Bomb dropped outside the Co-op

WE step back to August 1940. Britain and its allies had been at war with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany for nearly a year and nobody knew how World War II would play out.

- By DAVID MORTON Reporter

After claiming millions of lives and radically redirecting the course of history, the bloody global conflict would finally come to an end in 1945 - with the Allies securing victory, but at an enormous cost.

Back in 1940, German bombers with their deadly payloads came flying over British towns and cities for the first time, wrought on destruction.

Tyneside with its importance as a hugely-productive centre for shipbuilding, armament production and heavy industry became a prime target for the Luftwaffe. Inevitably, air raids would frequently veer off-target with bombs going astray and falling on nonmilitary and nonindustrial locations.

The first major bombing raid on Tyneside, in July 1940, saw a failed attack on the High Level Bridge which nevertheless resulted in 13 deaths and more than 120 people injured. Our archive photograph, taken a month later, shows the aftermath of a bombing raid in Hebburn.