YORK hasn’t, in modern times, suffered anything like the brutal attacks being inflicted on Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol.

But 80 years ago, during the Second World War, the city suffered enough from air raids to give those who remember them at least an inkling of what the people of Ukraine are going through.

There were 11 bombing raids on York altogether during the five years of the war. By far the worst was on the night of April 29, 1942 - the so-called Baedeker Raid.

In total, during the five years of the war, almost 100 people in York were killed, according to local history project Raids Over York. Almost 3,000 people were made homeless as a result of damage to their homes.

York Press:

The Guildhall in flames following the Baedeker raid of 1942

With most of the young men away fighting at the front, it was left to ARP (Air Raid Precautions) wardens and civil defence (Home Guard) units made up of those too young, too old or too infirm to fight in the front line to organise the defences of the city. They were joined by those in ‘reserved occupations’.

Among the ARP wardens in the city during war was a 40-something railway signalman by the name of John Howland. John, who lived in Darnborough Street off Bishopthorpe Road with his family, was a keen supporter of the Home Guard - the civil defence force immortalised by TV’s Dad’s Army.

But he was also, according to his son Ted, an ARP warden.

York Press:

A York civil defence unit during the war. Ted Howland’s father John is in the second row, far right

He covered the area around Bishopthorpe and Nunnery Lane. “He prepared schedules for people to take on Fire Watching Duties at each other’s houses,” says Ted, a former clerk of the York Guild of Building and director of the Bedern Hall Company.

John was no stuffed shirt like Dad’s Army’s Captain Mainwaring, however. He was on the committee of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and a ‘strong union man’, Ted says.

Ted sent in a photo of his dad in his Civil Defence (Home Guard) uniform, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of his platoon. We have dug out a few more photos from our archives. How many readers, we wonder, remember this dramatic period of York’s history? And how many recognise a relative’s face among the people pictured in our gallery?