The German Government announced that it had hit Darlington with an air raid – the only time during the Second World War that the town was mentioned in an official enemy communiqué. It was true – the evening before, incendiary bombs had fallen at Haughton, the John Street gasworks, Rise Carr Rolling Mills and at Stivvies (the factory of Robert Stephenson and Company). High-explosive bombs had also fallen at Whessoe, Stooperdale and Faverdale.
This was the only one of the Germans’ ten raids on the town that was not preceded by air-raid sirens. Usually Darlington was targeted by lost or lone bombers, and didn’t suffer any human casualties – although a number of chickens were killed when a bomb struck High Linhams in Blackwell on 1 May 1942.
On several occasions, though, Lord Haw-Haw, the notorious turncoat broadcaster, mentioned Darlington; most chillingly on 5 May 1940, when he announced that the opening of the town’s new £342,000 electricity power station on Haughton Road had made it a target for German bombers. In an attempt to prove his omnipresence, Haw-Haw added that ‘Darlington Town Hall Clock’ was two minutes slow. Everyone rushed out and looked at the town clock, next to the town hall and, amazingly, it was.
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 1998, and Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports in Britain’s Finest Hour).