South Shields at War 1939–45

By Craig Armstrong

A tribute to the WWII contributions made by this northeastern English town from the historian and author of RAF Bomber Command at War 1939-1945.

South Shields and its near neighbors such as Jarrow were key communities in the national war effort, despite their relatively small size. Located on the East Coast, South Shields was situated at the key entry to the strategically important River Tyne and was well defended against enemy attack.

Huge numbers of South Shields men and women volunteered for wartime service, while many others worked in vital wartime industries. The town had a particularly high number of men serving in the Merchant Navy and the South Shields mariners suffered very heavy casualties. South Shields also had a multi-cultural population with a large number of foreign (or aliens as they were referred to) seamen and an especially large and active Yemeni community. Indeed, South Shields was to become the first town in Britain to have a purpose-built mosque. Although there were tensions amongst the population due to cultural and racial differences, the Yemeni community played a considerable and loyal role in the war effort.

The book also looks at the considerable contribution made by the men and women who volunteered for the ARP and Civil Defence Services. The towns of Tyneside, including South Shields, were heavily attacked by the Luftwaffe and the blitzes of 1941 hit the town particularly hard. No member of the community was left untouched by the war, whether they were evacuees, workers, servicemen or just civilians struggling to maintain a home in wartime Britain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781473891227

Craig Armstrong

Born and bred in Northumberland, Dr Craig Armstrong is an experienced historian with a special interest in the history of the North East of England and the Anglo-Scottish Borders. He has expertise in 19th and 20th century history with a particular focus on social and military history.Dr Armstrong currently splits his time between teaching at Newcastle University and working as a freelance researcher and writer on the history of North East England and Scotland.

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INTRODUCTION

The Build-Up to War

The seaside town of South Shields stands on the southern bank of the River Tyne and in 1939 was a vital centre of industry. By far the most important industry in the town and its immediate hinterlands was that of shipbuilding and repairing but there were also extensive marine engineering works, paint shops and coal staithes which loaded coal from the Durham coalfield for transport to London. Mixed in amongst this were other industries such as light engineering and ancillary industries which supported both the shipbuilding and mining industries.

The town was also a popular tourist destination, particularly for industrial workers from County Durham and weekend and day trips to the seaside were an extra source of income. South Shields, standing at the mouth of the Tyne was extremely vulnerable to aerial attack and, indeed, the town had been visited by Zeppelins in the First World War while the town (and Tynemouth across the river) had been the intended target for bombardment by elements of the German fleet during that conflict.

South Shields also had an extensive non-white British population as foreign seamen had, for many years, congregated in the town for service in the Merchant Navy. Foremost amongst these communities was that of men and women from Yemen. A strong Yemeni British community had existed since the 1890s and the first Arab Seaman’s Hostel in the country had been opened in South Shields in 1909. By the end of the First World War the Yemeni community in South Shields had grown to well over 3,000 and men of Yemeni descent who served, alongside many other South Shields men, in the Merchant Navy had lost their lives in the conflict; something which was repeated in the Second World War. There had sometimes been tensions between the communities and riots had broken out in 1919 and 1930, but by the beginning of the Second World War attitudes were softening and most, but certainly not all, welcomed the contribution of the Yemeni population.

Like many North-East communities, South Shields had suffered extremely badly during the Depression and, like others in the area, had strong links with the armed forces and particularly with the Merchant Navy. While many local men made their living as members of the Army, Royal Navy and, to a smaller extent, the RAF, a huge number of local men served in the Merchant Navy and it is estimated that South Shields suffered the greatest loss in this service per capita during the war.

The Industrial Situation

The slump in shipbuilding orders had a devastating effect on the industry as a whole, but the effect was felt hardest on Tyneside where the local population was so dependent upon shipbuilding and its ancillary industries. Whilst the industry had been in decline for some time, it was the drastic slump of the early 1930s that accelerated this feature. This downward trend manifested ‘itself in every region, was especially marked in the principal shipbuilding regions, and, within this group, in the Northern Region and in Scotland’.¹

At one point during the 1930s less than 3 per cent of berths were in use on the river, whilst, in Jarrow, unemployment in the industry stood at 80 per cent. The rot had started in the previous decade when launches dropped by a third, year on year. By 1930 the depression of the industry was biting hard at the yards of Tyneside. The north-east yards had launched some 600,000 tons during the first year of the decade but a year later the total stood at only 68,000 tons, a fall of 88 per cent; by 1932 the Tyneside yards launched only 24,000 tons. This was largely due to an absolute lack of orders for oil tankers, a type of vessel that had been the staple of many of the larger Tyneside yards (north-east yards had previously built two thirds of all British oil tankers and one third of the world total). The lack of orders hit the shipyards of the Tyne particularly hard and, by 1931, unemployment in the industry nation-wide stood at 60 per cent whilst on Tyneside the figure was put at over 70 per cent. In March 1931 the Newcastle Employment Committee had reported that there were 78,452 people unemployed on Tyneside. Over 60 per cent of those previously employed in the shipbuilding industry were registered as unemployed, whilst the numbers of idle from the marine engineering field had practically trebled over the previous year.

The slump in the shipbuilding industry, more than in any other single industry, was responsible for the heavy pre-war unemployment on Tyneside. In 1932 the unemployment index in this industry stood at 79 per cent and, as late as 1938, the figure still stood at 25 per cent.² This again exemplified the region’s over-dependence upon a small number of key industries throughout the period and the results of a downturn in specific sectors highlighting the economic vulnerabilities of the area. The importance of shipbuilding and ship-repairing work to Tyneside can be seen by the fact that the north-east coast area (including Tyneside) contained 26 per cent of all shipyard workers in Britain in 1930. This was greater than that of Clydeside and twice the combined total of Merseyside and Barrow.

In addition to rising levels of unemployment employers, understandably, attempted to cope with the depression by decreasing wages and by restricting working hours. Both of these policies were very unpopular with both the unions and the workforce, leading as they did to a reduction in take-home pay. Restriction of working hours also led to a greater degree of inefficiency, lessening of training schedules and a decline in standards of plant maintenance.³ This was especially true of the engineering sector and, on Tyneside, the marine engineering industries. On Tyneside the average working day for an engineering fitter in 1931 was reduced by almost three hours when compared to average workloads just three years previously.⁴ Of all the types of engineering firms it was those engaged in marine work that suffered the second greatest losses of hours with only the textile industry being more badly affected. Some relief was gained by the transfer of some engineering workers to other fields, but the lack of newer light engineering concerns on Tyneside continued to be a significant barrier.

Available orders were far too few to sustain the massively increased capacity that had been a feature of the industry since 1914. In order to reduce this capacity a new body was set up by the government, named the National Shipbuilders Security Limited. The board of directors was drawn from major yards on the Clyde, Tyne, Tees, Wear and Forth as well as from Belfast and Barrow. As chairman, the government selected Sir James Lithgow of Clydeside. He was seen as one of the most able shipbuilders in the country, though he was still as prone as any when it came to failing to note technical and managerial deficiencies within the industry. Indeed, in 1925 he had made a statement to the House of Commons Commercial Committee saying that shipbuilding was in a healthy position and was ‘a strong, well-organised and virile industry, with pre-eminent technical skill’.⁵

The result of the policy enacted by the NSSL was that, by March 1932, three Tyneside shipyards had been bought out and closed. They included Charles Rennoldson and Company at South Shields; Renwick; Dalgleish at Hebburn. The next year brought a further two casualties: Palmers (which had launched its last ship, the HMS Duchess, on 19 July 1931) and Eltringham’s, which had a capacity of 18,000 tons and was put up for sale as a going concern. Eltringham’s had started off in South Shields but had relocated north of the river to Willington Quay across the Tyne from Jarrow.

Local shipbuilders, made anxious by these wholesale cuts, began appealing for government assistance. The President of the Shipbuilding Employers’ Federation, Mr A.L. Ayre, called on the government to place Admiralty orders, as was happening in other countries (including France, Italy and the USA), in order to maintain ‘a skilful and efficient shipbuilding industry’.⁶ Mr Ayre reiterated the importance of the industry to the country by declaring it to have been ‘of first importance, not only to its [the country] essential maritime trade outlook but also to its defence’.⁷ Tyneside, as one of the foremost shipbuilding areas, building both naval and merchant vessels, was clearly to be regarded as a vital location for the production of materials vital to Britain’s trade empire as well as its defence in times of war.

Certainly, some of the smaller yards on the Tyne would have welcomed such government intervention. At least one of the larger yards would have been desirous of financial assistance. The closure of Palmers at Jarrow in 1933 was a shock to the area, but it should not have been. Despite vociferous criticism of NSSL Chairman Sir James Lithgow for his part in the closure, the facts were that the yard had no orders, no sign of a future reversal of the downturn and huge outstanding debt repayments that it could not keep up with. This, when combined with the lack of entrepreneurial spirit during the post-war decade, ensured that the yard was beyond salvation. Jarrow MP, Ellen Wilkinson, was quick to criticise the directors of the company for taking care of their own interests ahead of those of the workforce and the town. Her criticism would appear to have some merit when we look at the accounts of the last profitable year the company experienced. In 1929 the company turned in profits of £25,000 but over a quarter of this figure was paid out in directors’ fees.⁸ Selfish and weak leadership in the industry was heavily criticised by the unions and by later historians.⁹

The year 1933 was viewed with ambivalence by those involved in the industry. It was the worst year of the crisis, but also the year when there were the first signs of an improvement in the situation. During the year orders continued to be abnormally low and the Tyne yards produced only 11,000 tons, caused largely by the dearth of naval contracts.¹⁰ However, orders for merchant vessels were showing signs of a dramatic increase and confidence in the industry itself, whilst still shaky, was beginning to improve. The next year showed a marked improvement: North-East yards doubled their production compared to the previous year. Recovery on Tyneside, however, was to proceed at a slower pace than the recovery of the industry nation-wide. This was largely a