Scarborough and Tourism
The Second World War had had a disastrous impact on tourism in Scarborough in 1940, ‘41 and ’42. But things picked up in 1943. There were high hopes for 1944. D-Day ended such hopes.
D-Day required the government to impose further restrictions on UK travel. Trains were needed to transport troops and supplies before, during and after the June D Day landings in France. Rail support for the landings also included special ambulance and P.O.W. train services. These pressures imposed by Operation Overlord made it very difficult for people to make travel plans. Like the common expression “weather permitting”, a common proviso for planning ahead in 1944 was “second front permitting”.
In the Spring there was ban on travel to the coast from the Wash to Cornwall. Rumours spread, suggesting that the Yorkshire coast was affected too. Though some holiday-makers did arrive in Scarborough for a holiday, few travelled from outside Yorkshire, and a high proportion came from Leeds.
The train service to Scarborough in the summer came under severe strain. The August Bank Holiday was especially affected. The few trains that were running were packed full. Some passengers were stranded at York, unable to get to the coast. Long queues formed outside the station for returning trains.
Scarborough’s industrial contribution to D-Day
In Scarborough firms like Plaxton’s and Swift’s switched to war related production during the war. Some factories received orders for engineering work related to the D-Day landings.
One was Premier Engineering. It processed over ten million metal components for the Forces. Pat Barker, for example, recalls work at the Premier Engineering Company:
We made steel brackets for Bailey bridges and drilled various parts. These were then dipped in black paint then bagged up and sent to Plaxton’s in Seamer Road which was also a munitions factory and employed many female workers. It was very hard, dirty work and a very cold factory with just a stove of some sort in the middle of the building…I enjoyed the work but we suffered with our hands and chilblains.
Local machine-tooling work expanded in the run-up to the Allied D-Day landings in France. Scarborough firms were pressed into mass producing components for the Allied Mulberry Harbours and Bailey Bridges. Brogden and Wilson, for example, produced some 20% of the “keepers” (brackets) required in Mulberry Harbours. H. Pickup produced over 11,000 components for the prefabricated Bailey Bridges.
Another firm that benefited from the demands of Operation Overlord was the Trinity Chair Works. They mass produced wooden crosses for the U.S. Army to take on their campaigns in Europe .
Scarborough’s Intelligence War and the D-Day landings
Scarborough’s secret naval listening station, or “Y” station, moved from Sandybed Lane to a much bigger site on Irton Moor (now GCHQ) in 1943. The station intercepted German naval communications and sent them by teleprinter to Bletchley Park, where the German Enigma code messages were decrypted.
By the end of the war Scarborough was operating 128 wireless interception sets. Such investment allowed Scarborough to make a valuable intelligence contribution to the Allied preparations for the D-Day landings, providing intercepts on the enemy naval and U-boat threat to allied landings and on enemy mine-laying defences. It was a frantic climax to the Scarborough station’s wartime signals intelligence work.
American G.I.s in the UK: “Overpaid, oversexed and over here”
The bulk of U.S. forces were based in the South-East of England. There were some billeted in Scarborough. Many of these were involved in tank fighting exercises on the Yorkshire Wolds. It is well known that some made quite an impact on young British women. They also impressed Scarborough youngsters. One 14 year old, who hero-worshipped the G.I.s, was tried in the town’s Juvenile Court for following them round the town’s pubs. In court he was told not to speak in an American accent!
