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In contrast to many other towns and cities in the UK such as Bath, Bristol, Coventry, Exeter and of course London, Swindon largely escaped the attentions of Hitler’s Luftwaffe between the years of 1939 and 1945, largely but not completely. During those years, occasional attacks took place, usually by isolated raiders. In the intervening years all the significant destruction that was caused has been repaired. However, there is still evidence of what happened in those troubled times and small signs can be found of the original damage.

At around dawn on 27 July 1942 a lone Heinkel bomber launched an attack on the Great Western Railway gas works the original gas-holder of which still exists Link Gunfire from the plane set fire to the contents which were later extinguished by firefighters. The plane then released a stick of five bombs, one of which failed to explode. Luckily the UXB was the one closest to the gas-holder. The others exploded at intervals of about 75 metres apart along a line parallel to a cycle track that ran then and still runs south-east from the gas-holder where once there was a canal. The fourth bomb in the stick exploded at approximately SU143855, 250 metres from the gas-holder. It caused damage to workshops nearby. Evidence of the damage caused to the workshops can no longer be found. However, the original substantial iron fence put up years before the war by the GWR is, remarkably, still there and signs of the damage caused by bomb fragments can still be seen.

This image shows the fence in its context to the left of the cycle track. The bomb would have landed somewhere to the right out of view.

The bombs involved each weighed 250 kg meaning that well over a tonne of bombs fell in this incident. It is perhaps fortunate therefore that there were no fatalities although about twenty people were injured.

The above information was extracted from a monograph ‘Swindon Air Raids in World War 2’ by K Walter published privately in 1998, a copy of which can be found in Swindon’s Central Library.

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