In an effort to draw German planes away from the heavily populated and strategically important areas of Wrexham, the men of the home guard would make their way to the nearby uninhabited mountains and light fires that it was hoped would dupe the enemy into thinking they had reached their targets.
Many of the planes turned away from Liverpool to drop their bombs, mainly harmlessly, onto the burning mountain area, and continued to do so for the duration of the raid.
The seemingly haphazard visitations of Shropshire and Flintshire Detached over the same four nights might best be interpreted as railway orientated. Inevitably there was a debit side, with farms, hamlets and villages receiving a dose of IBs and a leavening of HE. Each incident on its own gives the impression of indiscriminate bombing, a haphazard jettisoning of a bomb load.
In the early hours of August 31st, 1940 one such bomb landed in the meadow of Buck Farm, this was a SC500kg of which there were 7 different types. The only casualties were 4 cows.
Sources: Wings Across the Border – Derrick Pratt & Mike Grant p19-21. Wrexham History.
