79 years ago

[biggs682]

79 years ago today the nazi war machine targeted my home birth city of Coventry due it being a major manufacturing city

Let's hope this never happens again anywhere

 

[Slick]

Nobody had it easy back then, that's for sure.

 

[Drago]

The fleet of Luftwaffe bombers was so immense it took 40 minutes to fly over Northampton on it's way to Cov. Northampton escaped any real effort at bombing on the basis that a few explosions would probably improve the place.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The fleet of Luftwaffe bombers was so immense it took 40 minutes to fly over Northampton on it's way to Cov. Northampton escaped any real effort at bombing on the basis that a few explosions would probably improve the place.

What could he have done about it? 79 years ago was November 1940. I am not totally sure when we started getting decent night fighters with proper radar, but the Blitz was only two or three months old. He could have ordered more anti aircraft guns and search lights up there, but the bombers would still have got through.

 

[Drago]

I don't think Biggs could have done much about it. He was only 8 years old at the time.

 

[Accy cyclist]

All t'gether now!!!!

 

[tom73]

We had relatives in Sheffield who’s street was totally flattened by a land mine. As a kid when my dad use to tell me about it. I did as now think just how horrible and mind blowing it must have been to leave your house take to shelter then come out to find nothing along with your whole home and belongings gone.

He remembered when Sheffield did get bombed and seeing the whole sky lit for miles around. We never got bombing but planes did come over he use to watch them coming. As they flowed the river a few miles down the road. The odd left over bomb did get dropped around us how ever on the way back.

 

[midlife]

I used to play on the remaining bomb sites in Hull, they had cleared most for prefab housing our end.

 

[Grant Fondo]

79 years ago today the nazi war machine targeted my home birth city of Coventry due it being a major manufacturing city

Let's hope this never happens again anywhere

For some reason I was thinking about Coventry Cathedral on the way home tonight, this talk on the radio about Notre Dame renovation probably the reason.

Its one of this countries great modern buildings i still have to visit.
So, out of the bombed out shell of an almost 700 year old gothic cathedral architects and artists created something new and different.
Graham Sutherlands tapestry inside is maybe better than the new building, it links the medieval to the modern.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

My adopted home city, I've seen both pictures and film of the devestation, and read many eye witness accounts of that night, over 4600 homes were destroyed, over 600 people were killed, and many more were injured.

http://ww2today.com/14th-november-1940-coventry-bombed-torn-apart-by-firestorm


Alan Wrigglesworth was a schoolboy at the time:

On November 14th 1940 the sirens sounded early and the family went down the Anderson Shelter at the rear of next door’s garden. The exceptions were my older sister who was acting as a messenger and my grandmother who refused and insisted on sitting under the stairs. My father (a veteran of 1918) at the time was on nightshift at the Alvis [works] on the Holyhead Road and had already set off on this bicycle to work.
The German Aircraft were easy to pick out on the moonlit night apart from the distinct sound of their desynchronised engines.
As the raid got worse, my grandmother was persuaded to come down the shelter and our neighbours’ relatives from Berry Street arrived to join us. Around midnight there was a thump on the roof of the shelter ad the adults went outside to put out what turned out to be an incendiary bomb.
Meanwhile a stick of bombs fell in the immediate vicinity destroying a block of four houses further down the road and one in the other direction. The glow in the sky and the noise was incredible. The general feeling was that the Germans were aiming for the Admiralty Ordnance Works in Red Lane and Morris Motors at Courthouse Green.
When eventually the ‘All Clear’ sounded we emerged and the family from Berry Street returned home. During the night a delayed action bomb had landed in their garden and during the morning it exploded destroying a block of six houses. No trace of the family was ever found.

 

[Illaveago]

The Baedeker Raids .
At one time you could pick out the bombed areas in the cities like Bath and Bristol by the spotting the 1960's buildings in amongst the medieval ones.
I can remember my parents saying about them seeing and hearing the glow and sounds of the raids on Bristol at night, we lived 20 to 30 miles away.

 

[alicat]

The bombing was so bad that Goebbels invented the verb 'conventrieren' to describe razing a city to the ground.

 

[Cycleops]

This was Betjemenn's take on bombing, but it is Slough;


View: https://youtu.be/9BaLRYiRJ3Q

 

[biggs682]

For some reason I was thinking about Coventry Cathedral on the way home tonight, this talk on the radio about Notre Dame renovation probably the reason.
View attachment 492936
Its one of this countries great modern buildings i still have to visit.
So, out of the bombed out shell of an almost 700 year old gothic cathedral architects and artists created something new and different.
Graham Sutherlands tapestry inside is maybe better than the new building, it links the medieval to the modern.
View attachment 492937

Both Cathedrals are well worth a visit , you can even climb up the old one's tower to get a breath taking view , according to family stories when i was first visited there was an old coin glued to the floor and i spent a fair degree of time trying to pick it up .

The Baedeker Raids .
At one time you could pick out the bombed areas in the cities like Bath and Bristol by the spotting the 1960's buildings in amongst the medieval ones.
I can remember my parents saying about them seeing and hearing the glow and sounds of the raids on Bristol at night, we lived 20 to 30 miles away.

When i was at school in Weston Super Mud we studied the war time raids in Bath & Bristol and learnt how above Cheddar gorge they created a "City" like layout in hope that the Nazi's would drop the bombs on the open land rather than either of the two cities .

 

[guitarpete247]

I heard a story that the play "One night in November". When it was premiered at the Belgrade theatre Coventry, was cancelled for the first night because the found an unexploded bomb nearby.