Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Evening, everyone

This inquiry results from a conversation with relatives on Remembrance Sunday.

Since I was a small boy in the Sixties I've spent a few seconds of the two-minute silence to remember an Uncle Tom, a Liverpool civilian who died on 1941 during an air raid. The chat meant that I found he was a different branch of the family than I expected!

Thomas Lang was the husband of Elizabeth Jane Williams, b Newborough, Wales, 1897. EJW was the sister of my grandmother, Annie Ellen Williams. Annie was 19 and Lizzie was 14 and living with their parents in Luxmore Road, Liverpool, in 1911. I'm not particularly interested in following the Lang family line but would like to record this particular incident and possibly make contact with Thomas's descendants.

Thomas was apparently walking home from work on the evening of September 17 when the air raid warning sounded as he passed St John's Market. He got down into the shelter but then realised that two little girls were still outside playing a skipping game. He ran out and pushed them down into the shelter but as he did so he was machine gunned (Stuka dive bomber?) and killed. I believe the girls survived. The wall of the old market had the pockmarks of the bullets until its demolition (early Seventies?), and they were pointed out by my mother and my aunt each time I visited Liverpool.

I'd love to hear of any more details. Thomas's bravery should be recorded.

Will

Hi Will,

This page appears to be about your Thomas Lang but the details are different:-

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casua ... S%20ALBERT


Blue

Hello Will,
This is the only match for Thomas' death, a year earlier than family memory gives...

Death: LANG, Thomas Albert [see birth below]
Registration district: Liverpool North
Year of registration: 1940; Quarter of registration: Jul-Aug-Sep
Age at death: 41
Volume no: 8B; Page no: 798

Birth: LANG, Thomas Albert
Registration district: West Derby, Lancashire
Year of registration: 1899; Quarter of registration: Apr-May-Jun
Volume no: 8B; Page no: 421

If you got his date of death from the death cert you might correlate it with a particular air raid from this site: http://liverpoolremembrance.weebly.com/ ... -1940.html The names of casualties on this site have been contributed and are not complete.

I believe the Liverpool Record Office has a list of civilian casualties which could be helpful if you emailed them with his date of death. From similar deaths in my own family I think there would have been an autopsy to establish the actual cause of death before his remains were released for burial.

With regard to the Stuka 'theory', that aircraft had a range of a little over 300 miles so it is doubtful it would have made it to Liverpool and back across the English Channel. I would suggest those marks on the wall were probably from shrapnel fragments from an exploding bomb. My mates and I collected shrapnel after air raids especially as we walked to school. By the end of the Blitz I had over 100 pieces and a couple of the brass fuse rings from anti-aircraft shells. The prize of my collection was a jagged piece of bomb casing roughly 9" long by 6" across. It made a big dent in the roof of our Anderson shelter!

From Blue's find it would appear Thomas was probably injured on the 16th of September when the Great Homer Street area got hit very badly. Juvenal Street ran from Scotland Road up to Great Homer Street, up the side of Paddy's Market.

The Liverpool Remembrance site mentions a policeman being killed on 17th September 1940 while attending to damage in Currie Street off Scotland Road. It's likely that Thomas Lang was killed in this raid. CWGC site says Thomas was injured and died the same day (17th September 1940). Here's a map showing Scotland Road, Currie Street, Juvenal Street, Great Homer Street and the two markets in the area:-

http://www.liverpoolhistoryprojects.co. ... z/km79.htm


Blue

Hi
I don't know if this will help. Taken from the WW2 Civilian War Dead on Anc:
Lang, Thomas Albert, age 41. Son of the late James and Catherine Lang of Mariners Home, Treffwy, Rhyl. Husband of Elizabeth Jane Lang of 12 Columbia Road Walton. Injured 17 September 1940 at Juvenal Street, died the same day at Mill Road Infirmary.
So very sad.
yappie

Hi yappie

That's the same text as my CWGC link the Ancestry source is the same one. When the Ancestry civilian deaths were released someone on another site told me all you need to do is go to the CWGC site and search under civilian and the same records are there but free of charge or subscription.


Blue

Hi Blue
I realise that after I posted but I have a subscription to Anc anyway. I have two from London that are missing from CWGC and have let them know.
yappie

There are accounts of civilians not only being bombed but also being machine gunned in that area during the war have a read of this story:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peoples ... 5396.shtml


Blue

I know this post is about Civilian deaths WW2, but I thought I would share this I came across today.

Interesting obituary I came across today in the Evening Express

12th June 1918

FORSHAW-May 19, aged 51 years, as a result of heart failure accelerated by shock of the air raid in London. Wm Henry Forshaw, beloved husband of Elizabeth Forshaw, Mitford Hill House, Netherfield Road, Liverpool.

Zeppelin attack? The cemetery where some of my ancestors were buried in Grimsby got bombed in WW1.


Blue

A belated many thanks to everyone for responding to this. I was told that he was machine-gunned, but I agree a Stuka would not have had the range.

Will