When The Luftwaffe Raided Rushden
School Attack Inspired Soldiers’ Battle-Cry

How memories of a bombed Rushden school inspired British artillerymen in the Balkans is part of a story which can now be told in more direct terms concerning the town’s experience of air raids.

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…..third demolished one of the twin turrets without hurting anyone inside the hotel, though the internal damage was extensive.

A short distance away the fried fish saloon and house occupied by Mr. Bates were damaged beyond repair. The line of bombs then passed behind the High-street property, which to that point had many windows smashed, and the next item of serious damage was in West-street, where blast affected the houses to such an extent that all were subsequently cleared. Injuries were caused, but none proved fatal.

Factory Tragedy

A hitherto unpublished picture of the crater in the clicking room at Messrs. John Cave and Sons'€™ factory -€“ October 3rd 1940. Photograph - Courtesy of Alan Ingram Tom Denny is refilling the crater, working for Arthur Sanders, Mr R Darlow in the background.

Many employees were cut by flying glass or injured by other means but few were stretcher cases, and all recovered. The calm behaviour of all concerned and the quick repair of the damage and restoration of full activity were matters for congratulation.

Child Victims

On the opposite side of College-street the Nazis struck their most brutal blow. One of their bombs swung into the face of the Alfred-street School and blew up against a classroom, bringing down a projecting two-storey section of the building and leaving a dreadful gap over which an angular piece of roof sagged precariously.

The devastated classroom had been full of children – boys and girls about the age of seven – at their lessons. How the majority of them escaped from the room has never been made clear. Fortunately they did; but among the deeply piled debris were found seven dead or fatally injured children. Four of them, Donald Edward Scrivens, Denis James Felce, Margaret Joyce Dodd and Roy O’Dell, were Rushden children. The others, Lorna Pain, Cecilia Janet Chase and Ethel Muriel Moye, were in Rushden as evacuees from Colchester. A few other scholars were injured.

Song From Shelters

Though blast damage in parts of the school was extensive the children were shepherded away in good order, and while rescuers were searching for bodies they heard the chorus of “Roll Out the Barrel” rising lustily from the school’s air raid shelters.

A possible unexploded bomb was reported in the playground, and a metal object was certainly visible below a small fracture in the asphalt. Precautions were taken, and it remained for Mr. Charles Clark, then Chief Air Raid Warden, to wipe the object with an oily rag and reveal it as nothing more lethal than the cover of a water stop-tap.

It was afterwards learned that Alfred-street was the first school in England to be hit during the presence of scholars actually in the classrooms.

Next in the line of fire, the currying factory of Messrs. Fred Corby, Ltd., received minor exterior damage, and the adjoining garage more or less disappeared, as did the first house in John-street, of which little but the front door remained. The occupants of this house, Mr. and Mrs. James White, were away at the time.

Luckiest Couple

In Church-street a bomb drove clean through the house of Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Morgan and buried itself in the passage near the foot of the stairs. It did not explode and Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, who were both on the premises, where they have an electrical business, counted themselves the most fortunate people in Rushden.

The last few bombs landed near St. Mary’s-avenue and did no damage.

As soon as the bombs had fallen the A.R.P. services rushed to their post and settled down to a heavy day’s work, being reinforced by county parties. Traffic had to be diverted – in one district until the afternoon of the next day – and troops joined in control and demolition work.

“Remember Rushden!”

A few months later men of a famous artillery regiment, fighting a desperate battle in the Balkans, were rallied by the cry: “Come on lads! Remember the Rushden school!”

And here is another sidelight on the raid – also published for the first time.

Just before the bombs fell a British two-motor bomber navigated by Sgt. L. H. Poole, who had joined-up from the “Echo and Argus” reporting staff, was circling over the town. Its crew saw no other plane about. The bomber made off, and then, looking back, the boys saw a fire in the town – it must have been the burning gas main. Returning, they could see that Rushden had been raided. Again, however, there was no German aircraft in sight, and the gunner, who had prepared for combat, went disappointed.

This evidence establishes definitely the brevity and utter indiscriminateness of the raid.

Toll of Injured

Whether the Germans fired their machine-guns has never been quite clear. Their bombs knocked-out two or three vehicles in the streets and added several pedestrians to the list of injured, numbering about 20 hospital cases and many minor cases. Some of the deaths occurred at the First Aid Post in Moor-road, and St. Peter’s Church Room was used as a temporary mortuary.

One of the minor trials in Rushden that day was the severance of the gas supply. Another was the downpour of rain which commenced in the afternoon and continued steadily into the night, adding to the gloom of the blacked-out, roped-off areas where windows were boarded and shattered buildings awaited repair or demolition.

NEXT WEEK: RUSHDEN’S OTHER RAIDS.

Rushden Night Raids Recalled - Roberts-St. Havoc: When Town Was Lit Up
(Continued From Last Week)
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………..broken glass, the A.R.P. squads did splendid work among the wreckage, bringing out injured people, dispatching them to the First Aid Post, and continuing their efforts until every resident in the immediate area had been accounted for.

Bombed-out families were shepherded to the Rest Centre at the B.W.T.A. Hall, and several people sheltered at the Rectory for a time. There were four fatal casualties – Mrs. Harriett Elizabeth Elmer, her daughter Betty, aged 15, Mr. Charles Smith (74) and Mrs. Emma Furniss (79), all of Roberts-street. Nine seriously injured persons were sent to Northampton Hospital after treatment at the F.A.P., and about 30 more received minor injuries.

“Crazy” School

When dawn broke the trail of blast damage presented a melancholy picture. It extended over several streets – even to the middle of High-street – and affected about 400 separate properties, including many shops and some factories.

The large Newton-road Council School looked particularly crazy, with thousands of tiles dislodged and most of its windows blown out. Its interior aspect was equally dishevelled, but all the damage fortunately came under the heading of “superficial.” Some distance away, the glass screens of the grandstand at the Town Football Ground were smashed.

On November 28th three H.E. bombs fell near Wymington and caused minor damage in the village. On another occasion a string of bombs fanned out on either side of the main Rushden-Wellingborough road near Sanders’s Lodge, but failed to do any harm, though as a precaution the Rushden-Wellingborough train service was suspended for a few hours next day. There was also a small incident at Knotting – again on the Rushden border; and 1941 brought some bombing at Doddington Ridge and Gipsy-lane, Irchester (April 10th) followed by the serious affair at Irchester on May 19th, when nine people were killed.

Bathed In Light

Germany turned her attention to Russia, and Rushden enjoyed some quiet months. The Luftwaffe became active again in June, 1942, but distant flares and a little machine-gunning were the only items on the local records until the night of August 2nd/3rd.

The small hours of August Monday were dramatic. Hearing almost simultaneously an Alert and some less familiar sounds, the people of Rushden jumped out of bed and were amazed to find the whole town bathed in whitish-blue light. The time was five minutes past three, but anyone could have stood in High-street and read a newspaper with ease.

For some reason a small group of raiders had dropped a large cluster of powerful parachute flares – sufficient to light up several square miles of territory. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and will never be forgotten by those who saw it.

Although the town appeared to be at their mercy, the Germans made an awful hash of their bombing. They released three large H.E.s, missed the town by 50 yards, and blasted three craters – two of them exceptionally large – in farm fields south of Harborough-road.

Family Tragedy

Though wonderfully lucky in that escape, Rushden did not go scot free. The large flare containers, each about 3 ft. high, clattered down over the southern part of the town, some hitting houses as they fell.

One “candle,” failing to function, pierced the roof of a house in York-road, penetrated to the ground floor near the foot of the stairs, and broke the gas meter. Fire broke out and the house filled with noxious fumes.

The tenant, Mr. Cyril Abbott, a well-known cab proprietor, and his son Reggie, aged 12, escaped by jumping from the front bedroom window. They were badly injured, and Mr. Abbott died at Northampton Hospital on the following Thursday. Mrs. Abbott and Marion, the eight-years-old daughter, were trapped in a bedroom and lost their lives, apparently from asphyxiation, being already dead when N.F.S. men got them out.

The distressing incidents at this house were said to be unique in the country. Neighbours, Fire Guards and others helped to fight the fire which was successfully localised. A few houses, including that of Mr. F. J. Sharwood, a County Councillor, had their roofs damaged by the falling flare cases. Two parachutes were found on graves in the cemetery, and another lodged in a tree.

Later that day many Rushden people saw a German ’plane on its way to bomb the centre of Wellingborough.

Eighteen Deaths

In all, Rushden has had 18 air-raid deaths, about 90 cases of injury (one-third of them severe) and damage to between 400 and 500 properties. For a long time it had the unpleasant distinction of being the only town in the district where the First Aid Post had operated.

In strange contrast, the whole history of blitz experience at Higham Ferrers is “Nothing to report.”