A WITNESS to a devastating Second World War raid by German bombers has recalled the horror of 84 tonnes of explosives being dropped on a city.

On April 29, 1942 incendiary bombs were dropped over York - reputedly picked from a German tourist guide in retaliation for British bombing in Germany.

The raid involved 40 Luftwaffe bombers and caused widespread destruction. In total, 72 residents lost their lives, hundreds were injured and approximately 9,500 homes were destroyed or damaged.

York resident, Alan Amour was aged just 14 at the time. He worked as a telegram delivery boy, taking messages by bike across the city from the telegraph office just behind the city’s main Post Office. By night, he helped his father George in his duties as a senior Air Raid Precaution (ARP) warden, making sure the blackout was observed and manning air raid shelters.

The air raid sirens went off at 1.30am - an hour before the first bombs fell on the city.

Mr Amour, now aged 89 and living in Haxby near York, recalls the scale of the bombing. “After dropping the main bombs, they sprayed the area with machine guns then used a device called the butterfly bomb, which had wings on it and if you got near it would open out and explode.”

The city’s medieval Guildhall was hit, as well as St Martin-le-Grand Church in Coney Street and the Bar Convent on Nunnery Lane, where five nuns lost their lives. The railway station was targeted too, with a Kings Cross to Edinburgh train at platform nine left a burnt-out shell.

York was one of several cathedral cities bombed as part of what became known as the Baedeker raids, historic centres marked with three stars in the Baedeker guidebook - bombed in retaliation for RAF attacks on Lubeck and Rostock.

The damage could have been worse, but for the intervention of a lone, 23-year-old French fighter pilot Yves Mahe, with the 253 Squadron RAF fighter command, who saw the city ablaze from a distance.

He shot down one bomber and began to target another German aircraft, but they turned and left. His intervention was said to be crucial; as the bombers’ prime target was said to be Rowntrees’ chocolate factory, filled with explosives for manufacturing ammunition.

As daylight arrived, Mr Amour saw the devastation as he arrived to pick up telegrams at the office on Lendal.

The Northern Echo: York ablaze during the Baedeker raid

The telegraph office was swamped with inquiries from people wanting to find out news about their loved ones. Normally, Mr Amour would have two or three telegrams to deliver across the city.

That morning it was 30 or 40 and he did not finish his deliveries until 11pm. He found streets filled with debris and rubble littered across the city, along with broken glass under foot.

It was a long, harrowing day, as he was forced to deliver messages to destroyed buildings containing dead bodies.

“You don’t forget something like that,” he said. “You didn’t dwell on that, but every time it is the 29th of April you remember what happened that night.”