by Trevor Royle
By that time the whole Clydeside conurbation was ablaze due to the intensity and accuracy of the German incendiary bombs. Casualties were caused almost immediately during the first wave when a bomb destroyed a tenement at 11 Queen Victoria Drive in Scotstoun, killing sixteen people. This was followed by direct hits on Beardmore’s Diesel Works at Dalmuir, but this was only a prelude to the destruction wrought by the main force of the first wave when it arrived over the area at 9.30 p.m. Wartime censorship prevented any immediate reporting of the raid, but a month later an anonymous piece appeared in the local press describing the reaction of a family in a tenement who had taken shelter in the stairwell.
Incendiary bombs rained down, flashing up the brilliant sky, shells from the guns lit the heavens, loud reports echoed fearfully and over all, menacingly, hovering like many ghoulish, mechanical birds of prey, droned the bombers scattering death and desolation. Amid shouts and frantic gesticulations, we all cowered low as the whistling sound of a bomb was heard near at hand. Then followed a deafening explosion and the falling crash of falling masonry, and clouds of choking dust and the cries of women and children. Miraculously, in that dark hell of horror caused by brutish man, not one of our party was killed.1
They were lucky. The intensity of the German raid soon overwhelmed the rescue services which were further hampered by the fact that the burning buildings provided a perfect target for the bomber crews in the following waves. In the confusion, communications quickly broke down, water mains were broken, the electric power failed, streets were blocked by falling buildings and many fires burned out of control.2
Before the raid Clydebank possessed ten basic and twenty-one supplementary rest centres to shelter those made homeless, but owing to the extent of the bomb damage only seven were still in use after the first raid and four after the second. To make matters, worse, if that were possible, the lull between the raids gave hope that the danger had passed. Although the first wave had cleared the area by 11.30 p.m., the second force arrived from the north half an hour later and the third and final wave reached the target at three o’clock in the morning.
The all clear did not sound until 6.30 a.m. when the people of Clydebank and the surrounding areas – Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and Lanarkshire – started assessing the damage. Because Clydebank had been the epicentre of the attack it was the worst affected, but due to the ‘creep back’ effect which saw German bomber crews dropping their loads ahead of the intended target there was a huge radius of damage which stretched from Barrhead in the south to Balloch in the north-west and Cumbernauld in the east.3 Parachute mines added to the terror. Not only did they leave a plethora of unexploded bombs which had to be disposed of after the raid, but by exploding at roof level they produced a hugely destructive blast. In the worst incident involving such a weapon, in Tradeston, 100 people were killed when one exploded above Nelson Street, including 11 in a passing tram. The resulting photograph of the wreck amid the rubble of buildings became one of the iconic images of what quickly became known in government circles as the Clydebank blitz: ‘Clydebank, relative to its size, was “blitzed” to an extent which no other town in the country had yet suffered. Hardly a house was left undamaged, several housing schemes were completely wiped out, and by Saturday evening more than half the population had left the town. Naturally, all the public utility services were seriously damaged and completely disorganised.’4
In addition to the extensive damage and the sheer carnage produced by the bombs there was a huge human cost. While the raids did not produce panic, they did induce an instinct to get away from the stricken area. Around 12,000 people had been made homeless during the first night, and they were sent to rest centres in Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and Lanarkshire.5 It was as well that they were evacuated because the German bombers came back the following night, and this time their task was made even easier by the guidance provided by the blazing fires. Once again the damage was extensive, and once again the rescue services were almost overwhelmed by the relentless nature of the attack and the steady build-up of casualties and destroyed buildings. At Old Kilpatrick the concentration of Admiralty fuel supplies exploded sending flames leaping into the night sky, and direct hits on Denny’s Shipyard at Dumbarton destroyed the keels of two ships. When the Regional Commissioner visited Clydebank a day later he could only report that the town had ‘suffered a major disaster’.6 Three fire stations had been put out of action, many fire tenders failed to get close to the worst fires due to bomb damage in the streets and attempts at co-ordination quickly broke down in the mayhem, one example being the failure to connect hoses of different sizes and patterns.
In the immediate aftermath of the blitz, assessing the extent of the damage and the size of the casualty list proved to be no easy matter. For a start there had been a mass evacuation from Clydebank as people struggled to get away from the town. A situation report by the Department of Health revealed the extent of the evacuation and showed the lengths which the inhabitants of Clydebank were prepared to go to escape the damage: ‘Considerable numbers of people went of their own accord to other areas, some to friends by means of travel warrants, some to friends finding their own transport and some finding their own transport but requiring rest centres or billeting accommodation on arrival. Reports have come in from areas as far apart as Dumfries Burgh, Bridge of Allan and Dunoon of the last class above.’7 Mainly this was due to the fact that those fleeing the scene had been made homeless, but there was also an atavistic desire to get away from the scene of the disaster and join those who had already escaped. Amazingly, during the evacuation mass panic did not materialise.
On the second day a large number of homeless persons estimated to amount to at least 25,000 left of their own accord, proceeding by such transport as they could find, or on foot. Thus, by the evening of Saturday the 15th March probably over 40,000 persons or more than two-thirds of the population had left the town. They left, however, in a quiet and orderly manner. At no time during the ordeal through which the town had passed or afterwards was there any sign of panic: all accounts agree that public morale was magnificent.8
By then first attempts had been made at assessing the death toll, and in the first few days following the raid the numbers fluctuated wildly, mainly because it proved to be difficult to retrieve bodies from the wreckage. The situation was exacerbated when the local greyhound stadium, designated as a temporary mortuary, was destroyed, and emergency centres failed to cope. Eventually, at the end of April the toll was fixed at 1,063 dead, 1,602 seriously injured, 1,727 slightly injured. This was the total for the whole of the affected areas – Glasgow, Clydebank, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire – with the highest numbers being in Glasgow (647 dead, 390 seriously injured, 1,290 slightly injured) and Clydebank (358 dead, 973 seriously injured, 166 slightly injured).9 The records of Blawarthill Hospital in Clydebank tell their own story: over the two nights it treated 1,061 people, of whom 122 died, 304 were detained and 635 were treated and released.
However, although the cost to the civilian public had been enormous, with an estimated 12,000 houses destroyed or damaged, the Regional Commissioner was able to report that ‘damage to industrial premises and plant was much less than expected. The shipyards, docks and factories situated in Clydebank – key points such as John Brown’s, Singer’s and the Royal Ordnance Factory – are of such importance that if they had suffered anything like the damage done to the houses a few hundred yards away from them the war effort would have been dealt a heavy blow.’10 One warship managed to retaliate: during the raid the Polish destroyer Piorun was in dry dock at John Brown’s yet its crew under the command of Commander Eugeniusz Pawski managed to man the ship’s anti-aircraft guns to return fire to the bombers overhead.
At the time a news blackout was imposed, and all reporting omitted actual names and any description of the damage and casualties. Partly this was done for security purposes to prevent the Germans from gaining useful intelligence about
the outcome of the raid, but other factors were also involved, most notably the need to maintain civilian morale at a time when there were fears that industrial unrest could return to the Clyde’s shipyards. In addition to addressing the threat allegedly posed by extreme nationalists, the intelligence services were also concerned about the response of the left, especially members of the Communist Party in the west of Scotland. A few weeks earlier in the Dunbartonshire by-election the Communist vote had been 3,862 to the Labour candidate’s 21,900 (Adam McKinlay) and this had generated fears that the vote presaged a return to the ‘Red Clydeside’ strikes and agitation of the First World War.
At the time of the raids 12,000 engineering apprentices were already on strike for higher wages but they returned to work on the Monday and according to a Scottish Office intelligence report most workers exhibited ‘a sense of relief at having been able to stand up to the ordeal’. The same report commented on a public meeting held in Clydebank on 6 April involving Joseph Westwood MP, Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Steven Bilsland, Civil Defence Commissioner for the Western District and David Kirkwood MP for Dumbarton Burghs. (During the First World War Kirkwood had led a strike at Parkhead Forge while acting as convenor of shop stewards, and had been arrested and sent into internal exile in Edinburgh.) About 900 attended, mainly men, and although there was some criticism of the rescue services, the Scottish Office’s official observer thought that given the circumstances of the raids the atmosphere was reasonably upbeat: ‘The meeting indicated that there was still plenty of fight in Clydebank and the audience was composed of people whose morale did not require any stimulating but who had some pertinent questions to which they asked for answers.’
In fact the main grievance was the shortage of time allowed for questions at the end of the meeting, but this was resolved in time-honoured fashion: ‘Mr Kirkwood dealt rather vigorously with the interrupters and stimulated an even more vigorous response. This argument was continued in the street in the best traditions of Clydebank and its MP.’11 Paradoxically, the day before the report was written, Clydebank and other targets across central and western Scotland were attacked once more, but this time the casualties were much lower – 29 killed, 71 seriously injured and 253 slightly injured.12 Raiding continued throughout the month of April, and the last blitz-type attack took place on the nights of 5/6 May and 6/7 May when the target was Greenock. Once again the Luftwaffe used the tactics which had served them so well over Clydebank, attacking in waves using pathfinders ahead of the main bomber force and illuminating the area with flares and incendiary bombs.
Once again, too, Greenock was a valid strategic target as it was home to shipyards, the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory and a seaplane maintenance base (RAF Greenock). It was also an assembly point for the Atlantic convoys at the Tail of the Bank, and there were always resident warships from the Royal Navy and Free French Navy. Like Clydebank it was heavily populated, with workers’ housing sitting alongside the various industrial and military installations. Given the circumstances, Greenock could have provided a grim repetition of the Clydebank blitz, but on this occasion there were several important differences. The first was that people took the warnings seriously and, having learned the lessons of the earlier blitz, the civil defence services were better prepared. It helped that shelter was provided by a network of tunnels at the east end of the town, and for many people these proved to be life-savers.
The second factor was the availability of a squadron of Boulton Paul Defiant night fighters of 141 Squadron based at RAF Ayr which managed to shoot down three enemy aircraft during the course of the raids. First constructed as a bomber interceptor with a crew of two, the aircraft was unusual in having a rear-ball turret as its armament. Initially successful in action against German pilots, who mistook it for the similar-looking Hurricane, its lack of forward-firing weapons proved to be its Achilles heel, and following a high loss rate it was withdrawn from frontline interception duties and converted to the night-fighter role. Although their success rate was limited during the Greenock blitz, the presence of the Defiants in the night sky caused confusion amongst German bomber crews, frequently causing them to offload their bombs before reaching the target.
Deception also played a part on the ground. On the moorland behind Loch Thom, a reservoir two miles to the south in the hills above the town, the Air Ministry had constructed intricate decoy positions under a system known as Starfish. Using lights and various specially manufactured artifices the position resembled a built-up area, and during the second night of the raids prepared positions were set ablaze to replicate a successful bomb attack. It worked too. The ‘blitz map’ for Greenock and the evidence of bomb craters show that the Loch Thom Starfish site had succeeded in diverting bombers from the second waves into attacking the burning positions.13
If anything, the second night produced a heavier raid due to the larger size of the German bomber fleet (155 aircraft) and the still-blazing target area. The worst incident was the bombing of the Ardgowan whisky distillery where 3 million gallons of spirit ignited and proved almost impossible to bring under control. Parachute mines also proved to be lethal, not just over the intended target but also at other nearby locations including Kingswood and Drumchapel. Some 246 people died in the Greenock blitz during the two nights of raiding and 626 were injured, 290 of them seriously. A further 52 were listed as ‘missing’, believed killed in the town. Further afield 74 died in Port Glasgow; of that total 30 people perished while taking refuge in an air-raid shelter in Woodhall Terrace.14
As had happened in March, criticisms were levelled at the rescue services, and there were accounts of fear turning to panic in some areas as people tried to escape from the town – 5,575 were evacuated by the authorities – but the final finding was that vital experience had been gained at Clydebank, and that as a result the death toll was lower than had been anticipated.15 Also on the credit side, much of Greenock’s industrial capacity remained reasonably intact despite a number of direct hits on several sites including Scott’s shipyard. As it turned out, the Greenock blitz was the last concerted effort by the Luftwaffe to bomb Scottish targets in great numbers.
Raids continued along the east coast throughout the year and for much of 1942, but the last recorded bomb attack on the Scottish mainland took place on the night of 21/22 April 1943 when fifteen German aircraft attacked targets in Aberdeen, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. Amongst the buildings hit were the Gordon Barracks at the Bridge of Don, tenement buildings on the north side of Aberdeen and on railway property and tracks in the Kittybrewster area. Later it was found that 125 people had been killed on the ground.16 The final tally for the air war over Scotland shows that the total civilian casualties for the period 1939–45 was 8,245 – 2,250 killed, 2,167 seriously injured and 3,558 slightly injured. The bulk of these were suffered in the Western District which comprised the city of Glasgow and the counties of Argyll, Ayr, Bute, Clackmannan, Dumfries, Dumbarton, Kirkcudbright, Lanark, Renfrew, Stirling and Wigtown (2,112 killed, 1,792 seriously injured and 2,578 slightly injured); the smallest numbers were in Northern District which comprised Inverness and the counties of Caithness, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty and Sutherland (21 killed, 9 seriously injured and 38 slightly injured).17
Tragic though these losses were, they are relatively modest compared to the greater intensity of the German blitz on England; whereas Clydebank was raided four times, Liverpool was ‘blitzed’ on twenty-four occasions and London on seventy-two.18 Even so, according to internal intelligence reports, people in Glasgow and Clydebank recognised that they too were part of the national effort and that the experience of being ‘blitzed’ had provided a new sense of national solidarity; they were ‘bearing their full share of Britain’s difficulties and bearing it just as well’.19
The figures also pale into insignificance when compared to those from the Allied bombing campaign against Germany, especially between 1941 and 1945. Exact figures of German casualties vary, but the final estimate of the Unite
d States Strategic Bombing Survey gives the following figures for German casualties in the European theatre: 305,000 killed and 780,000 severely or slightly wounded, with 485,000 residential buildings totally destroyed by air attack and 415,000 heavily damaged. This represents a total of 20 per cent of all dwelling units in Germany, although the report also shows that in fifty cities that were primary targets of the air attack, the proportion of destroyed or heavily damaged dwelling units is about 40 per cent. The result of all attacks was to render homeless some 7,500,000 German civilians, although the researchers conceded that the figure might have been higher.20
However, coming on top of the earlier air raids on Scotland’s east coast towns and cities in 1939 and 1940, the Clydebank blitz was a bitter reminder that in modern warfare there were many frontlines and that they were occupied by civilians as well as service personnel. Because the naval war was fought largely in the distant wastes of the north Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, it was out of sight and often out of mind, but ports on Scotland’s west coast, notably on the Clyde estuary, provided safe havens and gathering points for the main convoys. From the outset of the war the ‘Atlantic Bridge’ was essential for bringing in supplies and military matériel from north America. Canada was an important ally, providing personnel and equipment, while under the lend-lease scheme the US was a vital arsenal, and after 1942, increasingly the main force within the Allied camp. Gourock and Greenock became used to the sight of huge convoys assembling and the arrival and departure of once-elegant liners such as the Cunarder ‘Queens’ bedecked in wartime grey camouflage for their roles as fast transatlantic troop carriers. Throughout the war the Clyde was also the main assembly point for military convoys bound for the Middle East and Far East. Following the blitzes of 1941, when it seemed that Glasgow and Liverpool faced destruction from enemy bombing, special deepwater military ports were constructed on the west coast at Faslane and Cairnryan.21
