This raid was much talked about when I was growing up in the town in the 1950s
Owing to censorship in WW11 , many details were left out of newspaper reports of enemy action over the British Isles .
The full report below in The Cornishman 3rd September 1942 only gave scant details of locations and buildings damaged in the raid by two German fighters . St. Ives was just loosely referred to as a “South-West town” .
It was only by checking the names of the injured and the one lady killed and then locating them on the previous 1939 Register , that I was able to pin-point the report to be the of St.Ives .
The attack appears to have started with strafing of Porthminster Beach by machine gun fire . The pilots must have known that being the end of August there would be many children and holidaymakers on the beach but nevertheless went ahead with their attack . Miraculously it appears no-one was…
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penwithlit 