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Bombing Britain - Was your town bombed in WW2?


phantom

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http://www.warstateandsociety.com/Bombing-Britain

A NEW digital map has painstakingly recorded all the bombs that fell on Britain during World War II.

The interactive map shows where every bomb landed, from the first to hit the mainland in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, on October 16, 1939, to the last on March 29, 1945, on the south east coast.

More than 32,000 locations are included and users can zoom in on the official record for details of deaths and casualties.

'Bombing Britain' is an air raid map that uses wartime data from the National Archives to pinpoint all the locations struck by German bombs during the war.

 

The map, which is free to use, is based on 6,500 daily reports compiled by wartime intelligence officers for the Ministry of Home Security and senior officials.

By clicking on a pin on the map, people can view and download information on an air raid in that area - including the date, location and number of casualties.

The map details, for example, a bomb that was dropped on Waterloo Bridge in London on the night of April 19 1941, during a raid that killed 240 people and injured 880 across the city.

The Luftwaffe attacked ports in Liverpool and Hull as well the cities of Bristol, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton, Cardiff, and Swansea.

 

The industrial powerhouses of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield were also heavily bombed.

The groundbreaking map was developed by Dr Laura Blomvall, a researcher from the University of York, whose work confirmed that the first place in Britain to be bombed was the Firth of Forth in Scotland.

Dr Blomvall said: "This map offers an astonishing insight into the extent and scale of total war.

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Lots of bombs fell on Ashton, where my mum lived, as the Wills' factory was targeted. A house two doors away from her in Frobisher Road was blown to smithereens, as well as a whole row in Smyth Road.  That night my gran and her kids were trapped in the Anderson shelter by an unexploded bomb wedged against the door. My granddad removed it personally after he arrived back from the late shift in Filton. It was the night raid that St Peter's in what is now Castle Park was bombed and the streets of central Bristol ran with the molten lead from its roof.

My dad, having been sensibly evacuated to South Wales, missed all the action.

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1 hour ago, phantom said:

I struggled to open exact details

Just showed 17 times against Weston - I know the street I grew up in was bombed but the link I clicked on asked me to join.

@iamalagerdrinker am I doing something wrong?

It took me two times for it to come up I did clear the filters aswell

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6 hours ago, phantom said:

Works ok for me. I am guessing as it is in the news today the site can't cope with the number of hits

image.png

" site cant cope with the number of hits ''

( @phantom  no pun intended I'm sure ?  but a brilliant one non the less ? )  

I'm just thankful that the Great British Public of the 1940's were much more resilient, bless 'em all !!

Thanks for posting, looks like a great site, what a good idea, interesting and just the kind of thing the internet was made for. 

  

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Interesting site.

That repository of local history the Know Your Place website has the Good Friday raid on the maps - including an HE that landed close to the ground on Duckmoor Road.  http://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=&maptype=js

Bath also used to have a site that showed where the bombs fell but it seems to be taken off-line.

As a personal note, my old man used to live near the railway line on Bemmy Down Road. One raid followed the tracks and dropped its payload along it. Where the Bedminster Road garage stands by the bridge used to be a pub called the Telegraph - it was levelled completely and my dad lived the other side of the bridge!

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On 17/10/2019 at 14:51, Mike Hunt-Hertz said:

Peterhead, in NE Scotland, was second most bombed town in Britain. My granny did fire watch duty on the roof of the Crosse & Blackwell canning factory.

Where did you get that info from,? That seems hard to believe when you take into account the industrial centres in the midlands, the dockyards in Plymouth, Portsmouth, Liverpool etc.

 

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29 minutes ago, northsomersetred said:

Where did you get that info from,? That seems hard to believe when you take into account the industrial centres in the midlands, the dockyards in Plymouth, Portsmouth, Liverpool etc.

 

Google it. Peterhead was the first town that the Luftwaffe spotted when crossing the coast (from Norway). 

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3 hours ago, Mike Hunt-Hertz said:

Google it. Peterhead was the first town that the Luftwaffe spotted when crossing the coast (from Norway). 

Probably the same reason Canterbury was flattened. First town on the bomb run to London.

When you look at photos of the beautiful Tudor galleried high street before 1940 and see the concrete monstrosity that is there now, you could weep.

I think Portsmouth claims to have received the biggest tonnage of Luftwaffe bombs after London, but I can well believe places like Peterhead - on a bomb-to-size ratio saw more damage.

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3 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Probably the same reason Canterbury was flattened. First town on the bomb run to London.

When you look at photos of the beautiful Tudor galleried high street before 1940 and see the concrete monstrosity that is there now, you could weep.

I think Portsmouth claims to have received the biggest tonnage of Luftwaffe bombs after London, but I can well believe places like Peterhead - on a bomb-to-size ratio saw more damage.

And as for the horrendous rebuild of the centre of Exeter...………………...

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Exeter wasn't the only one where the planners finished off the job that Göring started. Plymouth is a third. Coventry is one city that I think largely avoided that sort of trouble, with the decision to keep the tattered remains of their cathedral a case in point.

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On 20/10/2019 at 17:16, Erithacus said:

Exeter wasn't the only one where the planners finished off the job that Göring started. Plymouth is a third. Coventry is one city that I think largely avoided that sort of trouble, with the decision to keep the tattered remains of their cathedral a case in point.

You reckon so?

Apart from Spon Street, I think the centre of Coventry is a concrete monstrosity that rivals Portsmouth for ugliness.

Weird we went for post-war Brutalism over here, whereas most West German cities rebuilt their centres to resemble what had been there before.

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21 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

You reckon so?

Apart from Spon Street, I think the centre of Coventry is a concrete monstrosity that rivals Portsmouth for ugliness.

Weird we went for post-war Brutalism over here, whereas most West German cities rebuilt their centres to resemble what had been there before.

Coventry city centre is an oozing pustule.

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On 17/10/2019 at 13:31, Red-Robbo said:

Lots of bombs fell on Ashton, where my mum lived, as the Wills' factory was targeted. A house two doors away from her in Frobisher Road was blown to smithereens, as well as a whole row in Smyth Road.  That night my gran and her kids were trapped in the Anderson shelter by an unexploded bomb wedged against the door. My granddad removed it personally after he arrived back from the late shift in Filton. It was the night raid that St Peter's in what is now Castle Park was bombed and the streets of central Bristol ran with the molten lead from its roof.

My dad, having been sensibly evacuated to South Wales, missed all the action.

I haven’t been able to access the map, but according to my parents, who lived in the Cardiff area during the war, there was a lot of action in South Wales.  

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I lived in Coventry for five years and yes the centre is concrete monstrosity - used to like Spon street and The Windmill pub. However, I now live close to Crawley and that is equally as bad, if not worse, and the Germans had no hand in that :dunno:

I have not been able to access the map but am interested in doing so. A relative was a fatality from a bomb falling on Knowle during a raid - his name is on the plaque at St Peters Church in Castle Park.

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3 hours ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

I haven’t been able to access the map, but according to my parents, who lived in the Cardiff area during the war, there was a lot of action in South Wales.  

Cardiff docks and all that, yeah.

Tylorstown in the Rhondda, where my dad was: not really.

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My Grandparents had a shop on Newfoundland road, at some stage it, or their house was hit and my Grand Dad suffered injuries to his legs. I can only remember him bed ridden when I was small, and when Mum and Dad got married they had to go to the Grand parents house to have a photo with him at the front door, it was about all he could manage. By then they lived on Saint Werburghs road, Mum and Dad were married in Saint Werburghs Church.
Anyway , little while ago I was going through some books and found the one below. The photo shows 2 of Mums brothers clearing stuff from the bombed houses and shops.

IMG_1363.jpeg

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_be0.jpg

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