Wartime documents owned by a collector are going up for auction in the North East
Wartime map of German bombing targets in North East(Image: Boldon Auction Galleries)
A German wartime booklet has surfaced which outlines targets in the North East, complete with pictures, descriptions and location details. The booklet, titled “confidential” in German, contains information for use in bombing raids and also if an invasion had taken place.
It was discovered in the collection of a late Sunderland expert on German wartime material and will be sold at Boldon Auction Galleries today. The booklet features landmarks such as the Tyne Bridge and Spillers flour mill on the riverside and an overview image of the Gateshead-Newcastle riversides and nearby areas.
In South Tyneside, the Germans picked out Palmers shipyard in Hebburn, the Shell Mex oil storage tanks in Jarrow and Team Valley in Gateshead. A section is also devoted to a series of images of the various shipyards on the Wear and the river’s Hudson Dock. A German map showing bombing targets in Sunderland is also for sale.
“They are fascinating items and show how thoroughly the Germans had plotted what they considered to be important targets for their bomber pilots,” said Boldon director Caroline Hodges. “They would have had all the information they needed for their raids and if they had ever landed in the North East.
“It raises the question of what would have happened if these strategies had been carried out in full.”
Wartime map of German bombing targets in North East(Image: Boldon Auction Galleries)
Wartime map of German bombing targets in North East(Image: Boldon Auction Galleries)
The fact that this was not the case was partially down to what happened in 1940 on August 15 – coincidentally the date of the 80th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day. On August 15 during the Battle of Britain, having made an all-out attack on Fighter Command in the south of England two days earlier, the Luftwaffe launched a mass attack on the North East by its units in Norway – known as Luftflotte 5.
Fighters lacked the range to escort the 141 bombers across the North Sea, but the Luftwaffe took the risk in the belief that that Fighter Command had thrown aircraft from the region into the southern battle. But this was not so and the German Heinkel and Dornier bombers faced the Spitfires and Hurricanes of 13 Group, and the new radars and operations rooms.
Radar information was passed to the 13 Group Ops Room at Kenton Bar in Newcastle and its subordinate Sector Ops Rooms at Turnhouse, Acklington, in Northumberland, Usworth near Sunderland and Catterick. RAF Acklington scrambled 72 and 79 Squadrons to intercept the raid off the Farne Islands and attack it all the way down the coast towards Tyneside.
As the raid turned back for Norway, it was attacked again, this time by Hurricanes of 605 Squadron. By then, the raid had split, with a separate force heading for Sunderland, which was met by 607 Squadron from RAF Usworth and 41 Squadron from RAF Catterick.
Luftflotte 5 lost between 15 and 20 aircraft at no cost to the defending fighters. In air war terms, this was a resounding defeat for the Luftwaffe, whose Luftflotte 5 never attacked the UK in daylight again.
The collection also features a letter from Field Msrhall Bernard Montogmery to Jimmy Wilosm, of Field Hall in Langley Moor in County Durham, thanking him for donations of books for use by soldiers.