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Second World War
During the Second World War, Huyton suffered bombing from the
Luftwaffe. Some Huytonians were killed or injured but the scale of destruction was nowhere close to that experienced by Liverpool,
Bootle and
Birkenhead. Unlike Liverpool, schoolchildren were not evacuated from Huyton but schools and homes were provided with
air-raid shelters.
Huyton was also host to three wartime camps: an
internment camp, a
prisoner of war camp and a base for
American servicemen (
G.I.s).
The internment camp, one of the biggest in the country, was created to accommodate those 'enemy aliens' deemed a potential threat to national security.
Churchill's demand to 'collar the lot' meant that around 27,000 people ended up being interned in the UK. Unfortunately, many internees were refugees from the
Nazis, including
socialists such as
Kurt Hager and a large number of artists attacked for their 'degeneracy' in an infamous Nazi art exhibition in 1937 (see
Degenerate art). Huyton internees included artists Martin Bloch, Hugo Dachinger, and Walter Nessler,
[4] dancer
Kurt Jooss, musicians, and composer
Hans Gál.
[5] More than 40 per cent of Huyton's internees were over 50 years old.
The camp, first occupied in May, 1940, was formed around several streets of new, empty council houses and flats and then made secure with high
barbed wire fencing. Twelve internees were allocated to each house, but overcrowding resulted in many sleeping in tents. Initially the camp was only meant to hold the internees until they could be shipped to the
Isle of Man. However, largely in response to the torpedoing of the transport ship 'The
Arandora Star', with the loss of nearly 700 people, the deportations ended. Most of the internees were released long before the camp closed in 1942. The camp was sited in and around what became known as the 'Bluebell Estate' and many of the streets were given names of the great battles of the Second World War.
The prisoner of war camp only closed in 1948. Many of its inmates 'went native', stayed in
Britain and married local women. Among those in the Huyton camp was
Bert Trautmann who later went on to be the 1950s
goalkeeper for
Manchester City.
From 1944, American servicemen were temporarily stationed in Huyton. Older Huytonians still recall the tensions between black and white G.I.s which resulted in a night known as ‘the shoot out at the Eagle and Child’ (local
public house).
[6]
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