High Explosives In Witton Park Area

Large numbers of high explosives and incendiary devices were dropped by German raiders near Rose Cottage on the Witton Park to Escomb Road.

The bombs all fell in rural areas. Two people were killed and two others who were passengers in a bus which was struck by spent machine gun bullets were wounded in the leg.

The casualties also included 13 cows and two horses which were grazing in fields on neighbouring farms.

The dead people were Levi Wharton aged 24, single a farm hand and William Harrison aged 10,  a schoolboy.

The two injured people included a local magistrate and Monica Pickering, aged 12 who was a passenger on the bus.

Both were wounded in the thigh by machine gun bullets, though not severely.

Both Wharton and Harrison were killed by shrapnel from high explosive bombs.

Mrs. Dorothy Appleby, who was recently evacuated from Hartlepool and who gave birth to a child three days ago was in bed at her billet when a bomb damaged the house. A doctor happened to be passing at the time and he was able to give assistance so that neither the mother nor her baby suffered any ill-effects.