Sixty years ago on 22nd June, 1941 after the main blitz period of the war had ended, the Southampton area suffered one of its heaviest raids. Over 100 German bombers were involved in the two-and-a-half hour period beginning at 2 a.m. About 50 1000 kg. parachute mines, dozens of smaller conventional high-explosive bombs and thousands of incendiaries were dropped. About 30 of the mines, most of the H.E.bombs and all the firebombs were dropped on the then sparsely populated areas of Chilworth, Rownhams, North Baddesley and Scragg Hill which at this time was part of Romsey Extra. Some of the enemy aircraft had been successfully lured away from Southampton when the decoy site on Baddesley Common was lit.
Decoy sites were built near, but not too near, ports, cities and important industrial centres during the Second World War. As with the dummy airfields, their aim was to attract the German aeroplanes to attack them, and thus to miss their intended target. They comprised lights and imitation explosions to look as though an important installation was being attacked, to the Germans in the night sky. It was then hoped that other planes would drop their bombs on the mayhem below. They could report back that the target area was all in flames, when in reality little damage had been caused.
Photograph of remains of Decoy Site on Baddesley Common
taken by Ray Cobern in 1995
During that night of 22nd June, the first house to be hit by firebombs was Doonbank Kennels, now no. 10 Botley Road, at the top of Scragg Hill and about a quarter-mile from the decoy site. Its blazing roof soon attracted thousands more incendiaries. Most of these landed harmlessly in fields and woods, and the few that landed on dwellings were quickly dealt with by owners and wardens. But during the next hour or so eight aerial mines and several small 50 to 100 kg. H.E. bombs were dropped on Scragg Hill and North Baddesley which destroyed or badly damaged 39 dwellings and damaged practically all the other houses in the two communities.
The worst carnage was caused by a mine which dropped in the middle of Rownhams Lane, near the present no. 67. Most of the homes down to Avenue Road (now Crescent Road) were razed, together with others above the point of impact. It was ironic that one of the houses nearest the explosion was occupied by Mr. Smith, his wife and mother. Mr. Smith, a teacher, had come with 45 evacuee boys from Newton Junior Boys' School, at Gosport, on 27th June, 1940 and taught at North Baddesley School. He was buried in the ruins along with his wife, also a teacher, but survived with only head injuries.
Another parachute mine which caused major damage that night landed in an oak tree by the side of the A27, nearly opposite the present Emer Close and about 150 yards from the master searchlight site, situated where the white Mansell office now stands. About nine or ten properties were destroyed or very badly damaged, including the garage and petrol station run by Frank Hobbs. A story at the time was that Ben Marsh, who with his wife and family lived in the house nearest where the mine fell, saw it land in the oak tree. He and watched it swing there for several seconds before prudently taking cover just before it exploded, blasting his home to pieces.
I believe these aerial mines were converted sea mines and having a thin aluminium casing, had to have a parachute to slow their descent and stop them breaking up on impact. They also had a 15 second fuse between impact and detonation, to allow them to break through trees and roofs and explode at ground level - this enabled Ben to live on in Baddesley to a good old age.
Another house badly damaged nearby was the home of Mrs. Chaston, for years the area's much respected district nurse and midwife. This was the semi-detached pair between the present service station and Firgrove Road and the entire roof was ripped off. To prove that lightning does sometimes strike twice, the same thing happened to this semi later on in the war when, I believe, the decoy was lit again and a single aircraft dropped two 500 lb. H.E. bombs right opposite. This time there were fatalities - two pigs belonging to Mr. Allen!
My abiding memory was visiting the crater the next day with the Scragg Hill gang. My school-mates Joe and Peter Kayley were sitting forlorn on the wooden steps of their home, amidst a pile of splintered timber: all that remained whole of their wooden bungalow. Strangely, at the Rownhams Lane site, it was the act of walking on a carpet of green leaves blasted from the oak trees that sticks in my mind, apart from all the destruction.
A pair of mines was dropped in fields belonging to Warren Farm. One fell at the far end of the large corn field opposite the A27/Rownhams Lane junction, and the other in a field to the right, behind the woods. These later yielded the remains of two parachutes to our gang. We used the plaited nylon cords for swinging ropes - Tarzan films being all the rage. The green canopies, which were made of very heavy man-made material sewn together, were used for dens - they were certainly quite unsuitable for ladies' underwear, as suggested in some articles I have read. Had they been used, the wearers must have been desperate and the elastic very strong!
Other mines were dropped near Rownhams Lane in Mr Hazzard's smallholding (mid way between the bungalow 'Helvetia' and the present pub 'Bedes Lea'. One landed about 300 yards away from the decoy site towards Bucket Corner in Pound Lane, and another close to the first cottage in Pound Lane after Body Farm. Ted Moody, aged 15 years and not quite lawfully in the Luzborough Home Guard at this time, said this mine broke up on impact and the explosives were strewn over the field. At least one more mine fell in Castle Lane, in the woods near the site of the old air raid shelter recently demolished for the new cycle way. There may have been more near here, but I am not certain.
The smaller H.E. bombs seemed to be aimed at power lines, starting with one unexploded in a hayrick near Highwood Lane. Two more exploded right at the bases of the two pylons straddling the A27 at Scragg Hill (now replaced by twin wooden poles) these did no harm apart from bending a few supporting angle irons. A stick of these bombs fell along the pylon line to Chilworth. Two of the large craters in sandy soil behind the present golf course were still being used by BMX bikers until recently.
In this raid, sixteen parachute mines landed in the Chilworth area. One landed on the steep slope of the A27 opposite the present science park and killed a man cycling away from Southampton to escape the bombing there. Another exploded in a field opposite St. Denys church, near Misslebrook Lane. I believe another crater can still be seen at Fernlea, near Chilworth Manor.
In the Rownhams/Toothill/Broadlands Estate area, another thirteen mines were recorded. One of these landed in a pond at Parkers Farm, near the M27 motorway. Mrs. Sibley, of the well known Rownhams family, remembers the large lumps of mud being deposited over the area and also the unexploded mine which fell near the house called Austrey Wood, which is at the end of the present Greenhill Lane near the motorway. This was caught in a tree and Mrs. Sibley and Tony Snelgrove, then aged 15, said all he village children visited it hanging from its parachute, before being removed by the R.A.F. Bomb Disposal Squad.
Some cottages were damaged by a mine that landed between the old Bedwell Arms and Aldermoor Road, near the cul-de-sac known as Lordshill or Soapsuds Alley. I think it was during this raid that seven evacuee children living at Fernyhurst were killed when the centre section of the house was destroyed. If so, it was probably the same mine that destroyed the stained glass windows, in the church - Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke went, leaving only the patron saint St. John the Evangelist unscathed. I can still remember seeing the huge crater that had destroyed the Baddesley to Rownhams Road, near where Greenhill Lane joins it (then the continuous road to the Horns Inn). I recall the old 'blue bus' gingerly driving round the crumbling verge. Two more mines exploded in woodland between this one and the centre of Baddesley and the rest probably in the Broadlands Estate.
The official Southampton Civil Defence report for this raid states: 'The usual initial shower of incendiaries fell outside the borough, between it and Romsey, and the succeeding mines and bombs were largely discharged on to the fires caused by these incendiaries and not on the town.' For obvious reasons they could not state that these initial fires were the Baddesley decoy being lit, even if they had known of the site's existence. So although Southampton had a very bad night with five mines on the docks, including the Royal Pier, and with thirteen others scattered about the town - causing 19 deaths and destroying or badly damaging 200 properties, the Baddesley decoy seemed to have done its job well. Its northern parishes meanwhile had a night of total terror.
Although some people had privately constructed shelters in these Baddesley, there were no public shelters available at this time. My family lived in West Lane, Scragg Hill and during this raid my mother with her four children, together with Mrs. Hanlon, our neighbour, and her two children sheltered under one iron framed bed, where we endured a very noisy and traumatic night. We would listen to the approaching German aircraft then all hell would break loose as the 3.7 inch mobile anti-aircraft guns, which were stationed along the top end of Rownhams Lane, would start their deep coughing sound making the building shake. These would be joined by the strange banshee wail as the rocket projectiles from the decoy site left their racks, while shrapnel from these would break tiles and glass all around.
After this, the aircraft noise would recede and the guns would stop firing and then came the really nerve racking part. Without any warning, there would be a vivid purple flash, followed by a terrific crack as 2,000 lb. of explosives in these mines detonated. Of course, being slowed by the parachute from say 10,000 ft., they would take four or five minutes to reach earth; by this time the aircraft would be 10 or so miles away. The long wait for the explosions after the first one or two became very wearing on the nerves during this long raid. With the screech and bang of a conventional H.E. bomb, you knew it was going to be near, but these mines were something else - a real terror weapon.
After this raid, the authorities realising that the decoy worked, performed a minor miracle by providing Morrison shelters for families. Soon after, permanent concrete shelters at Scragg Hill and the white brick public shelters were provided in the rest of the area. Though we had no further raids on this scale and, I think, only one successful decoy lighting, they were a great comfort to the population.
The decoy site here was manned by R.A.F. personnel, probably from no. 80 (Counter Measures) Wing, who were billeted in the area in private houses whilst off duty. On duty, they slept in a Nissen hut and had a very strong air raid shelter with attached generator house on the edge of the site. The site consisted of open steel containers filled with oil and pig arks dotted about the area crammed with combustible materials including magnesium candle flares which were ignited when German aircraft were in the area. These decoys were known as QF or Starfish sites. The most Starfish successful site in Hampshire was near Portsmouth, at Sinach Common. When lit on 17th April, 1941 it attracted 200 H.E. bombs and mines, and 5,000 firebombs.
The North Baddesley School Log from this time is of interest for its description of an early form of counselling, and the great strain the Head Teacher Annie McColl and her staff were under.
21st & 22nd June, 1941
'The village has had a very bad time this weekend. There has been 39 houses destroyed and many of the scholars are homeless. A great number of land mines completely destroyed many homes of the scholars. No fatal casualties, but few serious and one very grave.
'The children's nerves have been very badly shaken and the staff have varied the usual timetable and included extra music and poetry lessons. We found that the children responded to these and became less excited. Some were utterly unable to accept the usual routine work. The parents sent them to school as they had no homes to house them during the daytime. The homeless families were looked after by the head teacher in the school after school hours and bedding with mattresses were provided.'
30th June
'Land mines have been discovered in many parts of the village and are continually being detonated by the military. We keep the children in the open playing a noisy game when we are informed the detonating will take place.
'Canteen food was provided during the worst of the blitz period. The head teacher is feeling the strain of the past week, and now a long period of evacuation with 140 evacuee children. One master was buried under the ruins of his bungalow with his wife, son and daughter.
'Practically every house in the villages of Baddesley and Chilworth received some damage, but the scholars left in the village bravely attend school each day and the staff arrive promptly for duty.
'Evacuated parents who have braved and survived the blitzes of London and Southampton informed the staff that they would willingly face those before they would dare another of the downpour of German land mines such as we suffered on the Saturday and Sunday night raids.'
I believe the decoy would have ceased to be permanently manned at the end of 1944. Mind you, the pig arks with their contents were still there on V.E. Day 8th May, 1945 as the flares from these made lovely Roman Candles, though you had to watch your eyes. The last remains of the site - the air raid shelter with generator house - have now been completely destroyed, although photographs were taken in 1995 for the Baddesley Archive.