Government legislation from the Second World War meant that few photos of the Blitz were able to be taken, but an astonishing new book has provided new insight into the Cheshire Home Front for the first time
Joining the police in a mainly agricultural county 85 years ago, recruits probably expected a regular diet of petty crime and burglary.
But a new book of extraordinary images reveals how the officers of Cheshire Constabulary made an invaluable contribution to World War II history. By keeping detailed photographic records of bomb damage in the county, they recorded evidence of a little known blitz.
The 1939 Control of Photography Order issued by the War Office banned members of the public from photographing or filming of “any object or subject conceivable connected with the prosecution of war,” meaning ordinary folk could not take pictures of bombs landing in their back yard.
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And unlike London, Birmingham or Coventry, few outside the country would expect Cheshire to attract attention from the Luftwaffe.
But, thanks to a fascinating new book, publishing rare images taken by the wartime photographers of the Cheshire Constabulary, a hidden Blitz on Cheshire can now be revealed.
Cheshire did have some areas that were of interest to the Nazis, such as Crewe Railway Works and the Rolls-Royce factory, according to Rose and Paul Hurley, authors of Blitz on Cheshire. However, a lot of the bombing was simply because the county became a dumping ground.
They explain: “Its strategic location, between frequent targets Liverpool and Manchester, meant that it would fall prey to the Luftwaffe’s habit of dumping unused bombs on the way back from sorties.”
The result for the everyday people of Cheshire was, in some cases, cataclysmic. The authors add: “There are many examples of the devastating damage they caused to residential and industrial premises.”
A much bigger county in the wartime years, Cheshire then extended from the Cheshire Plain into the Wirral Peninsula, reaching towards the industrial border of Lancashire to the north and Staffordshire and Derbyshire to the east.
Cheshire, according to the authors, was also a route to Great Britain from neutral Ireland – where towns and cities were allowed to remain lit up at night which, inadvertently, helped to guide the Luftwaffe across the Irish sea to the British mainland.
Crewe suffered particularly badly in German bombing raids – being both a railway junction, where six lines converged to connect the north, south, east and west of the country, and the home of the Crewe Works, which supplied some of the most powerful locomotives nationally at the time.
It was also the manufacturing site for Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engines, made for the Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft used in the Battle of Britain, after the firm began to outgrow its Derby factory. And part of the gable ends of the Rolls-Royce works were painted to look like a row of houses.
The authors write: “During the war, oil drums filled with waste oil were placed around the factory and would be lit during air raid warnings, giving off black smoke that went some way to concealing the buildings.
“Despite the camouflage, at 15:09 hours on Sunday, 29 December 1940, a German Junkers Ju 88 bomber targeted the factory. The bomb was dropped without any air raid warning. Sixteen workers were killed instantly, with another casualty dying in hospital a few days later.”
Bombs found in Cheshire during the war included a 110lb bomb, the most common high-explosive bomb designed for general demolition; the incendiary bomb, a small but lethal explosive; the 560lb HE delayed-action bomb, timed to explode sometime after impact; the parachute mine, which would descend at 40mph and, when released over land, would detonate twenty-five seconds after impact and the V-1 flying bomb – the first cruise missile.
Altrincham was another area that suffered terribly because of its proximity to a larger city, in this case Manchester During the ‘Manchester Blitz’ in December 1940, parts of the affluent market town were bombed to destruction.
Recalling one incident, the authors write: “At 2am on 23 December, a high-explosive bomb landed at the entrance of Stamford Park by Charter Road and Mayors Road.
“There were many tragedies during these two days of bombing in this area of Altrincham, including the deaths of two children aged just 5 and 2 and their mother from the Hough family; their father was spared as he had signed up for the forces just two weeks prior. In nearby Moss Lane, six houses were destroyed, which resulted in twelve deaths, including the Sanders family at No. 43: a father, mother and 2-year-old child. The family dog was found alive in the child’s pram. A memorial garden on Oakfield Road marks the tragic events of this period.”
And, as the war drew to a close and Hitler and his henchmen became ever more desperate, Cheshire not only became a somewhat accidental bomb site, but also an accidental location for Nazi propaganda.
For, in December 1944, with just over four months before Hitler’s time ran out, the Fuhrer launched wonder weapons, in the form of jet- and rocket-powered bombs – one of the first being the V-1, nicknamed the ‘doodlebug.’
Pilotless bombs able to reach Britain, these explosives became a perfect vehicle for Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to leaflet Britain.
And when a V-1 bomb intended for Manchester was found in a field near Kelsall on Christmas Eve 1944, so were miniature copies of the German propaganda booklet The Signal – delivered in 1ft-long tubes, made of cardboard 1⁄4in thick.
By this time, the war was well and truly lost and while the Nazi’s bombs wreaked havoc on the proud people of this county, their propaganda fell on deaf ears.
Blitz on Cheshire by Paul and Rose Hurley, published by The History Press. Released in March 2026,
