The Terror Raids of 1942: The Baedeker Blitz

By Jan Gore

Meticulous research provides the fullest insight yet into the impact of this bombing campaign on Britain’s home front during the Second World War.

“We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide,” the German Foreign Office announced in April 1942 as the Luftwaffe attacked Exeter, Bath, Norwich, York and Canterbury. Over a thousand people died. These raids were direct retaliation for RAF raids on equally historic German cities. Hitler had ordered that “Preference is to be given . . . where attacks are likely to have the greatest possible effect on civilian life,” and in this narrow aim—as Jan Gore shows in the first full history of the raids to be published for over twenty years—they certainly succeeded.

She explains the Luftwaffe’s tactics, the types of bombs that were used—high explosive, parachute mines and incendiaries—and records the devastating damage they caused. Her main focus is on the effect of the bombing on the ground. In graphic detail she describes the air raid precautions, the role of the various civil defense organizations and the direct experience of the civilians. Their recollections—many of which have not been published before—as well as newspaper articles and official reports give us a vivid impression of the raids themselves and their immediate aftermath.

“One can never understand what either side hoped to achieve by destroying historic cities and killing and maiming their citizens during a conflict such as the second world war. Jan Gore attempts to explain the thinking behind it, and the awful consequences . . . A terrific account.” —Books Monthly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526745156

Jan Gore

Jan Gore is a researcher, writer and lecturer who has compiled biographies of the civilians who died during the Second World War in Bournemouth and Exmouth as well as in the Guards Chapel in London in 1944\. In the past she has worked for GCHQ, Chatham House and has been a civil servant and librarian. She now lectures in French at Kingston University. She has recently been involved in assisting with a book about the Dorset artist and illustrator Rena Gardiner, and in working on an archive of her material at Cotehele.

Book preview

Introduction

I first came to Exeter as a student in 1970; I fell in love with the city and have visited regularly ever since. Over time, I began to appreciate its wartime history. However, it wasn’t until after I had retired that I realised I would like to research its role during the 1942 Baedeker Blitz. The stories of those who had survived the Blitz began to fascinate me and I considered how to collect them.

In 2014 my son Alan had just started his degree course at the University of Kent. I came to visit him there and we explored Canterbury together. I admired the architecture and asked him whether the city had been much affected in World War Two. He thought not. This piqued my curiosity and I checked. The same series of raids that had affected Exeter had come to Canterbury a matter of weeks later.

Two students, two cities: it was time to look at what had happened in the spring of 1942.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Niall Rothnie for permission to quote from his books, The Baedeker Blitz and The Bombing of Bath and for providing such an excellent overview of the topic. My gratitude also to Gill Tidmus-Whiting for permission to quote from her late husband’s works, Charles Whiting’s The Three Star Blitz and The Great York Air Raid 1942. I would also like to thank Brett Holman for permission to refer to material from his website Airminded, which discussed contemporary press coverage. Thank you to Pen & Sword for their patience and encouragement, especially Rupert Harding and Susan Last.

Bath

I would like to thank Chris Kilminster for contacting me and sharing his information so generously about the Blitz; my son and I really appreciated his hospitality. I am especially grateful that he has allowed me to use copyright material from Willi Schludecker’s flight log. Thank you also to the staff at Bath Record Office: Archives and local studies for their help to me, and for their ability to trace a wide range of useful books and memoirs. A special thank you to my neighbour, Hazel Harrison, for allowing me to quote from her late father Basil Dick’s memoirs, in which he gave a vivid account of the Blitz. I am also extremely grateful to Rear Admiral Jeremy Larken DSO, both for allowing me to quote from his mother’s memoir, Sow the Wind, and for providing an account of his own childhood memories of the Bath Blitz.

Canterbury

Thanks to the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge for their help with research, and to Alan Gore and Rachel Arkell for their help and encouragement. To Vic Dabin and his son Nigel, for their information about the Mears and Tift families. To all those who contributed to Anna Pope’s Memories of the Blitz in 1992 and especially to Ted Chappell, Anna O’Neill, George Hatton, Lois Lang-Sims, Gwen Bates, Peter Woolgar, Winnie May Ovenden, Stella Amos, Vivienne Entwhistle, Jack Waller and June Holmes; your vivid accounts live on. Also to all those who contributed to ‘And we all got under the table’: Under fire 1939–1945, a VE day celebration. Kenneth Pinnock’s firsthand account of the bombing in Frontline School was particularly evocative.

Exeter

Thank you to everyone who contacted me as a result of the article in the Express and Echo (Devon Live) which asked for memories of the Exeter Blitz. I had so many letters and emails. Especial thanks to Ray Davidson and George Walker for their accounts and to Colin Salter for sharing the account of his mother Mary’s raid. To Jean Hurford for very kindly meeting me in Exeter and giving such a vivid account of her experiences. To John Skinner for many long and interesting conversations about the Exeter Blitz and for sharing the story of his late wife Marian (née Haskins) and her family, and to his son Andrew for allowing me to consult family photographs.

To Dorothy Simmonds for pointing me towards so many useful sources of Exeter memories. To Tracey Coombs and her parents Norman and Rosemary Bartlett for allowing me to listen to the tape of their interview about the war in Exeter. To Kevin Cook for sharing his mother’s story. To Sir Denis Pereira Gray for permission to quote from his mother Alice’s account of the Baedeker raids. To Patrick Nicholls for his entertaining emails about the Exeter Blitz; I am so glad he was able to trace his father among the cathedral fire guards. To Yvonne Ware Owen for taking the time to give me such a vivid account of her Exeter Blitz experiences, and many thanks to her daughter Judy Shorten for making that meeting possible.

To Dave Adcock of Exeter City Council for sharing the Exeter Blitz interpretation panels he produced for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the raids, along with the video produced by the Tourist Information Centre in 2017; my thanks to all those who contributed to the video.

To Ellie Jones, Archivist, Exeter Cathedral Archives, for permission to quote from Miss Eunice Overend ‘An Account of the Fire-Raid on Exeter 3–4 May 1942’ Exeter Cathedral Archives, ED 119.

To the Exeter Memories Facebook group, for useful discussions.

Norwich

I am very grateful to everyone who sent me their reminiscences of the Blitz, including Anthony Dye, Ray Fisher, Richard Carver, Ralph Gayton, Shirley Drew, Ron Smith, Margaret Ketteringham, Beryl Berglund, Ray Gosling, David Radnedge, Kathleen Bidewell, Mike Bailey and Ron Green. Thank you also to the Eastern Daily Press for publishing my appeal for information. Special thanks go to Eric Jarrold and his daughter Ann for sharing his memories; they gave me access to a very large collection of information, especially relating to his role as a civil defence messenger. Also thank you to Derek Bales for his detailed account of the Stoke Holy Cross raid.

Thank you also to the Mass Observation Archive at the Keep, University of Sussex, for allowing me access to the diaries of ‘Diana Gray’; I have kept to the pseudonym given to her by Steve Snelling as MO contributors are given anonymity. A wonderful account which deserves more attention.

York

I would like to thank the archivist of the Bar Convent, Hannah Thomas, for all her help during my visit and for showing me diaries and correspondence about the raid. I am particularly grateful to Stephen Lewis of The Press, York, for permission to quote from his series of articles on the York Blitz, and to all his contributors for their vivid accounts of the York raid: Harold Wood, Jean Murray née Smith, Christopher Backhouse, Tom Marshall, Mary Rothery née Heppell, Brenda Milner, David Wilson, James Sydney Bell, David Thomas, Hannah Weatherley, Brian Rusling, Irene Ashton (née Elsegood), Nancy Megginson (née Coverdale), Alan Amour, Kate Houghton and George Tatterton. Thanks also to the York Baedeker Memories group on Facebook, especially Bill Carr and Margaret King, daughter of Beryl King, née Harris for allowing me to quote from them. Malcolm Brooke has been generous in allowing me access to material from his website, www.militaryhistories.co.uk/york. I especially appreciated the information provided by Michael Smith’s nieces, Helen Sutcliffe and Bev Wallbank; thank you for sharing such a poignant story.

I should also like to thank my friends, especially Julia Wright, Clare Gibson (and Katie), Ann Brueckner White, Roz Cooke, Michelle Bailey and Pat Perry for their help and support and their willingness to discuss the book. My cousins Gilly Sanders and Hilary Mawson have always been supportive and have provided practical help and encouragement on many occasions. Thanks also to Marcia Hughes and friends at the Landmark.

My special thanks to my son, Alan, for all his help, including accompanying me to visit Chris Kilminster in Bath as well as joining me on numerous trips to Canterbury while he was a student there. His sense of humour and excellent IT skills have been invaluable. This book is dedicated to him.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and I should like to thank all those who have kindly granted permission to use quoted material. Any errors or omissions that persist are my responsibility alone.

Chapter 1

The Baedeker raids: background and chronology

The first years of the war

When war was declared on 3 September 1939, the civilian population of Britain might have been justified in anticipating that life would change immediately. The blackout had begun two days before; it was intended to confuse German bombers by making it impossible for them to pick out streets and other landmarks from the air. Car headlights had to be covered and houses had to have their windows blacked out so that no light could be seen. People had been allocated gas masks, in case of gas attacks, and were told to carry these at all times. A programme of evacuation had begun for children in London and the south-east; my fifteen-year-old father was only sent as far as Godalming, but many had far longer journeys ahead. Neville Chamberlain’s announcement of hostilities was at 11.15am. He had barely finished speaking when the air-raid sirens began at 11.28. In London, people ran for shelter. Nobody really knew what to do, as this was the first alert; many were terrified that this might signal a massive and immediate attack by the Luftwaffe. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, caused by an unidentified Allied aircraft.

The ‘phoney war’

The ‘phoney war’ period lasted almost a year for civilians at home. The blackout was strictly enforced; street lights were switched off and cinemas, theatres and public places were closed, though many would later reopen. The BBC closed all channels except for the Home Service. At the start of January 1940, food rationing began. Each adult was allowed 4oz ham, 4oz bacon, 10oz sugar and 4oz butter per week. Later rationing would become more stringent and wide-ranging; it continued to be part of daily life until 1954.

Air-raid shelters began to be delivered in February 1939; by the end of the war about 3.6 million had been installed. Initially these were Anderson shelters, issued free to poorer households; others had to pay £7 for them. They were made of corrugated iron panels that could be fitted together and buried in the soil; they were about 6ft high and just over 6ft long, and in theory could accommodate six people, albeit not in great comfort. Normally they were installed in back gardens. The indoor Morrison shelters were not available until January 1941; until then those without a garden had to rely on basements, if available, or the cupboard under the stairs that was a feature in 1930s and earlier houses. (My grandparents had no garden behind their shop in Acton, so they had to rely on their basement until they could acquire a Morrison shelter, which they placed in their scullery. This would have been more than five months after the London Blitz began.) There were also public street shelters. In the various accounts of the Baedeker raids, the contributors talk about the different ways in which they went for shelter as soon as the air-raid alerts sounded.

Summer 1940: Dunkirk and the start of the attacks on Britain

In 1940, the ‘phoney war’ ended. Potential British allies were invaded and occupied by the Germans: first Norway, then Denmark. Chamberlain resigned on 10 May, and Churchill formed a National Government. Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland and advanced into France. The Local Defence Volunteers (later Home Guard) were formed to help protect Great Britain against attack, which was believed to be imminent. The Battle of France had left large numbers of British, Belgian and French troops cut off and surrounded by German troops. Between 26 May and 4 June, British and Allied troops were systematically evacuated from Dunkirk’s beaches and harbour by a fleet of over 800 boats. Over 338,000 soldiers were rescued.

Hitler hoped to bring the war to a swift end; he ordered his armed forces to prepare for the invasion of Britain. However, first he needed to gain control of the skies over Britain and remove any challenge from the RAF (Royal Air Force). In July 1940, the Germans began by attacking British shipping in the Channel, along with coastal targets. Then the attacks began to move inland and focus on the many military airfields in the southeast, along with communication centres; the Germans wanted to destroy Fighter Command. Nevertheless, most airfields remained operational.

The Battle of Britain and the London Blitz

The Germans erroneously imagined that they had gained the upper hand. They therefore shifted their attention to London, starting on 7 September with a large-scale attack. While these raids were designed to terrify Londoners, the change of focus gave Britain’s defences time to recover. On 15 September there was a massive Luftwaffe raid on London; this was the climax of the Battle of Britain. The targets were purely military (unlike the later Baedeker raids of 1942): Battersea railway station and the dock areas to the east of London. Throughout the day, the Germans suffered heavy losses: fifty-six aircraft were destroyed altogether, with twenty seriously damaged. Eighty-one men were killed and sixty-three were taken prisoner, with a further possible fifty wounded or missing.

The press coverage of the raid, both English and German, showed a lot of over-claiming on both sides. The Daily Telegraph of 16 September alleged that the RAF had shot down 175 enemy aircraft. The Germans were slower in putting their story together. On 17 September, the Nazi Party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter announced that the attacks had caused considerable damage to London. It claimed the Luftwaffe destroyed seventy-nine British aircraft for only forty-three losses. This was also a serious over-claim. RAF losses amounted to twenty-eight fighters, with twelve men killed.

The Germans realised that they could not continue to sustain such heavy casualties. If they could not achieve air superiority, then the plan to invade Britain would have to be abandoned. Instead they would have to try new tactics. Hitler believed that by targeting civilians he could force the British to surrender, and on 7 September 1940 he began his daily bombing campaign. London was the main objective, but other major cities were also bombed during the next eight months. Casualties were high; the first day of bombing in London left 430 people dead and 1,600 badly injured.

Bombing raids on London 1940–41

‘Blitzkrieg’ was the German word for ‘rapid attack’; it was never used by the Wehrmacht except in propaganda. The British press used the abbreviation ‘blitz’ (lightning) primarily to refer to the German bombing campaign of 1940–41, but for later attacks on other targets as well.

Within a few weeks the daily bombing raids had changed to raids by night; this became official policy for the Luftwaffe on 7 October. In part, this was psychological warfare: Hitler wanted to weaken the population by not allowing them to sleep properly and felt that night raids were more terrifying and would damage morale. (This policy was repeated in the Baedeker ‘terror. raids, all of which were carried out late at night or in the early hours of the morning). From 7 September, London was systematically bombed for fifty-six of the following fifty-seven days and nights. There was no break until 2 November. The bombing campaign resumed and lasted until 11 May 1941. By the end of September, in just three weeks, 5,730 people had been killed and nearly 10,000 badly injured. By December 1940 the Germans had killed 13,596 Londoners in only four months. The last major raid, on the night of 10–11 May, killed 1,436 Londoners and left more than 2,000 seriously injured. By December 1941 a further 6,487 Londoners had died; most of these deaths would have occurred during the Blitz. London had endured well over 150 raids in 200 days.

My grandparents, who were living and working in Acton at the time, would never talk directly about their experiences of the Blitz. However, my grandmother mentioned that she took up smoking at that point ‘to calm her nerves’; she was a very phlegmatic woman, so for me that casual comment meant a great deal. She never smoked again once the war ended and lived until she was ninety.

Not only a London Blitz

London was by no means the only city to be attacked in the 1940–41 Blitz. Most people think of the London raids when they hear the word ‘blitz’, but the reality was that a number of other cities were also attacked, albeit not as relentlessly. This becomes clear when you realise that there were a further 10,171 civilian casualties (excluding London) during 1940, many of which would have been as a result of large-scale raids with multiple casualties.

Coventry was attacked on the night of 14–15 November 1940 when more than 500 German bombers came in several waves during a ten-hour raid. It was intended to destroy Coventry’s factories, although much of the city centre was also damaged by fires and high explosive. The cathedral was left in ruins and about two-thirds of the city’s buildings were damaged. Goebbels later used the term ‘coventriert’ (Coventried) to describe raids on other towns that resulted in similar levels of destruction. The attack was often referred to in the press as the ‘Coventry Blitz’. Some 568 people were killed and 1,256 seriously injured.

Birmingham was the third most-bombed city after London and Liverpool; it was an important industrial and manufacturing location. In November and December 1940, a series of heavy raids killed about 800 people and injured 2,345, and there were further raids the following spring.

There were frequent raids on docks and naval bases; this was an attempt to hamper the British war effort, by making it more difficult to import weapons and equipment. Bristol was badly attacked in November 1940 and again in early January 1941; there were six major raids between November 1940 and April 1941. Southampton suffered three raids in late 1940, while Plymouth and Portsmouth were frequently attacked. Some 591 people were killed in Plymouth between 20 and 21 March 1941.

Sheffield was hit in December 1940, leaving 750 dead. Liverpool was attacked repeatedly; in May 1941 raids killed 1,900 people. Manchester was also a target. Cardiff suffered a ten-hour raid on 3 January 1941; 165 were killed. Swansea was raided over several nights in February and 219 were killed. Hull was also attacked, as were Clydebank and Tyneside; 740 people died in Hull during the Blitz period. Belfast, previously felt to be outside the range of German bombing, was attacked in several raids during April and May 1941; over 700 people died.

Press censorship meant that many of these raids were not reported in detail at the time and their location was left deliberately vague so that the Germans did not gain any information about the success of their attacks. (See, for example, the report on the first raid on Exeter.) This also meant that the civilian population was generally unaware of the various towns and cities targeted. If you had relatives living elsewhere, every reference to ‘a seaside town in the southeast’ or a ‘northern city’ must have caused a sense of unease; was that a reference to where your cousin lived? We can read accounts of the raids in terms of aircraft and weaponry, but it’s less easy to appreciate the horror and terror of the attacks as experienced by those living through them. Often our relatives (like my grandparents) would not speak of them. I am very grateful to all of those who have shared their memories of the Baedeker raids with me; they described them so vividly and their accounts convey just how appalling the raids were.

The period leading up to the Baedeker terror raids

Bomber Command gradually adopted a policy of bombing military targets even when these were within German cities. Civilian morale was felt to be a legitimate target. However, at that point in 1941 Bomber Command had few aircraft and poor navigational accuracy. The Butt Report of 18 August 1941 said two-thirds of the aircraft could not find their way to within five miles of the target. ‘Up to the end of 1941, Bomber Command was simply not effective enough to cause accurate or widespread destruction’ (Niall Rothnie). Meanwhile, the Germans had more sophisticated radio navigational aids, while the RAF was still finding it hard to deliver bombs accurately.

1942: a change of policy

By 1942 the situation had totally changed. The Luftwaffe was now heavily committed against Russia, while the RAF had become stronger, both in numbers and in equipment, including revolutionary radar developments. (See Chapter 2 for more information about the developments in the role of radar.)

Meanwhile, on 14 February 1942, after the Air Ministry had carried out a complete review of its policy, it informed RAF Bomber Command that, ‘it has been decided that the primary objective of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population, and in particular of the industrial workers’. This became known as the Area Bombing Directive. It gave a new focus to the air war against Germany, and admitted that targeting civilians, and by extension their morale, was now an explicit policy. Ironically it was this change in emphasis that would lead to the Baedeker raids.

Just over a week later, on 22 February 1942, Arthur Harris was appointed the new commander-in-chief of Bomber Command. He was an excellent publicist and wanted to show what his Command could achieve; he also believed in area bombing. ‘There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My reply to that is that it has never been tried yet’. He had to show how effective Bomber Command could be, as he wanted to destroy morale and production at the same time. He also needed to find enough aircraft for the proposed raids, as many of them had been dispersed or were being repaired. Rumours began about ‘a really big op in the making’. It was soon to come.

The RAF attack on Boulogne-Billancourt

For two hours on the night of Tuesday 3 March, a total of 235 aircraft attacked Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. The Renault factory there was making about 18,000 lorries a year for the German army, so it was an important strategic target. The aircraft came in three waves. It was the biggest RAF raid on a single target at that stage of the war and was intended to cause significant damage to the factory. It used the RAF’s new navigational aid, Gee, and the absence of anti-aircraft fire allowed the aircraft to bomb at a low level. About 45 percent of the 540 bombs fell in the target area. The factory was destroyed; this was hailed as a huge propaganda coup at the time. However, French civilian casualties were heavy; many of the workers lived in blocks of flats near the factory. Over 370 were killed and 317 injured.

Hitler was extremely angry and ordered a heavy reprisal raid on London. However, the weather was poor for some time and not propitious for a raid. In the end his order was cancelled.

Next Harris ordered the RAF to attack Essen and Cologne. They carried out several raids in March 1942, but with little success. He then returned to his first idea, bombing a small target city, and began to plan raids against the Baltic Hanseatic ports: first Lübeck, then Rostock. Both were historic mediaeval towns of no great military importance, although both were holding supplies to help the battle against Russia.

Lübeck’s historic port was used for supplying the German armies in northern Russia; the town had some buildings of military significance, such as the Drägerwerk factory, and was home to several shipyards. It was chosen because it was weakly defended, but more significantly because its old town was made of wood and highly combustible. It was a half-timbered mediaeval town of about 180,000 people. The Altstadt (old town) was a crowded area on an island, full of seventeenth and eighteenth-century warehouses. Harris said it was ‘more like a firelighter than a human habitation’.

The raid on Lübeck, 28–29 March

At this point in the war, Lübeck had already experienced about 200 air-raid warnings, with no bombs