A RESEARCHER has produced biographies commemorating everyone known to have lost their lives in the Bournemouth bombings of May 23 1943.

A German raid lasting only five minutes killed at least 130 people, with the wrecked buildings including the Metropole and Central hotels, Beales, Cairns House, West’s Cinema and the Shamrock and Rambler coach station.

Jan Gore, an artist, librarian and teacher who now lives in London, put together the material as a way of “giving something” back to the town where she was raised.

And she has agreed to make the full set of biographies available on the Daily Echo’s website.

The stories she uncovered included: 

  • the Canadian airman who found he "didn't like flying", but whose Group Captain said he “rendered great service to this station”; 
  • the gifted music teacher who had taught in Trinidad but died as an ARP telephonist;
  • the Australian airman who came all the way from Fiji to Bournemouth; 
  • the professional musician killed by cannon fire in the town’s gardens.

The exact number of people killed that day has never been officially finalised. Jan’s research has identified 82 civilians, including two who died the following day, with military casualties bringing the figure to 130 or 131.

Jan returned to square one for her researching, consulting lists of civilian and military dead at the Commonwealth War Graves site. She consulted material in Bournemouth Library and Bournemouth Cemetery and toured the three cemeteries looking for the remaining graves. Family history websites and the personal recollections of relatives were also vital, and she has been able to consult personnel files for some of the military dead.

Her research into the Bournemouth bombings was Jan’s third collection of wartime biographies. She first researched the Guards Chapel incident, when a V-1 bomb in killed 124 people at London’s Gaurds Chapel in June 1944, and went on to research civilian war dead biographies for Exmouth.

“I’ve always been intrigued by the stories about wartime Bournemouth. My parents settled in Bournemouth after the war; my father worked at the Signal Research and Development Establishment,” she said.

”One thing that caught my imagination was my bedroom window; one of the panes of glass didn't match, and I was told this was because of a bomb that fell across the road. I've recently checked, and that was Incident Number 40, April 16 1941, when five bombs were dropped in Kinson.”

Anyone with further information can email Jan at jangore3@gmail.com