Why did the clydebank blitz start

But that was academic because, by the evening of Friday, March 14, as the Luftwaffe returned with a second helping, only 2, folk remained. More than 40, had fled, or been evacuated, most with no more than the clothes they stood in.

Many would never return and, all those sundered bonds of community and neighbourhood apart, Clydebank was never properly rebuilt. The bombers destroyed schools, shops, churches — Presbyterian and Catholic and Episcopalian. Clydebank had boasted a large Highland community, with Free Church and Free Presbyterian ministers holding regular Gaelic services: the little halls were reduced to rubble, and Gaelic was never preached again, for most of the Gaels fled, never to return.

And to this day — it is especially evident from a plane approaching Glasgow Airport — Clydebank, geographically and architecturally, is a town that does not make sense. Truncated Victorian tenements, scattered and ugly constructions from the s and 70s, conspicuous gap-sites and nothing one could dignify as a thriving high street. When Patrick Rocks sped home from his night shift in terror — it is said he actually swam across the Forth and Clyde Canal — to his tenement block at 78 Jellico Street, it was no longer there.

Under a smouldering crater of Locharbriggs stone lay the remains of 31 people, slain by a single bomb. And they included his wife, his mother-in-law, six of his sons, two of his daughters, and five of his grandchildren.

Later, summoned to identify the bodies, he took one look at what the blast had done, and fainted. There are things the sadly dwindling band of Clydebank Blitz survivors still cannot forget. The terrifying sounds of the attack; the rumble of still more incoming Junkers and Heinkels.

The smell — the taste — of dust and soot. The bodies, everywhere, disembowelled, limbless, mangled to obscenity. On the nights of and March Luftwaffe bombers raided Clydeside and inflicted casualties in several industrial centres. Glasgow suffered the highest number of fatalities about , but in proportion to its population of about 50, the burgh of Clydebank suffered the worst.

According to an official count in the Clydebank raids killed people and seriously injured , compared to totals of 1, people, and 1, in the whole of Clydeside. A report by the Civil Defence Regional Commissioner on 3 April included an assessment of the impact on industrial production on Clydeside. Official assessment of damage to industrial production in Clydebank by Civil Defence Regional Commissioner, 3 April Industrial production was affected by the severe casualties and the evacuation of the town after the raids, causing difficulties in getting the workforce to the workplace.

Immediately after the raids people left in droves. Subscribe In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad. About Latest Posts. What happened during the clydebank blitz? When did the coventry blitz happen?

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