Truro remembers the 1942 air raid that came without warning

It was a Thursday evening in high summer, and there was no siren. On 6 August 1942 two aircraft came in low and fast over Truro, and by the time anyone understood what was happening the bombs had already fallen. Eighty-four years on, the city gathers again to remember the people who did not survive that night.

A short service in Victoria Gardens

A remembrance service is held in Victoria Gardens today, Thursday 6 August, led by the Truro Branch of the Royal British Legion. People gather from 10.30am, with a short procession at 10.50am and the service beginning at 11.00am. It is a chance for the community of Truro to stop and reflect on the events of that evening in 1942 and the people they touched.

The gardens hold a memorial to the raid, a granite stone set with a bronze plaque that carries the names of those killed. The service takes place beside it.

What happened on 6 August 1942

According to Truro City Council, the city was the target of a surprise bombing raid by two low-flying Luftwaffe aircraft on the evening of Thursday 6 August 1942. The council’s account records 14 deaths and 65 injuries, along with significant structural damage that left more than 100 houses damaged and three completely destroyed.

The memorial plaque in Victoria Gardens tells a closely related version of the same night. Its inscription reads that on 6 August 1942 Truro city was attacked by enemy fighter bombers, and that thirteen people were killed by bombs and machine gun fire at the Royal Cornwall Infirmary, the railway station and Agar Road. The plaque lists thirteen names.

No siren, no warning

The reason the raid caused so much harm comes down to how the aircraft arrived. They flew in low and fast, and British radar did not pick them up in time. The air raid sirens were never sounded. Residents had no warning at all before the first explosions, no time to reach shelter or take cover.

The names on the memorial

The plaque in Victoria Gardens records those killed as:

Nurse Rachel Joan Appleby
George Robert Gray
Mildred Annie Hooper
Margaret Anderson Morley
Private Frederick Morley (son)
Percy Arnold Mortimore ROC
Mabel Louise Mortimore (wife)
Margaret Anne Mortimore (daughter)
Sister Kathleen Clowes Peacock
Alfred Edward Pentecost
Flt Lt Mary Cecely Polglaze WAAF Portreath
Jane Stephens
Harold Percival Williams

Three of the names belong to one family, the Mortimores, a father, a mother and their daughter. Two more, Margaret Anderson Morley and her son Frederick, share a surname and a single evening. At the foot of the plaque are three words that the service in the gardens exists to honour: Lest We Forget.