12 killed, 100 injured, in ammunition train explosion at Catterick 80 years ago

“Next thing I knew, I was sailing through the air.”

John Weller, the ammunition truck driver, still sounded as if he couldn’t believe what had happened to him when, three weeks later, he described what had occurred at Catterick Bridge 80 years ago.

“There was a vivid red flash and a terrific bang. My lorry disappeared,” he told an inquest, “and the railway truck, in which the four men were, also disappeared.

“When I came round, all I could see was some pathfinder incendiaries coming down like great white lights. As clearly as anything, I remember saying to myself: ‘By hell, Jerry’s copped us a real packet today’.”

Hhow the Echo reported the tragedyJerry, though, wasn’t to blame for this massive explosion, but, as packets go, it was the real deal: 12 people were killed and 102 were injured. Devastation was widespread: seven houses, a hotel, a cafe and the goods yard offices were destroyed.

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And the four victims, all soldiers, did quite literally disappear: their bodies were never recovered.

The terrible events began at about 3.50pm when Mr Weller pulled his laden lorry into the station goods yard.

Catterick Bridge stationIt was a busy day. A passenger train had just left, and another was due any minute to collect the 25 passengers – schoolchildren making their way home and servicemen heading off on leave – waiting on the Catterick Bridge Station platform. Outside the station, a packed double decker bus was picking up its last passengers – Royal Air Force and Army men – from the Railway Hotel to take them on a big night out in Darlington.

And nine soldiers were loading explosives onto railway trucks.

They’d been moving the ammunition for days – they didn’t know it then, but they were involved in the build-up to the D-Day landings in Normandy four months later when vast amounts of ordnance were detonated.

In fact, they were moving so much ammunition, that there was some concern locally about the quantity of explosives that was building up in the goods yard. The night before, at the bar of the Railway Hotel, the landlady, Mabel Cockerill, had said: “I’m worried about having all this ammunition so near.”

Stationmaster Walter Gibson replied: “If that lot goes up, none of us will have any worries.” Within 24 hours, he wouldn’t, poor fellow, have any earthly worries at all.

John Blenkinsop, stationmaster at Catterick Bridge, on March 1, 1969 – two days before closure. The station was the scene of the explosion in 1944As lorry driver Weller parked up at the goods yard with ammunition from the Hornby Park dump, near Bedale, the landlord Mr Cockerill noticed from a window in the Railway Hotel how four soldiers began unloading it.

“I remember thinking that a month ago, they were handling those things so gently, two men to a box,” he told The Northern Echo in 1967. “Now they’re throwing them.”

Bang!

And then the big bat’s wing of flame fanned out, followed by a noise so loud it was heard ten miles away.

The Darlington & Stockton Times’s headlineSix six-ton trucks of anti-tank grenades had exploded, followed by tons of incendiary bombs which shot off like fireworks, setting lots of smaller, satellite fires.

Amazingly, the petroleum depot over the road from the hotel wasn’t hit. Even more amazingly, the 20,000lb blockbuster bomb in the goods yard did not go bang.

Instead, the 14-ton railway truck in which it sat was blown into the air and landed on top of stationmaster Walter Gibson. Despite an Army doctor’s six hour battle, there was no saving him.

 The Railway Hotel, Catterick Bridge Station, that was destroyed by an explosion in an ammunition train on the military railway in February 1944Extraordinary episodes of bravery broke out.

“Though her husband was dying and her home was wrecked, Mrs W Gibson, the stationmaster’s wife, warned people in the vicinity to leave their homes,” said The Northern Echo’s sister paper, the Darlington and Stockton Times.

“Mrs Mabel Cockerill defied her own injuries to drag an elderly guest from the ruins of her home.

“The signalman, 47-yearold Fred Robinson, was one of the heroes. Although severely injured, he stood by his post in the wrecked box by the level crossing. He saw his cottage across the road collapse and knew that his wife and daughter were inside, but duty demanded his remaining by the signal levers.

“He got a colleague to open the gates to let through a train…and when it was clear he allowed himself to be taken to hospital.”

Said the Echo: “One of the local heroes is a taxi driver who ran along the line waving a flag to stop an approaching train. The roof of his car was torn off and all the glass shattered.”

The authorities were most impressed by the bravery of John Weller, who was working in a hut 40 yards away from the explosion. He was blown a considerable distance out of his hut, and got to his feet to find himself surrounded by small fires as flying grenades landed all around.

He returned to his hut, which was well ablaze, and rescued three men from it.

Then, despite knowing there was much ordnance in the area which could have gone up at any moment, he helped get more people out of blazing buildings until the emergency services arrived to take charge of the scene.

John Weller’s Edward Medal. Picture courtesy of Richmond Town CouncilMr Weller showed “courage, initiative and determination of a high order” for which he was awarded the Edward Medal by King George VI – a medal which is now in the possession of Richmond Town Council and is on display at the Green Howards Museum and now features in a new online exhibition, as Memories told last week.

But, despite all the heroism, 12 people died. Six were civilians: William Tindall, 40, contractor’s labourer; Lancelot Rymer, 41, motor driver; Richard Stokes, motor driver; Mrs Mary Wallace Richmond, 43, railway clerk; Miss Nancy Georgina Richardson, 19, railway clerk; Walter Gibson, 46, stationmaster.

Six were servicemen: Leading Aircraftman Euan Jenkins, 31, of Barry, South Wales; Lieutenant Lawrence George King, 29, radio/telephone operator of St Albans; Private David Reed Hopkins, 23; Private Norman Day, 18; Private William Thomas, 18; Private George Stares, 34, of the Pioneer Corps.

The last four were those who just disappeared before Mr Weller’s eyes.

The scene of the Catterick Bridge explosion in 1944“The coroner…called Police Inspector Atkinson, ” said the Echo, “who testified to finding a piece of spine on the grass verge opposite the Railway Hotel and to finding pieces of skin, bone and clothing stretching for a distance of 500 yards from the scene of the explosion.”

He took the remains to a County pathologist. He later submitted a piece of Army shirt, which he found on the south side of the explosion, to ultra-violet rays which revealed the name “Day” on the collar.

“Dr William Goldie, county pathologist, expressed the opinion that the remains came from at least three persons. One portion of skull had black wavy hair, and the other two had brown hair,” said the Echo.

The four soldiers are buried in a tiny grave in Hornby churchyard, about five miles away.

The Echo’s headline on the investigation into the cause of the explosionSo what caused the explosion? An official court of inquiry was held immediately, but its classified conclusions were not released to the inquest.

The coroner was told that the inquiry was satisfied that there was no negligence and that all precautions had been taken. The jury returned verdicts of “accidental death” on all 12, and the cause was officially regarded as one of those unsolved wartime mysteries.

However, the coroner ruled out a rumour that it had been caused by sabotage – a group of Italian prisoners of war was said to be working nearby.

In later years, another theory took hold about contractors working on Catterick airfield which was close to the ammunition trucks. They were using a bitumen furnace which was regularly blowing red hot coals out of its chimney.

However, the most likely cause is the most obvious one: a grenade with its detonator primed had somehow got in the load and the rough handling by the soldiers set it off.

 John Weller’s Edward Medal is now part of the Richmond Town Council collection which is on display in the Green Howards Museum in the Market Place. It is also part of the new digital exhibition: go to greenhowards.org.uk and click on “collection” and then “on-line exhibitions”.

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