William Sugden

[DAVIDW 1,681]

A random post and doubt it will ever get an answer but I recently wrote a blog post about the bombing of St.Ives town and the beaches by a couple of Luftwaffe aircraft in August 1942. 

 

Despite strafing of the beaches , full of children and some bombing , only one lady was killed . There were numerous injuries and many lucky escapes .

 

However the Luftwaffe seemed to have singled out , the one Nottingham worker who had the bad luck to be toiling away at the  local gas works when they struck,  namely Mr.William Sugden .

 

As well as being hit by machine gun and canon fire he appears to have been subjected to a high explosive bomb that completely took out the gas works . 

 

The roof of the gas works , situated above Porthmeor beach (now the Tate Gallery ),  blew right over the town and landed on the opposite beach .

 

So if any descendants ever read this in future and have his tale to tell I would be very interested .

 

From the newspaper article of the time :

 

The men employed at the building had miraculous escapes , and only one of them sustained serious injury , he being a workman from Nottingham named William Sugden . He was hurt by machine-gun and cannon-gun fire which preceded the bomb , besides by the explosion of the H.E.

 

Not really otherwise relevant to Notts but full article here :

https://djwilson22.wordpress.com/2018/11/14/the-bombing-of-st-ives-cornwall-and-the-strafing-of-its-beaches-by-the-luftwaffe-august-1942/