For an understanding of Tyneside at War and The Tyneside Biltz, quite simply we point you towards North East Diary 1939-1945 authored by Brian Pears and Roy Ripley.
There is simply no better place to get an understanding of how war impacted on daily life in our area, than by reading through the diary entries. It is a “must read”.
Introduction from NE Diary 1939-45
In the publication ‘FRONT LINE’, Mr S.E. Sterck wrote in his resume for The Evening Chronicle ” …. the North East gets small mention …. but though its ordeal has been less concentrated and cannot point to large areas of devastation, the North East can show many hundreds of scars, the result of drip bombing over a long period. This has not been experienced in most other parts of Britain …. On Tyneside alone, nearly 400 people were killed between July 1940 and December 1941 …. to that total can be added many more in other North East towns.” It was reading that simple statement of fact, 40 odd years after it had been written that led to the discovery that, as far as I know, the North East’s story, as usual, had been left out of most works on World War II. All I have done here, is bring to the attention of those interested, a collection of facts already researched by other people.
By the time the war broke out, the Germans already knew a lot about Tyneside, the Luftwaffe had made reconnaissance flights over the area and had built up an archive of aerial photographs and detailed descriptions of important targets. It is now known from German records examined after the war that some of those targets were – the Tyne Bridges – the new Spillers Building – Byker Bridge – the Docks – Elswick Works – the oil tanks at Jarrow – Swan Hunter’s, Vickers Armstrong Naval Yard and Wallsend Slipways – Newburn Steelworks and the Brancepeth Cokeworks. Having mentioned the shipbuilders of Tyneside, the war record of North-East shipyards as a whole, deserves a mention, bearing in mind that during the conflict Britain lost more than 4,000,000 tons of shipping – it must be a matter of pride that more than half of this total was replaced by the North-East.
There can be no doubt that the Germans knew just as much about Wearside, Teesside and Humberside. The North-East also merited a mention in Hitler’s War Directive No 9, all in all, considering us a prime target. This view is reinforced by an end of report conclusion contained in the Home Security Operations Bulletin No 34 it reads ” The attention paid to Hull and the North East, though as yet the scale of attack has been light, is a significant development in an area which has been surprisingly unmolested hitherto. It is too early to say what end these attacks may be meant to serve, but the importance of the area is strongly stressed in German Broadcasts, which have heavily exaggerated the results of the raids.
The North-East Coast here needs definition – so for the southern boundary, the river Humber was chosen, and for the northern boundary, just north of the river Tweed, about 185 miles apart as the crow flies. It must be said, however, that there will be occasional trips over these borders, to follow the action to their respective conclusions.
During the so-called ‘Phoney War’ there were a lot of tip and run raids, often by single aircraft testing defences or unloading unused bombs. In the summer of 1940 the attack on Britain’s industrial cities began and the first major raid on Tyneside took place in broad daylight in the late afternoon of July 2nd 1940. From that moment, for many people, the Phoney War ended, and the Proper War began, in reality much had happened before then, especially off our coasts.
[copyright: Brian Pears 1994-2010]
Go to NE Diary 1939-45
