The Clydebank Blitz, 1941: Two Nights That Destroyed a Town

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

West Dunbartonshire Council's museum service and German records document the raids in detail. Casualty and housing figures vary between sources, and wartime censorship limited what could be reported at the time. The council gives 528 deaths for Clydebank; some accounts give about 1,200 for the raids as a whole, without always saying what area is covered.

Why Clydebank?

established The Clyde was one of Britain's most important centres of shipbuilding and engineering. Clydebank, west of Glasgow, held John Brown's shipyard, which built warships and liners including the Queen Mary; the Singer factory, which had turned to munitions; the Royal Ordnance Factory at Dalmuir; Rothesay Dock; and the 130-acre Admiralty oil depot at Dalnottar.

The raids

established The sirens sounded at 9 pm on Thursday 13 March 1941 under a full moon. German bombers, flying from bases in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, attacked for about nine hours, dropping high explosives, oil bombs and more than 100,000 small incendiary bombs on the first night. They returned the next night. In all, about 439 bombers dropped some 272 tonnes of high explosive and more than 1,650 containers of incendiaries. Fires at the oil depot, where 11 tanks were destroyed, burned for weeks. Only two bombers were shot down, both by RAF fighters.

The toll

established West Dunbartonshire Council records 528 people killed in Clydebank and more than 617 seriously injured, with many hundreds more hurt by flying glass. The worst single incident was in Second Avenue, where a parachute mine destroyed 150 yards of terraced housing and killed 80 people. Of about 12,000 houses, 4,000 were destroyed, 4,500 severely damaged and 3,500 damaged less seriously.

shared Sources give seven or eight houses left undamaged, between 35,000 and 48,000 people made homeless or evacuated, and two to four weeks for the oil fire. Some give a total of about 1,200 dead. Survivors and historians have long argued that the official count understated the toll; the question cannot now be settled.

Aftermath

established Survivors were housed in rest centres and with families elsewhere, and many never returned. The shipyards and factories resumed production remarkably quickly. Unclaimed dead were buried at Dalnottar Cemetery, where a granite memorial with bronze plates by Tom McKendrick now stands. A memorial also honours the crew of the Polish destroyer Piorun, which helped defend John Brown's yard. Kilbowie St Andrew's Parish Church, the only Church of Scotland building in the town to survive, holds an annual service.

• The first raid began at 9 pm under a full moon.
• More than 100,000 incendiary bombs fell on the first night.
• A single parachute mine killed 80 people in Second Avenue.
• Only seven or eight of Clydebank's 12,000 houses were left intact.
• The Dalnottar oil depot burned for weeks.
• A Polish destroyer helped defend John Brown's shipyard.
• Only two German bombers were shot down.
• Greenock was heavily bombed two months later.

• Do not give the death toll as a single settled figure.
• Do not give the number of intact houses as exactly seven.
• Do not mix Clydebank figures with Clydeside-wide totals.