Did you know... The Air Raid of 10 January 1941

January 12, 2021 Portsmouth Cathedral

By Friday 10th January 1941, Portsmouth had already endured an autumn and winter of frequent night-time air raids. Then, on Saturday 11 January 1941, the cathedral’s Service Register reads: ‘During this night Portsmouth was heavily raided & much of the Parish was destroyed.’

On the previous night, 10/11 January, in what was the city’s 31st raid (according to Council records), more than 300 bombs fell on the city: 171 people were killed, 430 injured and 3,000 made homeless. The Portsmouth Evening News wrote: ‘Enemy bombers made a concentrated attack on Portsmouth last night. Showers of incendiaries and high explosive bombs were rained on the City by waves of raiders and a number of fires were started. … The first effects of the raid seen from a point seven miles away was a curtain of flares, which shortly afterwards gave way to a number of red glows. Several of these later merged into one large patch of deep red light that occasionally flickered in a bowl of smoke and cloud … Except for a lull, the air raid was spread over a period of seven hours.’

The first stick of bombs fell on the electricity station and plunged the city into darkness; electricity was only restored 4 days later. A direct hit on the Guildhall gutted it. As ‘Smitten city’ says: ‘Showers of incendiary bombs fell on the hall. The third set the building alight, and then a high explosive bomb hit the roof, which fell in. The Lord Mayor and ARP Personnel left the building barely in time.’ Other buildings damaged or destroyed were schools, churches (including the nave of the Garrison Church), the Bishop’s House next to St John’s Catholic Cathedral, hotels, business premises, amusement houses, a hospital and many homes.

That was the background to the fate of No. 101, High Street and its residents that night. The building stood on the corner of High Street and Lombard Street; in the accompanying sketch of the High Street, you can see the narrow turn into Lombard Street and get an impression of the bustling street scene that in 1934 hid much of the cathedral from the road. In 1941, No. 101 was a confectioner’s shop, with accommodation on the floors above. It also clearly had a large cellar. Local resident Ray White has told how his grandparents - who had been living at No. 6, Lombard Street since 1894 - took refuge in the crypt of the Cathedral that night, and survived. Tragically, those who lived or took shelter in No. 101 were not so fortunate, and alongside those in the cellar and the two residents killed outside the house, John William Dunford (a War Reserve Constable working with the Portsmouth City Police) was also killed, at the junction of Pembroke Road and High Street.

Ten years ago, on the 70th anniversary of the bombing, a memorial stone was unveiled in front of the cathedral, on the site of No. 101. It reads:

‘101 HIGH STREET STOOD HERE AND WAS BOMBED IN THE BLITZ OF 10 JANUARY 1941. THE FAMILIES SHELTERING IN THE CELLAR DIED: ISAAC BARKER 67 AND HIS WIFE GERTRUDE 61, RICHARD CLEMENS 67 AND HIS WIFE MARY 67, GEORGE BARNES 71, PETER HALSON 11 MONTHS, JOHN ALBERT MORRIS 38, HIS WIFE ELSIE 24 AND SON JOHN 2, CHARLES RIDGE 58, HIS WIFE ANNIE 50 AND DAUGHTER RUBY 14. WINIFRED ANDREWS 44 AND SON GEORGE 15 LIVED HERE BUT DIED THAT NIGHT OUTSIDE IN LOMBARD STREET. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.’

The air raids on Portsmouth continued until the end of June 1941, and then intermittently until the final raid on 15th June 1944. By 1946, the High Street had lost 102 of the 137 properties it had contained in 1939. After the damaged houses all around St Thomas’s had been cleared, the building was exposed to view, as the photo with the little girl shows. Only after this clearance was the cathedral considered to be in the High Street; its original address had been St Thomas’s Street.