Tontine Street Bombing Anniversary
The 25th May 2007 marks the 90th anniversary of a terrible
air raid on Folkestone which resulted in 72 casualties, 61 of them in Tontine
Street alone.
The 21 Gotha bombers that carried out the raid crossed the North Sea earlier
that day intent on bombing London but were defeated by unfavourable weather
conditions. Turning south they dropped some of their bombs on Lympne airfield
destroying some of the aircraft and hangars there.
Flying over the West End of Folkestone in the early evening of 25th May 1917 the
bombers were watched in wonder by some residents, who thought they were British
aircraft. Then came the bombs! A woman in Earls Avenue watching the planes, saw
another pass her in the street before, a few seconds later there was a great
crash behind her. Turning around she was shocked to see a crater and the woman
who had just passed her lying dead on the pavement. Bombs were dropped across
Folkestone, some went off and others were duds. A cab driver was killed near the
Central Station and a house in Manor Road reduced to ‘matchsticks’. The worst of
the raid was yet to come however.
At 6.22pm the Gotha’s flew over Tontine Street dropping two bombs before heading
out to sea. The queue that had formed outside Stokes greengrocers shop ( having
heard about a new delivery of potatoes) were reduced to “a crumpled heap of
grotesque mannequins splattered by the dirt from a large crater” . A police
constable in Tontine Street described the “appalling sight I shall never
forget”. Dead and injured people lay all about in scenes of the most terrible
carnage, four horses lay dead in the street and fire had broken out in the ruins
of the greengrocers. Altogether 61 people died as a result of the Tontine Street
bombing and a further 11 elsewhere in Folkestone. Such an unprecedented outrage
shocked not only the locality but the nation. The site of the greengrocers has
never been built upon and is currently used as beer garden for the Brewery Tap
public house. A modest plaque marks the spot of this terrible event.
Another notable wartime bombing raid took place 25 years later on 17 May 1942
making this May the 65th anniversary of the event. Two people died when the
Christ Church in Sandgate Road was bombed and destroyed. Many people remember
this raid because of the steady flutter of prayer book fragments as they drifted
down across Folkestone. The church was never rebuilt but the tower still stands,
amid a Garden of Remembrance where there are now a number of memorials and
plaques.
For more information on the Tontine Street bombing, an excellent detailed
account can be read in the book ‘A Glint in the Sky’ by Martin Easdown with
Thomas Genth and published by Pen and Sword Local in 2004. For this event set in
a wider national context I would recommend ‘The First Battle of Britain 1917 –
1918’ by R H Fredette and published by Cassell in 1966. I have referred to both
sources in the preparation of this article.
Paul Harris
Article from Go Folkestone Newsletter June 2007
