Night bomber crews of Kampfgruppe 26 brought hell to Clydebank
By ALISTER BLYTH IMAGINE something as dramatic as a church being firebombed - yet hardly a line about it appears in the local newspaper.
That is what happened when Bearsden South Church was gutted by an incendiary bomb dropped on the second night of the Clydebank Blitz.
The raids happened on the nights of March 13-14, 1941, but the Herald had to wait until its issue of April 12 before the Government censor would allow it to tell its readers what they all knew anyway - "The South Church, Bearsden, was gutted by fire.'' No other details about the church were printed.
It was only in that edition that the Herald was allowed to state in print that what had been referred to in previous weeks as "A Clydeside town'' was in fact neighbouring Clydebank.
The Herald fails to mention that also on the second night of the Blitz, a bomber dropped a mine in Blanefield, killing three and wounding 11. Perhaps the censor told the editor this tragic incident was too sensitive to be publicised.
Despite what seems to have been a pointless news blackout - locals could hear the bombing and the anti-aircraft fire and would have heard survivors' stories - the Herald appears to have been allowed to mention Clydebank in its advertising columns the week after the Blitz.
The front page of the March 22 edition carried a large advert from Milngavie Town Council, promising residents who had opened their homes to people bombed out of "Clydebank and other distressed areas'' that arrangements would soon be made for them to receive the official billeting allowance.
But other adverts are careful only to refer to Clydeside. They urge evacuees to register with the Town Council, give details of feeding centres, and appeal for donations to the Milngavie Privilege Fund, so named because it was the burgh's "privilege to assist neighbouring friends who have had to withstand the most evil of Hitler's attacks.''
On the first night of the Blitz, Canniesburn Hospital was quickly filled with the wounded and staff had to turn away ambulances which went instead to Killearn and Robroyston Hospitals.
Milngavie, like all communities, had an Emergency Organisation in force but this was only designed for a maximum of 200 evacuees. Such was the devastation in Clydebank that many times that number swamped Milngavie where the Herald praised the refugees for their "wonderful cheerfulness'' in the face of so much tragedy.
"The women especially have been truly heroic,'' said the paper. "No tears have been in evidence, and most of them have accepted the tragic situation with a benign sang froid that had to be seen to be believed.
"One woman we spoke to was loud in her praise of her Anderson shelter, to which she said she owed her life.''
The Herald also praised locals who had opened their homes and hearts to those who had lost everything in the Blitz.
"Milngavie has become quite a famous place these days, and a revolution has resulted entirely different from what Hitler has expected. Our treatment of the unfortunate people who have been bombed out of their homes has been praised on all hands. Mr Pat Gillan, a member of the old School Board, whom we met casually in Douglas Street, said words failed him to express his great admiration for the way the Milngavie people had treated them. Kindness had simply been showered on them on all hands."
A later report tells how the Woman's Voluntary Service, the local Red Cross, doctors and burgh officials all dealt magnificently with the crisis. Communal feeding centres were set up, a shop was commandeered as a clinic and auxiliary hospitals were established at Kinnoul House and at Cairns Church Hall. A census of all refugees was conducted, and emergency ration books distributed.
The 1st Bearsden Boys' Brigade Company did their bit for the relief effort. A team of cyclists was conscripted to take messages between the various groups of relief workers in Clydebank.
BUT the raids did not leave Milngavie and Bearsden themselves unscathed.
Bus driver Thomas West, who lived in Sinclair Street, Milngavie, was working in Clydebank as bombs began to rain from the sky. He was struck in the throat by flying shards of glass and died several days later.
And Lodge Ellangowan in Milngavie mourned the loss of past master Edward McIlroy, his wife and their six-year-old daughter Margaret, who all perished when the house they were visiting took a direct hit.
Bearsden postman Adam McWilliams, a popular figure on his rounds in Killermont and Kessington, was another victim. The Herald told its readers: "It is regrettable to note that recently Mr McWilliams had made arrangements to be married, and his fiancee had the terrible misfortune to lose not only her future husband but her mother and sister and other relatives at the same time.'' Some householders on his round sent flowers to his funeral.
THE pathfinders from the elite Kampfgruppe 26 which preceded the main bomber force scattered mainly flares, known as Molotov chandeliers, and incendiary bombs with the aim of illuminating the target for the crews that followed.
But they also carried a small number of heavy bombs, the idea being that these would force the population, including firefighters, into the shelters. The purpose of this was not to avoid unnecessary loss of life, but to make sure the fires they started would rage unchecked.
A plane over Bearsden in the first wave on the night of March 14 dropped a stick of incendiaries short of its target, most of which either burned themselves out in the gardens of houses in Ledcameroch Road, or were smothered by firewatchers.
But some hit the South Church and the dry wood in the roof was quickly ablaze. There was little the Auxiliary Fire Service, mostly volunteers, could do.
By morning the church was a burned out shell.The minister, the Rev Graham Park and his wife were not at home when the church was bombed. He was seen the next day, staring blankly into the ruins. A member later recalled how he turned around, acknowledged her presence with a sad nod, then walked away without speaking. With his homeless congregation meeting in halls, Mr Park in the spirit of self-sacrifice was to ask the Session to cut his stipend by a quarter.
Bombs were also scattered around Drymen, Killearn, Fintry, Baldernock and, with such tragic results, Blanefield.
For residents of Westerton, there was relief when an unexploded bomb was safely removed after lying embedded on waste ground for several days. People living nearby had been evacuated until the danger was past.
The 24th Glasgow (Bearsden) Scouts, at their Easter camp at Edinbarnet, found several unexploded incendiary bombs which were gathered up and placed in a ring at the bottom of a nearby quarry where the boys found they could ignite them by lobbing stones from a safe height!
The camp was hurriedly relocated some 1200 yards when an RAF officer arrived to tell the scouts they were only 500 yards from a set of decoy fires in the Kilpatrick Hills which would be lit in the event of the Luftwaffe coming back to Clydeside. The incendiaries and fragments of high explosive bombs found by the boys proved this tactic had already succeeded in drawing some raiders away from the built-up areas.
THE Herald was soon receiving letters from readers demanding revenge raids on Germany for the horrors inflicted on Clydebank.
An editorial in the issue of April 12 stated: "Our correspondents show some pardonable ignorance of the responsibilities of a newspaper in these times of prolonged crisis. The Services must settle their offensives, and they do so with knowledge of which ordinary members of the public are not in possession. We are ourselves in favour of as much hard punishment as can be bestowed on the ruthless enemy who has from the air bombarded our towns and villages without the least concern as to those who shelter there.
"Large numbers of women and children have been killed on Clydeside and elsewhere. Their homes have been obliterated. Tens of thousands have been stripped of all their possessions. The story is the most terrible in our history. We are not surprised that a righteous angry people call for that vengeance which will go a long way to breaking German morale.
"Still, when all is said and done, we must leave the disposition of our resources to the Cabinet and the official heads of the services, who are perfectly well aware of the havoc done almost nightly in Britain.''
The paper admitted that it would like to hear more frequently of the RAF raiding Berlin but accepted that other targets, such as U boat bases, must take priority.
"We are tired of the German aerial pirates, but the day is coming when the Germans and their bottle holders will be much more tired of our men,'' the Herald promised.
But having completed his verbal attack on Germany, the editor went on to turn his fire on the authorities who had tried to conceal the full extent of Clydebank's suffering.
"The officials should have told us more about Clydeside than was the case,'' thundered the Herald. "If this had been done, many doors would have been wide open for the homeless, and resources would have been increased, great although the response has been.''
In the event, the readers who demanded retaliation were to get their wish. Mannheim, Bremen and Dusseldorf were the victims of a series of reprisal raids codenamed Operation Abigail. The first planes carried only incendiary bombs, with the object of causing "widespread uncontrollable fires.''
There were soon reports of Bankies complaining that they were being mistreated in some of the various towns that had taken them in. David Kirkwood, Labour MP for Dumbarton Burghs, which included Clydebank, told the House of Commons on May 29 that his constituents were being treated "like criminals'', citing the case of a family of 15 living in a hut.
Kirkwood, Sir Steven Bilsland, the Western District Civil Defence Commissioner, and Joseph Westwood, Under Secretary of State for Scotland, were told at a public meeting on April 4 that refugees were sleeping in garages in Milngavie while commodious villas lay empty nearby.
When the MP, who lived in Bearsden, promised that any such homes would be requisitioned a heckler yelled: "What about your house?'' Kirkwood replied that he had taken in three bombed-out families.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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