The night terror rained from the sky

Photo: Darren Robinson

EXPLORING a grim day . . . historian John Fidler.

LOCAL historian John Fidler and his wife Dori are preparing to travel to Cleethorpes to honour 13 Oldham soldiers killed by a wartime bomb dropped by a Zeppelin.

April 1 marks the centenary of the bombing of the Baptist church in the Lincolnshire town, where soldiers from the 3rd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment were billeted. The bomb, dropped at 1.45am, killed 33 people as they slept and injured many more.

More than 80 men were in the chapel - many of them in the Army for only days.

Details of the air raid and the deaths went unreported at the time under wartime reporting restrictions. John unearthed the details as he prepared to give a lecture in his “Local history of Oldham” nightclass.

His search took him to Cleethorpes Library then Grimsby library, then archives in Lincoln and a memorial in Cleethorpes cemetery, on which the names of the dead were recorded.

But it was only when he began to trawl through newspaper reports that he found the stories told by survivors — the “real” stories he likes to use, to personalise his history lessons.

His search involved looking at 1916 copies of the Oldham Chronicle, where he discovered mention of the men who died later from injuries sustained in the bombing, men who were buried at cemeteries in Hollinwood, Greenacres and Middleton.

The Zeppelin was headed for an attack on London and East Anglia, but engine problems forced its captain to abort the mission and move instead to attack Grimsby docks. It dropped three bombs, hitting the chapel, the council offices and a street.

Oldham’s Deputy Mayor, Councillor Derek Heffernan, will also attend a service to represent the borough and lay a wreath.