A City Re-Shaped

Contributed by Bob Hind with incidental words from Rob Marchant

World War II when it came in 1939 was responsible for a major re-shaping of the city of Portsmouth. While fortunately a good deal of the old city survived, a great deal was also lost through enemy air action, and much of the landscape we are all familiar with today is a result of the subsequent re-building, particularly in the early 1950s.

Portsmouth, as the home of the Royal Navy, was of course always going to be a major target for the Luftwaffe, and once the airfields of France had fallen into enemy hands, the relatively short hop across the English Channel made the city an obvious and accessible target.

Between July 1940 and May 1944 there were 67 air raids on the city of Portsmouth, resulting in 1,320 highexplosive bombs, 38,000 incendiary bombs and 38 land mines being dropped, causing widespread havoc, disaster and chaos for residents of the city, not to mention the Royal Navy.

These enemy raids killed 930 civilians, with many others dying of their injuries after the War’s end. Horribly high as that figure is, it does not include the many servicemen and women who paid the ultimate price for their service.

Although many sailors in particular, were killed during the conflict when barracks, the dockyard, ships, hotels used as billets and other naval establishments

Credit: The News, Portsmouth.

were hit, they were on active service and so their names were not numbered among the total dead.

In addition to those killed, another 1,216 civilians were injured, and needed hospitalisation, with 1,621 suffering lesser injuries. Gosport also suffered badly, and another 120 civilians were killed by the many bombs that fell on the town, particularly in the areas closest to the harbour and the Royal Dockyard that was the intended target.

The three major air raids on the city took place on 24 August 1940, 10 January 1941 and 10 March 1941.

The raid on the night of 10/11 January 1941 was perhaps the worst, when 300 aeroplanes dropped an estimated 25,000 incendiaries as well as many highexplosive bombs, creating a firestorm.

Twenty-eight major fires raged across the south-west corner of the city, with perhaps the best-known casualty being the Guildhall which was destroyed by fire and explosives. Commercial Road at the junction of Edinburgh Road and Arundel Street was ablaze from floor to roof. The north section of Palmerston Road, including Handley’s Corner, was destroyed. The sad reality was that in addition to these headline-making

Credit: The News, Portsmouth.

casualties, so many ordinary homes and smaller businesses were also destroyed.

As many as 2,000 minor fires burned unchecked, because of broken water mains which made the fire engines of little use.

Six churches were also left in ruins, including the Royal Garrison Church in Old Portsmouth, the Nave of which has never been replaced.

The Royal Sailors Rest, also in Commercial Road, was destroyed, as was the forerunner of the Royal Maritime Club in Queens Street, the re-built venue having hosted many PPA events in recent years. Also hit was part of the Royal Hospital whose main gate was in Commercial Road just north of Lake Road, now the site of a Sainsburys supermarket.

The scene the following Sunday morning was one of devastation with houses burning everywhere and streets littered with fire hoses and, as mentioned, no water available to quell the flames.

Two months later, on 10 March 1941 in another serious raid, 93 people were killed and at least 250 were injured.

As we all go about our daily lives, living and working in the city, it is very difficult to imagine what it must have been like to live in Portsmouth in those dark times.

The bare facts of the dates and times of the air raids, the numbers of bombs dropped and buildings destroyed tell part of the story, but looking back on events from 80 years distance it is perhaps easy to lose sight of the fact that our predecessors in this proud city paid such a high price in human terms.

Can you imagine walking along Fratton Road these days and being machine gunned, for that is what happened to 10-year-old Grace Gordon.

She was walking hand in hand with her mother along Fratton Road towards Fratton Bridge, when a German fighter came over the rooftop of the insurance building that stood on the south side of the bridge.

The aeroplane pointed its nose down and opened fire, machine-gunning all the way along Fratton Road, the bullets cracking into the tarmac.

Grace’s mother grabbed her and pushed her into a shop doorway as the bullets peppered past them.

One of the saddest events occurred on the evening of 5 December 1940 when six Wilkinson sisters and a six-month old

Copyright Portsmouth City Council, History Centre, Central Library

Credit: The News, Portsmouth.

son and nephew died. The girls lived at 16 Cowper Road, which ran between Manor Road and St Mary’s Road, Landport. It is now just a cul-de-sac off Manor Road leading into the City of Portsmouth Girls’ School.

Four of the girls, Lucy (25), Mary (21), Ivy (15) and married Lillian New (23), died instantaneously.

Kathleen (11) died on the way to hospital after being dug out from the ruins and Nellie died in hospital five days later. Lillian’s baby, Tony was blasted over the rooftops, his body being discovered in a bed of nettles alongside Kingston Prison.

One survivor, Irene (12) lost a leg but survived to adulthood.

Lillian was married to train driver Ted New and lived a short distance away at 51 Moorland Road, Landport.

On that fateful Thursday evening the girls were in the back of the house sitting around the range. There was a knock at the door, and it was Lillian who had called in with her baby for a cup of tea. Baby Tony was in the hallway asleep in his pram.

There was no siren so it might have been a lone bomber which dropped its bomb on the house. In an instant it was all over for the Wilkinson girls.

Many of the dead were interred in mass graves within Kingston Cemetery between St Mary’s Road and New Road. There are two memorials alongside the graves, of which the main one has the following epitaph:

ERECTED IN MEMORY OF THOSE MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN BOTH KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WHO DIED AS A RESULT OF ENEMY BOMBING ON THIS CITY AND WHOSE LASTING RESTING PLACE IS NEAR THIS SPOT.

Re-Building Portsmouth

When the war in Europe ended in 1945, the south-west corner of the city was, for the most part, in ruins.

The three main shopping centres in Commercial Road, Palmerston Road and Kings Road were burnt-out shells and much of the housing to the north of Kings Road, to the rear of both Hampshire and Landport Terraces, was destroyed.

In Commercial Road, the LDB, Woolworth’s and the Central Hotel on the corner of Edinburgh Road were completely destroyed along with the massive Co-operative stores in Fratton Road.

Surprisingly though, many other parts of the city survived relatively unscathed and it was the areas close to the Royal Dockyard that had suffered the most.

With the return of soldiers from Europe and later from the Far East, and many de-mobbed sailors, there was suddenly a huge demand for additional housing as they all, of course, needed somewhere to live. Some had married during the war and some had sweethearts whom they married as soon as they could following the end of the hostilities. Some roomed with the inlaws and relatives, others found a room as lodgers, but it was not reasonable to expect these young couples to go on like that for long.