MORE evidence of Nazi plots for Huddersfield and Kirklees has come to light.

Anne and Frank Beaumont, of Leyfield Bank, Wooldale, have revealed two German maps pinpointing strategic Second World War targets in the area.

Amazingly, the maps were swiped from a crashed German fighter plane by Anne’s father, Alfred Richardson, in Vichy, France, towards the end of the war.

Both are marked with the warning: “For official use only!”

One shows an area in the south of Huddersfield including Almondbury, Taylor Hill, Berry Brow and Farnley Tyas.

The Germans used symbols to highlight mills in the area.

Among them are Reins Mill, Queen’s Square Mill and Steps Mill in Honley; Brooke’s Mill, Armitage Bridge; Freehold Mill in Berry Brow; Taylor Hill Mills; Newsome Mills; and St Helen’s Mill and Birks Mills in Almondbury.

Honley Railway Station is also shown on the map.

The other map covers Dewsbury and Batley.

As well as about 30 mill buildings, it highlights four churches, Dewsbury District Hospital, a military hospital in Batley, reservoirs and Batley Town Hall.

A power station and Shaw Cross Colliery are marked on the map.

Curiously, Soothill Brewery is also pinpointed as a target.

Mr and Mrs Beaumont contacted the Examiner about their maps after we featured the story of another similar map that had been bought by Bullecourt War Museum in Milnsbridge.

The museum’s map showed an area covering the town centre and stretching from Birkby to Crosland Moor and Waterloo with symbols marking key targets.

Mrs Beaumont, 73, said her father, a textile agent before the war, was a Leading Aircraftman with the RAF.

He was stationed in Vichy after the Normandy landings in 1944.

She said: “He was standing guard over the aircraft. We don’t know if it was shot down or had crash landed.

“There may have been a number of these maps inside, but he was obviously interested in the ones of this area.

“I didn’t even know about them until we were given his personal effects when he died in 1982. Maybe he thought he would get in trouble, so he kept it quiet!”

John Garside, curator of the Bullecourt Museum, believes the maps were Ordinance Survey maps adapted by the Germans before the war.

He said: “They are pre-invasion maps. Once they landed and got into a town, they couldn’t sit around twiddling their thumbs and let saboteurs go about doing damage.

“They would have wanted to close off major bridges, take over key locations and put police patrols everywhere.”

Of the map pinpointing where Soothill Brewery was, he added: “They would have wanted to close it so their troops wouldn’t have been able to get drunk.”