local disused coal mines could be employed as air raid shelters.

While protective trenches had been dug at Castle Dene, they were only capable of accommodating around 10 per cent of the population and Councillor T. Peel asked: ‘Where are the other 90 per cent to go? Despite all the instructions, panic would occur when there is an air raid, and I think the disused drift mines would be the natural place to which the people of the district would flee.’

It was noted that the trenches were not intended to serve the whole town, but only those who might be caught in the open during an air raid. Council chairman Councillor Ada Blackburn pointed out the question of using the old mines for shelter had been considered before, and it was felt the pits were too far away from the main part of the town. In addition, a moving line of people would present an easy target for the raiders.

In April of that year, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley, was warmly applauded when he addressed a meeting of the Rotary Club of Hexham at the Royal Hotel in the town, where he insisted that war with Germany was not inevitable. ‘We have nothing to fear from Germany if we have the wit to hold and develop the resources which our grandfathers had the courage to win for us,’ he said.

He had a four-point plan to maintain peace in Europe, starting with the need to show disinterest in the east of the continent, asking: ‘Why do we have to be allied to every little country in the east?’

In return for staying out of affairs in the east, Mosley said that Britain should enter into a disarmament pact with Germany:

‘We must look after and build up the greatest heritage known to man: the Empire of Great Britain. Who are we to cower in fear before any foreign power and to believe that we cannot face Germany unless we have Colonel Beck [Polish foreign minister] holding one hand, and King Carol [of Romania] the other? Why should we run round seeking alliances with every little country in Europe, and telling them we would come to their aid when attacked if they would send their army to help? Why are we guaranteeing the independence of Poland and Romania?’

He pointed out that Poland was undercutting the British coal industry with coal obtained by sweated labour from mines developed by British finance from the City of London. Romania exported wheat, every grain of which meant less money for British and Canadian farmers.

He went on: ‘The greatest moral question is whether a million British youths have to die through intervening in an unjust quarrel on the continent. Before we run to the aid of a smaller nation against a bully, we have to be sure there is a bully.’

Despite Mosley’s words, Tynedale was still on a war footing, with the Hexham Scout Troop among the first in the region to be enrolled as air raid wardens.

It wasn’t all war talk though, for Hexham Urban Council rejected a plea for children to be allowed to use the swings on the Sele pleasure grounds on a Sunday. Councillor Joe Cullen spoke in favour of the application, noting that Sunday golf was already allowed on Tyne Green, and he would like to see Sunday bowling too. He said: ‘I don’t think this would keep children away from Sunday School or chapel, or that there would be any desecration of the Sabbath.’

However, Councillor Miss Iveson was opposed to the move, saying: ‘There are six days in the week when the children can use the swings and I think they can easily do without them on Sundays.’ The request was turned down.

As the nation prepared for war, there was a grim taste of things to come when a Wark sailor was among the ninety-nine dead when the ill-fated submarine HMS Thetis sank while undergoing trials off the Welsh coast. He was Petty Officer John Adam Hope, who lived with his mother in Elliott Terrace. He was 36 years old and had been in the Royal Navy for twenty-two years, fifteen of them in the submarine service.

The introduction of conscription in June 1939 went very smoothly, with no problems at any of the Labour Exchanges across the district where men were required to register for military training. An official at the Hexham Exchange said: ‘The men rolled up well and were in a good frame of mind. Two things were noticeable – the good spirit in which they came, and their excellent physique.’ One man had walked six miles to the Exchange to sign up and others included a man from Harrogate, in Hexham for a wedding, and a bronzed man in shorts who was in the area on a hiking holiday. There were few requests to register as conscientious objectors, although there was a marked preference to serve with the RAF.

The ever-present threat of war was cranked up to an even higher level at the end of August, when the worsening international situation saw all air raid posts in the district manned and the switching off of all street lights. The blackout also caused kerbs and street corners to be painted white. Business came to a virtual standstill, except for the shops, which experienced a great demand for tinned goods and materials with which to black out windows. Residents who had not been issued with gas masks were urged to go to the offices of Hexham Urban Council to collect one without delay.

When war was finally declared on 3 September the news was received calmly, with the air raid siren sounded and special constables taking to the streets of Hexham with their gas masks and tin helmets. They were dispatched to guard bridges and other strategic points across the district, as well as ensuring blackout regulations were strictly observed.

Devastated Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

There were strong words from the chairman of Hexham Urban District Council, Councillor Tom Wheatley, who said: ‘I have come to the conclusion that the policy of appeasement is no good when you have a mad dog like Hitler loose in the world. I am very pleased we are going to try to put this mad dog down.’

Evacuees

By the first week in September, as the first German bombs fell on Poland, Hexham was already receiving the first of its scheduled 4,000 evacuees from Newcastle and Gateshead. Five trainloads of children arrived at Hexham railway station to board a fleet of buses to convey them to the senior school, where preparations were made to transfer them to various parts of the rural areas. Car owners were also asked to turn up at the railway station to assist with conveying the bewildered children to their new temporary homes.

The evacuees for Hexham came from St Dominic’s RC School (690); Cowgate (300); West Walker Council (733) and East Walker Council (476). Bellingham’s allocation comprised 450 children from Heaton Park Road Council, while Haltwhistle had 700 from Delaval Council, and Allendale 307 from Whickham Road Council School and 214 from Pendower Bridge.

The children arrived at the station ‘choking with excitement’ according to the Hexham Courant, accompanied by their teachers. Each child had a gas mask and an identification disc. Medical inspections were carried out by a team of doctors and nurses under Dr Patton, with hands, teeth and hair all coming under close scrutiny.

Thousands of evacuees start to pour into Tynedale as war is declared.

They were then issued with their rations, which comprised biscuits, a tin of corned beef, two bars of chocolate, a tin of unsweetened milk and a tin of condensed milk.

The children were made very welcome, with one Hexham mother telling the Courant: ‘It is of the children we must think, not of ourselves. We are comparatively comfortable, but these children have left their homes, friends and everything. I am willing to do my share to ease their burden.’

Her views were shared by a man, who added: ‘Many of these youngsters cannot help their circumstances. They may not be of the wealthier classes but I am sure they will not be of the least trouble to those of us who will have to look after their welfare.’

The city children were soon billeted on local families, although some residents refused to take in any evacuees. A boy wrote to his mother: ‘Hexham is a nice place. There are plenty of plums, pears and brambles. The woman is very kind to us and feeds us well. This is a nice holiday – we just play in the park all day.’

Country life was a mystery