There were over 20 air raids on Scarborough, mostly in 1940 and 1941. Below are four examples.
Burniston
The first attack on the Scarborough area took place on June 26 1940 when the village of Burniston was hit in a night-time raid. Five cottages were badly damaged.
10th October 1940
On 10 October 1940, shortly before 9.00 p.m., a single enemy aircraft flew over the South Bay. It released a parachute mine which landed in the Old Town. When the mine exploded it destroyed five houses and damaged some 500 more, many seriously. In the aftermath, 71 had to be demolished. Seventy odd non-residential buildings were also seriously damaged. The explosion left a crater some 60 feet across by 30 feet deep and the immensity of the blast caused damage across 24 streets.
Remarkably, there were only four fatalities, plus 31 seriously wounded. Two of the dead were an elderly grandmother and her grandchild. The grandmother was babysitting for the parents, who had taken the opportunity to go to the cinema. The other deaths were of a 45-year-old widow and a child of two.
Luftmine
The parachute mine was most likely a naval “Luftmine”, which was widely used against London. Once the parachute opened, it would descend at some 40 m.p.h. and was detonated by a clockwork mechanism shortly after landing. Such mines had a far greater explosive power than anything else deployed by aircraft at this time.
March 1941 Blitz
Around 8.00 p.m. on March 18 1941 German bombers appeared over the town, though sirens were not sounded till an hour later. Intensive bombing continued until about 10.30 p.m. The all-clear was not sounded until 4.30 a.m. It is estimated that nearly one hundred planes were involved, dropping some 55 High Explosive bombs, several parachute mines and thousands of incendiaries. It is probable that the Luftwaffe bombers struck Scarborough in error.
There were 29 fatalities arising from the March “Blitz”. Hundreds more residents were injured, many seriously. Two incidents were particularly tragic. A direct hit on a house on North Marine Rd. killed a family of six and a maid. The family, including two daughters and two sons, had moved to Scarborough as evacuees. On Commercial Street seven houses were demolished, killing four women and three children.
Over 1,300 buildings were damaged or destroyed, many burnt out by incendiaries. The town lost an important landmark when a parachute mine landed on the gym of Queen Margaret’s Girls’ School. The school had to be demolished. A young evacuee, who happened to be passing at the time, was killed by the blast. Fortunately, it was empty on the night.
Perhaps the most spectacular incident was the destruction of E.T.W. Dennis and Sons print works on Melrose St. It was hit early on by incendiaries and gutted in the ensuing inferno.
14 September 1941 Woodland Ravine
Two bombs were dropped by a single plane on the Woodland Ravine area of the town. One destroyed four houses. The other landed near the railway line to Whitby, damaging a road and the railway track. A nine-year-old was pushing her pram in the vicinity, accompanied by her family. She remembered “a terrible bang and a vivid blue flash, then all went black.” Her pram ended up suspended from telephone lines and she came to at the bottom of a large crater, having sustained serious injuries to her back and legs. Meanwhile, a 31-year-old cyclist, Nellie Thornton, who was returning to feed her child after visiting a relative in hospital, was killed by flying debris.
