• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Air Raid in or near Nechells

ChrisM

ChrisM

Super Moderator
Staff member
I recently read the following brief comment referring to a Home Guard unit whose area of responsibility included Nechells. It was written in early 1943.



The Battalion is situated in a vulnerable area, and during the 'blitzes' of 1940 did exceptionally good work in fire-fighting and evacuation of civilians from damaged areas and threatened shelters. On one particular occasion over three hundred were moved from beneath a burning building to other shelters three hundred yards away, without loss to the civilians. Two men were killed and two wounded in this process.​
Does any forum member recognise this incident? Could they provide me with any more information, in particular on place, date and possibly identity of the casualties, please?

Thanks.

Chris
 
Nechells OR Aston

Thanks, Alf and Wendy.

When I say Nechells, I think it could equally possibly have been in Aston. And whilst the inference is 1940, perhaps it could have been 1941. The words are very inexplicit as they were to be published and I suppose they were therefore chosen with care in the interest of national security.

Any further help gratefully accepted!

Chris
 
What is also useful in connection with Blitz research is the site posted by Colin B elsewhere which has the advantage of being searchable by location, date etc. An excellent effort.
https://www.swanshurst.org/barra/default.asp?section=aboutbarra

I'm still struggling with this query. It must have been a noteworthy event - the rescue of so many people safely (where were they anyway, in a public shelter?) and the regrettable loss of the others, presumably Home Guard/A.R.P/firefighters.

The man who wrote the report commanded a Nechells/Aston Home Guard Battalion. But I am wondering if his words refer to another event, a bit further away, to which his unit was summoned.

Any help please?

Chris
 
Chris,
In the book Heroes of the Birmingham Air Raids by Michael Minton there is a copy of the report of an air raid on 9th & 10th April 1941 taken from The London Gazette.It records a fire on the premises of L.H.Newton & Co. Ltd. bolt, nut and screw manufactures,Thimblemill Lane,Nechells where a number of incendiary bombs had hit the building setting the upper floors alight when a High Explosive bomb landed on the building pierced all four floors and exploded on the ground floor making a large hole and exposing part of the basement......."The fire spread rapidly and involved the whole works making it necessary to evacuate a large basement shelter housing 400 employees, several of whom had been injured and were receiving treatment in the first aid department".......for their part in the events of that night Fireman William Bennett AFS was awarded the George Medal..Fireman James Meers AFS the British Empire Medal and Kings Commendation to Philip Bermingham or Bermington (report/index spells it both ways) of the 5th Birmingham Battalion Home Guard.The BARRA site lists one death at the site on that date

Could this be it

Colin
 
I'm quite sure it is, Colin, and very many thanks for the information.

L.H. Newton & Co. Ltd. must have been a large company - long since gone I assume - to have had so many employees presumably all on the night shift and congregated in a single basement shelter. Perhaps it might have doubled up as a public shelter too.

I hope to post something connected with all this in due course.

Thanks again - it's rare for this forum not to come up trumps!

Chris
 
Chris,glad to have been of help thats what it's all about.
L.H.Newton appears in Kelly's 1949 and is located between Long Acre and High Park Street, by 1969 it's become part of the GKN group and is listed as G.K.N. Bolts & Nuts (L.H.Newton Division), so the building may have been repaired and continued in production, someone will be able to tell us,searching the forum shows they had a football team in 1946/47

Colin
 
Around 1953/1956 a crowd of us used to go to dances in the canteen there so it was obviously rebuilt following the air raids, production for the war effort would have been vital and from reading other posts about factories being rebuilt very quickly after bomb damage I guess it was the case here.
 
air raid victim database

There is a great database connected with BARRA - it is highly searchable for all deaths, injuries and locations of air raids on Birmingham

www.swanshurst.org/barra

Hope it is of some use

Steve

 
Many thanks for all the the contributions.

I have taken the liberty of making use of some of the information in something I've done on WW2 Nechells which can be seen here.

Chris
 
Well done Chris,I'm glad I was able to help,you have managed to piece together so many bits of information to give a very detailed report of the event. Because of censorship at the time many reports lacked specific details such as location and dates, so it's a case of collecting lots of information and attempting to slot them into position, you must be pleased when it all fits together.I hadn't visited your site for a while and was amazed to see how it has grown, I must find time to go through all.
Again well done

Colin
 
Air raids

Hi Chris,

At the outbreak of war my mom lived in Nechels and the few times that she talked about the war was when ran for shelter during a raid. She reached the shelter entrance and was blown inside by the blast. At that time she was pregnant with her 5th child, a boy who was named Paul, but he died shortly after birth. I don't know if his death had anything to do with the raid, but when I was born mom gave me the name Graham-Paul in memory of him.
 
Thanks for kind words, Colin. I was very grateful to you for giving me the first lead on the L. H. Newton raid (and have tried to acknowledge the fact in the small print!). If anything about the Home Guard crops up in connection with your Kings Heath research I should be very interested to hear about it.

Thanks also, Cadeau, for that memory. I wonder where exactly your mother was living. So many victims and it sounds as though your young brother might have been another one, an indirect one. There must have been many like that - my own grandfather was bombed out of his Handsworth home, wasn't injured, but succumbed to pneumonia not long after. Not in the statistics but a victim, nevertheless. The Swanhurst School website, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, gives a lot of searchable information on the recorded casualties and thus an indication of where the major impacts were. And Cromwell (whom we are all missing) from time to time posted parts of a map showing where each bomb fell. Nechells and Aston must have had a dreadful pasting.

Chris
 
Colin, you may already consult the BBC's People's War Archive for your research. There's a lot of WW2/King's Heath stuff in it. Have a look at a list here.

Chris
 
Chris,

I will have to try and find out just where in Nechells my mother lived at that time. I can only guess that she moved to Sparkbrook, where I grew up, to be near her sister when her husband was killed at El Alamein.

Graham.
 
Hi Chris,

My mom lived in Railway Terrace at the time of the air raid on Newton’s. She was pregnant at the time and was advised by the midwife to go to the air raid shelter under Newton’s, were she could be cared for together with other expectant mothers. Fortunately she refused and stayed with friends in their own Anderson shelter at Railway Terrace.

Her account of that night differs greatly from the one of the Home Guard. The main explosion was so powerful it dislodged their Anderson shelter, which my father had buried some four feet down and covered by the excavated earth. She was told there were many fatalities including expectant mothers, partly due to the factory boilers exploding, which were situated in the basement of the factory.

Ron
 
Re old market hall

:confused::confused:dont know if i'm posting this in the right place , but here goes . does anyone know of a site where i might get a picture of the old birmigham market hall before it was damaged in the blitz , thanks Mollie.
 
Also at the risk of getting my legs slapped for being off thread (moderators please remove or move if you need to).

In addition to John's excellent photo here are some more, The rear entrance, inside the market and Percy Shurmer clock which stood over the Market Offices.

Phil
 

Attachments

  • City Bull Ring Market (3) 1870 .jpg
    City Bull Ring Market (3) 1870 .jpg
    82.6 KB · Views: 3
  • City Market Hall From Edgbaston St .jpg
    City Market Hall From Edgbaston St .jpg
    87.7 KB · Views: 3
  • Percy Shurmer Clock 3.jpg
    Percy Shurmer Clock 3.jpg
    64.4 KB · Views: 3
rocketron

To continue with the correct thread. Here is a photo of the aftermath of a fire at Newtons which I assume was the results of the bombing. I'm also adding a photo of Thimble Mill Lane on which you can also just catch a glimpse Newtons .

Phil
 

Attachments

  • Nechells Thimble Mill Lane LH Newton fire damage.jpg
    Nechells Thimble Mill Lane LH Newton fire damage.jpg
    120.6 KB · Views: 13
  • Nechells Long Acre Railway terrace.jpg
    Nechells Long Acre Railway terrace.jpg
    160.4 KB · Views: 12
Thanks for recording your mother's memory, Ron.

The discrepancy between her memory and what appear to be accurate semi-official records is quite striking. It does seem as though the rescue of the many people in Newton's basement without casualty is a fact (and must be regarded as something of a miracle). So the question is: why should your mother's memory have been so different? What I am wondering is whether there was another incident in the vicinity with which this one has got confused over the years. Alternatively, in those days facts were hard to come by - newspapers and radio broadcasts mentioned no detail of the effects of specific air raids for obvious security reasons - and I wonder if the reports of casualties at Newton's could have been a rumour which circulated in the area at the time and was never officially contradicted. Shall we ever be able to get to the bottom of this?

If one looks at Phil's excellent image of Newton's, it's a wonder anyone survived.

Thanks also for the pictures of the Market Hall. Whenever I walked past its blackened walls as a small boy in the mid-1940s, I was always told by my father what a splendid structure it had once been. Now one can see it.

Chris
 
hi steve
just found your post and accessed the barra website did a search and found my uncles name listed unfortunate for him but good research info for me
phil b :( :)
 
Hi "Master Brummie"

The photo of Newtons is in Long Acre and I used to live up the entry next to the Newtons Wall.
This photo must have been taken in the late 50's as Newtons was further away during the war.
regards
Bob
 
Hi,
I worked at LH Newtons in the late 1960's. I t was indeed bombed during the war and the equipment was moved to Tamworth where they picked up a lot of local people to work in the factory. At the end of the war the damaged factory in Nechells was rebuilt and the equipment moved back to Brum. When I worked there in Nechells there was still a chartered bus coming in everyday from Tamworth carrying the poeple who had been working at the factory when it was relocated to Tamworth and still lived there. I left there in 1974 and the bus was still running every day to Tamworth and back .Fond memories of a lunchtime pint at the Mitre, just around the corner from Newtons and Saturday night dances at the social club upstairs in the factory. Great times !

Charlie.
 
Welcome to the Forum, Charlie, and many thanks for that interesting insight into Newtons in the postwar years. I hope you will be able to make further useful contributions to the Forum in the future.

I have taken the liberty of quoting your information (with appropriate acknowledgement of course) on my Newton air raid website page.

Chris
 
Colin B said:
Chris,
In the book Heroes of the Birmingham Air Raids by Michael Minton there is a copy of the report of an air raid on 9th & 10th April 1941 taken from The London Gazette.It records a fire on the premises of L.H.Newton & Co. Ltd. bolt, nut and screw manufactures,Thimblemill Lane,Nechells where a number of incendiary bombs had hit the building setting the upper floors alight when a High Explosive bomb landed on the building pierced all four floors and exploded on the ground floor making a large hole and exposing part of the basement......."The fire spread rapidly and involved the whole works making it necessary to evacuate a large basement shelter housing 400 employees, several of whom had been injured and were receiving treatment in the first aid department".......for their part in the events of that night Fireman William Bennett AFS was awarded the George Medal..Fireman James Meers AFS the British Empire Medal and Kings Commendation to Philip Bermingham or Bermington (report/index spells it both ways) of the 5th Birmingham Battalion Home Guard.The BARRA site lists one death at the site on that date

Could this be it

Colin
Click to expand...
Hi I’m new to the site my grandfather was Fireman James Meers who was awarded the British Empire Medal . My father sold it in the 80’s and it ended up in the collection of a Mr M Minton who died in the mid 90’s I am trying to track the medal down and bring it back home to the family
 
Helena chase said:
Hi I’m new to the site my grandfather was Fireman James Meers who was awarded the British Empire Medal . My father sold it in the 80’s and it ended up in the collection of a Mr M Minton who died in the mid 90’s I am trying to track the medal down and bring it back home to the family
Click to expand...
Put an advert in this magazine, that's how we found ours.https://www.isubscribe.co.uk/Medal-News-Magazine-Subscription.cfm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top