World War 2:  RAID ON TATWORTH

Based on notes made by Len Hoskin’s of an interview with Mrs A. T. Davies of Tatworth

On 23rd October 1942 at around 4.30 in the afternoon Mrs A. T. Davies heard the low hum of an aircraft. Looking out of her bedroom window she saw clearly a swastika on the fuselage of a plane flying low from the direction of Windwhistle. Next she heard an explosion. At first it was unclear what had happened, but it was soon discovered that a bomb had dropped into the yard of the local United Dairies milk factory.

One man was killed and 35 others injured. Mrs Davies stated that if the bomb had been dropped 5 minutes earlier many more would have been killed, but by then they had left the yard. Windows were broken as far away as the Co-op branch in Fore Street, Tatworth.

The local doctor, Dr. Daniel, phoned for an ambulance and ordered sterile dressings. The local First Aid team swung into action, getting the kettles on and receiving a stream of shocked casualties. The most serious were treated at the local hospital where the permanent staff were helped by local volunteers, specially trained in first aid and home nursing to support the war effort. Most of the casualties were treated with tetanus injections, sedatives and cups of tea! Mrs Davies reported that the factory bomb had little effect on village morale!

This incident demonstrates that air raids were not just inflicted on large conurbations. In fact the National Archives list a total of 32,000 locations where bombs were dropped. The Tatworth bombing was one of a series of raids carried out across Somerset in 1942. German bombers, flying low in an attempt to avoid detection by radar, bombed Castle Cary railway station in early September, the Cow and Gate milk factory in Somerton, killing 11 people and Yeovil, in an attempt to destroy the Nautilus Naval Weapons factory, as well as larger cities such as Bath and Bristol. All this shows that every village, town or city were in the front line.