Tynemouth and Wallsend at War, 1939–45

Introduction

Tynemouth and Wallsend had, like many areas of the North-East, suffered badly during the inter-war years. The temporary and artificial boom which had propelled industries during the First World War quickly came to an end in peacetime, and traditional heavy industries along the banks of the Tyne found themselves pitted against more advanced overseas rivals competing for a far smaller market. As a result of this, several large and important shipyards and other engineering concerns went out of business altogether, whilst others reduced their workforces and attempted to struggle on.

Unemployment during the inter-war years was a very severe problem in Tynemouth and Wallsend. Although the town of Tynemouth itself largely escaped the more troublesome problems because of its relative wealth and reliance on the service sector, neighbouring North Shields was severely affected and the poverty which went hand-in-hand with unemployment grew worse, with slum conditions affecting many. The series of slum clearances in the 1930s, especially the building of the Ridges Estate,¹ were intended to alleviate this problem, but such was the poverty in the town that the problems of poor living conditions continued to affect many residents.

In Wallsend similar conditions prevailed, largely due to the fact that so many of the residents were reliant upon employment in the shipbuilding, engineering and associated industries. Once again, living conditions in the closely crowded houses were poor, which led to both illness and crime being a concern for the local authority.

The later 1930s, however, saw a resurgence in some of the industries on the Tyne with the rearmaments programme that was being backed by the government in the knowledge of Germany’s own rearmament providing much-needed work for the beleaguered shipyards and engineering firms on the Tyne. By 1939, it was increasingly clear to the residents of the area that another war with Germany was coming, and the industries prepared themselves for the conflict. The area also had a well-established reputation for the numbers of men who served in the armed forces, and it was obvious that many of the young men of the area would once again be called upon to fight for their country.

Note

1. Now renamed the Meadowell Estate.

CHAPTER ONE

1939: The Clouds Gather

Due to the geographical location of Tynemouth and Wallsend, the area was key to a large export/import industry, for which the Tyne was the driving force, this industry being dominated by coal and engineering exports and agricultural and timber imports. With the regional capital, Newcastle, just a few miles upriver, the area was also the entry point to a large distribution network and by 1939 more than 51,000 people were employed in the transport and distributive trades on Tyneside. North Shields was also home to a substantial fishing fleet and the businesses which the fishing industry supported (including a guano/ fish meal fertilizer factory). Many of the trawlermen who called the port of North Shields home were also members of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and were called up at the start of the war.

North Shields and particularly Wallsend were dominated by engineering and shipbuilding giants such as Swan Hunters, but the war came at a time when the yards were still suffering from some of the effects of the slump which followed the decades after the First World War. The latter part of the Thirties had seen some improvement as military orders started to flow in as a result of the rearmament policy which the government instituted. However, the higher demands from home came at a time of slack orders from abroad and the miniature boom was an artificial and ultimately unsustainable one.

Not that many of the masses of unemployed on Tyneside cared about such causes, and when the first year of the war resulted in an increase in engineering jobs of over 20,000 there were no complaints. The expansion of Vickers Armstrong in Newcastle was responsible for many, but there were also vacancies filled in various other shipbuilding yards and engineering concerns in Tynemouth and Wallsend. Unfortunately, many of the engineering magnates of the area let themselves be seduced by the immediate wartime boom and ignored the fact that in preparations for the future they would have to plan for a swift decrease in orders once the war ended.

Wallsend was a largely working-class urban area which was dominated by shipbuilding and heavy engineering, although there were also a number of other concerns, ranging from T.W. Clark & Sons – who owned the Mid-Tyne Pickle Works on Birket Street – to the dyers Johnson Bros Ltd. Other large industrial concerns included: W.R. Dixon & Co. Ltd, steel packing manufacturers; R.N. Dodds & Son, iron workers; Duit Engineering Co. Ltd; Robert Dickie Lambie, boat builders; the car manufacturer Lanchester Motor Co. Ltd.; McVickers & Co. Ltd, printers; Monitor Patent Safety Devices Ltd; North Eastern Marine Engineering Co. Ltd; Ogle & Wordsworth, sheet metal workers; Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co. Ltd; T.B. Pearson & Sons, engineers; the Seaton Burn Coal Co. Ltd; the Singer Sewing Machine Co. Ltd; Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd; W.M. Swinburne & Sons Ltd, brassfounders; the Thermal Syndicate Ltd, manufacturers of silica, magnesia and alumina; Wallsend & Hebburn Coal Co. Ltd; Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Co. Ltd (a subsidiary of Swan Hunter’s); and Watson-Norie Ltd, electrical engineers. All of these companies became involved in the manufacture of military equipment in addition to and sometimes in place of their regular product lines.

Although shipbuilding and marine engineering dominated the engineering scene in the town, even this area of industry was remarkably varied. One of the most important alternative engineering concerns was the firm of Charles Crofton & Co. Ltd. From its beginning in 1929 at Newcastle, the firm had built up its lines of electric rotary drills, flameproof plugs and sockets and miscellaneous equipment for the coalmining industry. By 1931, the firm had taken out patents on its new designs of electric rotary drills, which it named ‘Victor’. The increasing use of machinery in the mines meant that the company thrived throughout the 1930s, with a breakthrough being the production of the revolutionary ‘Ardeloy’ drill bit which sold in the millions and allowed the company to relocate to Wallsend.

At nearby Howdon (Willington Quay), there were several other large industrial concerns which would make a contribution to the war effort and which would probably be targets for the Luftwaffe. One of the main sites was the Befola oil works of George Catcheside Ltd.

Tynemouth Borough, and especially North Shields, was also home to major industrial concerns. There was the large oil depot of the Anglo-American Oil Co. Ltd at Tynemouth Road, which would have been a prime target and appeared on Luftwaffe bombing maps found after the war. There were a large and varied number of industrial concerns which all played a role in wartime production.

Sample of Industries in North Shields

Maritime & Fishing Companies at North Shields

The many important shipyards in the area not only made the area a key target for the Luftwaffe, but also an important part of the national war effort. With the rearmaments programme in full swing, many of the yards already had work on hand for the Admiralty. One of the earliest vessels to be completed during the war was the 13,175-ton Town Class light cruiser HMS Edinburgh, which had been launched by Swan Hunter in 1938 and was completed in July 1939.¹ In the same year, Swan Hunter completed three further naval vessels (all destroyers): HMS Janus, HMS Khartoum and HMS Tartar.²

HMS Kashmir, which was HMS Khartoum’s almost identical sister ship. (Public Domain)

HMS Edinburgh, completed by Swan Hunter in 1939 and scuttled in 1942. (Public Domain)

HMS Tartar, launched at Swan Hunter in 1939, led a charmed life and had an eventful wartime career. (Public Domain)

The introduction of the blackout caused significant problems in the licensed trade. The conditions of the blackout forced many local authorities to curtail late-night tram and bus services, and this had a knock-on effect on the licensed trade. In December 1939, Tynemouth Borough Council wrote to the Licensed Trade Association informing them that public transport services would cease at 10.00 pm due to the restrictions on street lighting. This resulted in a succession of meetings to discuss the possible responses to this predicament. Proposals included the early opening and closing of pubs, but this would require the permission of the Brewery Sessions, whilst early closing was disagreeable because it would mean that public houses would lose custom to clubs which did not close early.³ The majority of local breweries decided to have their pubs stop serving at 9.30 pm so that customers and staff could use public transport to get home.

The initial formation of ARP services in some parts of the area seems to have been ponderously slow and marked by petty officialdom, which slowed its progress even further. By the time of the Munich Crisis, there were only eighteen enrolled and trained wardens in the Whitley Bay Urban District area. This in turn led to problems with the training of other warden volunteers. Throughout 1938, recruitment meetings were widely held in the area and although attendances were always reportedly high, this failed to be converted into large numbers of completed application forms. In Whitley Bay, the number of completed forms was only 5 per cent of those distributed at meetings.⁴

By early 1939, with war looking increasingly likely, the local authorities were distinctly worried by the manpower shortages in the proposed ARP schemes and resorted to a large-scale publicity campaign, with posters and advertisements at cinema shows and sports meetings. During this period, it would seem that many women volunteered for duty in the ARP services, with a large ratio of public shelter wardens in the area being women who were well known in the local community.

Training of wardens, however, remained problematic, with the authorities being unaware of exactly what would be expected of the service in the event of aerial bombardment. Many early classes throughout 1939 focused largely on anti-gas measures, highlighting the fears of this type of attack taking place. Another focus was in the methodology of enforcing the widely disliked blackout, a reason many overly zealous wardens became instantly unpopular before large-scale attacks took place. Much of the training was led by those few wardens who were already fully trained, but as the year went on the scheme became more organized. Local and regional exercises and simulations of raids became a focus for the training regimen, and these proved beneficial to the newly appointed wardens and other ARP workers as well as allowing the organizations to resolve problems and develop new techniques.

The ARP services would have to work in close cooperation with the first aid parties who could be called to respond to an incident by the area controller. The first aid parties were based at the established first aid posts in every sector, and the activities of these men and women involved great courage, often under fire. In Tynemouth, the first aid headquarters was at Holmlands beside Preston Hospital, home to a number of first aid parties, whilst others were scattered throughout the borough. At Whitley Bay, there were two first aid posts (at the Garden Cafe and West Monkseaton High School) which were home to nine first aid parties and eleven ambulances. These roles demanded a high degree of commitment, as the posts had to be manned for twenty-four hours a day and the first aid parties were expected to respond to incidents even when heavy raids were still taking place and there were a number of casualties suffered as a result.

With incendiary bombs expected to start widespread fires, it was also recognized that the regular fire brigade would likely be quickly overwhelmed, so men were sought to form the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), which would respond to the same incidents as regular firemen and, although purely voluntary, would be paid the same rate as regulars (a fact which caused some resentment amongst regular firemen). The men of the AFS were initially woefully inexperienced and, for many of them, their first incident response would be their first experience of fighting a fire. AFS men served forty-eight hours on and twenty-four hours off, and the force consisted of roughly 40 per cent full-time members and 60 per cent part-time.

The AFS was at first not only inexperienced, but suffered from horrendous equipment shortages, with many crews using private cars to attend incidents and even uniforms initially being a problem. Typical of the poor equipment possessed by the AFS was the Whitley Bay branch, which had only two fire engines and relied upon its eighteen trailer pumps. The trailer pumps, many of which were manufactured locally, were vital to all of the area’s AFS units, and the equipping of AFS (and regular) fire units with the Sigmund pump would prove of great value in the heavy raids of 1941. The ubiquitous item of equipment which became so familiar to AFS men, however, was the stirrup pump, which could be used to extinguish minor blazes such as small single incendiary bombs.

Possibly the greatest physical demand fell on the men of the rescue squads (which were divided into heavy and light categories), who were expected to shift debris and remove obstacles to rescue those trapped in bombed buildings. Many of the men were council employees and physical fitness was a prerequisite for the role. However, there was also some degree of technical know-how required, as the safe extraction of trapped persons required some knowledge of construction and, in some cases, of mining techniques required to shore up debris to prevent further collapses. The men of the rescue squads in the area seem to have attracted the reputation of being the leading rumour-mongers in the ARP services, possibly because they spent some time refreshing themselves, after their labours, in ARP canteens.

Like many other ARP services, the men of the rescue squads also filled in in other roles. Many rescue squads (and their vehicles) were used to help the established salvage and storage squads to transport salvaged goods from bombed premises to secure sites.

Before the war even began, the government was planning for the evacuation of children and the vulnerable from areas in which aerial bombardment might be expected. This covered much of the North-East, with its valuable industries, ports and geographical position. However, there seems to have been some initial muddle over the process, and concerns were voiced in March over the splitting of the evacuation areas along artificial local authority boundaries. The community of Wallsend was particularly concerned because, as things stood, whilst children from Newcastle would be immediately evacuated, those in Wallsend, which bordered Newcastle and in many areas was largely indistinguishable, would not be evacuated. This was obviously unacceptable and the local press highlighted the issues, repeatedly stating that the scheme had been put together hurriedly and without expert local knowledge or consultation. The local authorities were also concerned over the scheme and had petitioned the Minister of Health over the matter. This resulted in a conference being held, including representatives of the Ministry of Health and several local authorities, including both Wallsend and Tynemouth. The local press praised this, saying that it would allow the Whitehall representatives to see that there were ‘other crowded areas on Tyneside besides Newcastle and Gateshead’.⁵

At the end of June, it was announced that many Tynemouth parents had told the authorities that they would refuse to be parted from their children in the event of war and wanted no part in the evacuation scheme. One teacher asked her pupils what their parents had decided, and a typical answer was supplied by one young girl who answered that her parents would not send her away, stating ‘if the worst happens, we will all go together’. An editorial in a local newspaper criticized these results and put the blame on the authorities for not informing people just how deadly a bombing campaign could be, declaring that not enough had been done ‘to give them a true picture of how hideous and brutal the next war will be’.⁶

The day after war was declared, attention quickly focussed on necessary wartime measures. The pre-prepared evacuation scheme quickly swung into action, with schoolchildren in both Tynemouth and Wallsend being told to report to their schools on the afternoon of Monday, 4 September, when their gas masks and other evacuation kit would be inspected whilst teachers, who were to be evacuated with their charges, were told to report to their schools at 9.00 am in order to finalize the organization of the evacuation. In both areas, the plan was to evacuate schoolchildren and teachers on Wednesday, 6 September, followed by other eligible people including children under school age (with their mothers), pregnant women and certain other adults such as the blind on the following day. In all other respects, normal schooling was suspended in evacuation areas for at