Mary Wardell was shot dead by a soldier as she walked on the South Bay on 14th September 1940. The event was shrouded in wartime reporting restrictions. Mary was the fourth daughter of The Wardell family who lived in Farndale. Mary was 25 years old and lived in 3 West Park Terrace, Scarborough, for ten years with her sister Lilian, a bus conductress. Mary worked at Plaxtons. The two sisters had met two soldiers in the Ramshill Road Snack Bar and as it was a warm moonlit night they had a stroll to the beach. They had to climb a barrier and went down a slipway to walk and smoke cigarettes. Suddenly gunfire was heard and Mary fell to the ground. According to one of the soldiers on duty they only fired a warning shot to scare them off the beach, it was dark and they were over 300 yards away. Lieutenant Goodacre provided a sound defence for the sentries during the Coroner’s hearing. The sister claimed she did not know it was dangerous to be on the beach at night. She denied any warning was given whilst the soldiers said they had shouted ‘Halt who goes there?’ On receiving no reply they shouted again and then fired warning shots. The Coroner summed up that it was foolhardy to be on the sands at night during wartime and the soldiers had followed the correct orders.
On 4th July 1940, Scarborough skipper, Harry ‘Whisper’ Cammish returned from fishing with a sea mine in tow. He thought it best to collect it to prevent damage to other shipping. The mine was lifted onto the West Pier and put next to the office of James Sellers & Sons, fish merchants. Later that day the salvagers decided the mine must be worth money in scrap metal and persuaded George Handy, a young lorry driver, to take it to the scrap merchant on Lower Clark Street. The lorry and mine were too heavy for the weighbridge so they proceeded to the Corporation weighbridge at the old gaol on Dean Road. They received a ‘most hostile’ reception and were ordered off the premises and said they would call the Police. The mine was taken to the South Bay halfway between Bland’s Cliff and Eastborough. Sometime later the detonators were removed and the mine set on fire, the usual way of decommissioning them. Black smoke poured from the mine for two hours and was guarded by PC Stanley Smith while crowds of people and children gazed on. At 5.30pm most had gone home for their tea but then the mine exploded with tremendous force shaking buildings all over Scarborough. A piece of mine weighing 13lb fell on Aberdeen Walk.
Nine-year-old Louis Robert Archer of 47a Eastborough received terrible abdominal injuries and later died. Miss Gertrude Ross of 5 Vincent Street had her thigh fractured by shrapnel. 11 other people including 5 children were seriously hurt. PC Smith’s foot was badly crushed resulting in the amputation of his toes. Scarcely a window remained un-shattered in the Sea Bathing Infirmary (St Thomas’s Hospital) and the Central Tramway. Nine-year-old Louis Archer was the first fatal casualty in Scarborough during WW2.
