How much was your city destroyed during the blitz?

[Moh]

Was having a conversation about why my city has a bad reputation and kinda moved onto this subject :P

Anyways, where I live (Hull) had around 86,715 buildings destroyed and 95% of all houses destroyed or damaged.

Appart from London, we was the most heavily bombed =[

So yeah, do you know how much your city was bombed during WWII?

Thread moved by scott (Forum Moderator) From 'Tourism, Holidays, Vehicles & Transport'.

[scott]

That's weird I was talking about this with someone the other day :P

I never done much history about it in my secondary school but we done quite a bit in primary since the school had a lot of history about it and WWII as well, but my area and a mile around it in each direction got hit quite bad - the area just along from my house suffered the worst in Scotland and was left with very little houses etc. It's because it was beside the river clyde which is were all the boats were being made and stuff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clydebank_Blitz

[Cosmic]

I can never seem to find reports of my city being bombed during WW2, but I know for sure that it was bombed in WW1. A Zeppelin bombed Leeds and then made its way across to Stoke bombing most of the outlying towns before it was shot down at sea or something.

[Moh]

That's weird I was talking about this with someone the other day :P

I never done much history about it in my secondary school but we done quite a bit in primary since the school had a lot of history about it and WWII as well, but my area and a mile around it in each direction got hit quite bad - the area just along from my house suffered the worst in Scotland and was left with very little houses etc. It's because it was beside the river clyde which is were all the boats were being made and stuff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clydebank_Blitz
Yeah, we was near a river too. We had one of the major ports during WW2 with us been on the east cost - plus we were already one of the largest fishing ports before that.


I can never seem to find reports of my city being bombed during WW2, but I know for sure that it was bombed in WW1. A Zeppelin bombed Leeds and then made its way across to Stoke bombing most of the outlying towns before it was shot down at sea or something.
If you're from Leeds, we took some of your bombing because pilots couldn't find your city so they just dumped them on us :(

[-:Undertaker:-]

I believe a lot of Liverpool was bombed during the war and my grandparents were evacuated at the time. Liverpool was due to become the de facto capital of the United Kingdom and of the Empire in the case that London was seized had the Germans won the Battle of the Atlantic and of Britain. The stock piles of our gold bullion were apparently moved to Liverpool and perhaps the Crown Jewels also (you'd have to check that up) as they were preparing for a land invasion.

Thankfully that never happened, and thankfully Liverpool has more imperial architecture left (I have read) than even the city of Bath.

[Nemo]

well since u said london was the only one who was bombed more, then i win i guess. I imagine it had quite a lot of damage if you said it was more than 95%

[Swastika]

Teesside only got bombed once on the 25th May, dont know which year.
Only 88 people died but the Germans were aiming for our steel and iron works etc.
Apparently they had maps of every single factory and steelworks in the Middlesbrough area, and the first bomb to fall, fell on my estate.
Here's our train station, after the bombings.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47908000/jpg/_47908872_-1.jpg

Apparently aswell during the Cold War, Teesside was very high on the list of bombing targets for the Soviets.

[JACKTARD]

I live in the suburbs of Birmingham so 70 years ago it was the countryside so virtually no damage

[Mikey]

That's weird I was talking about this with someone the other day :P

I never done much history about it in my secondary school but we done quite a bit in primary since the school had a lot of history about it and WWII as well, but my area and a mile around it in each direction got hit quite bad - the area just along from my house suffered the worst in Scotland and was left with very little houses etc. It's because it was beside the river clyde which is were all the boats were being made and stuff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clydebank_Blitz

Same for me.

[HotelUser]

It (for obvious reasons) was not destroyed during the blitz whatsoever :P

[Dean]

My school was open during WW2 so school children remembered the planes going over and stuff, and they had to build shelters etc.

Oh and I live decently near Bethnal Green which is where the Blitz happened the most (East End of London).

[Caution]

I don't think it was, people were evacuated here because it's kind of rural.

[Axel]

Well I don't live in a city and there's no reports of it being bombed, but there's a few reports of people evacuating here.

[Sarah]

I don't know how much damage was done but 270 city residents died and 409 were injured. Wikipedia says they chose us because of our docks? Only two places in wales were bombed during the blitz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea_Blitz

[myke]

god knows but i know that a lot of areas around here were utilised during the war

e.g. duxford

and the train line here was one of the main ones to deliver weapons etc to london

[Shockwave.2CC]

My city, Leicester had two hundred and fifty homes completely destroyed during WWII.

Never new this though:

Though not in the front line, Leicester and Leicestershire played a significant role during the Second World War in the battle for the skies and in clothing the troops. Leicester was also a place of sanctuary. Regarded as a comparatively safe area, around 30,000 people, mainly children, were evacuated to Leicester during the first weeks of the war alone, to live in the city for the duration of hostilities. In the later part of the war, Italian and German prisoners of war swelled the city’s population. During the period of the war, more than two hundred and fifty homes were completely destroyed, more than one hundred people lost their lives and several hundred suffered injuries.

[dbgtz]

Basingstoke was among the towns and cities targeted during the Second World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War), and suffered bomb damage including St Michael's Church. After the war, it had a population of 25,000.

Thats it pretty much.

[Jordy]

Nottingham was one of the cities targetted during the Blitz but I don't think it was damaged too much in comparison to others seeing as it wasn't a port or major point of industry. Also didn't realise Hull was damaged so much, I always thought it was Coventry which came out worst.

A few miles away the large ironworks was bombed from what I remember hearing quite extensively but I've just researched it...
"The foundry was once regarded as the most important bomb-making factory of World War II, so modern that it is said that the Germans would not target it because they wanted the factory for themselves."

[Circadia]

I'm not sure what happen to Blackpool really because its not really mentioned when were studying ww2 its places like London that are mentioned

[GommeInc]

All I know is that a Zeppelin was shot down in the village. Colchester was apparently heavily bombed during the Blitz:



Air raid sirens sounded over 1000 times in Colchester during the course of the war. Colchester was "blitzed" by the Luftwaffe on several occasions.[12] They included:

* Severalls Raid - On 11 August, 1942 38 citizens were killed when a German plane dropped a stick of bombs on Severalls Hospital.
* Chapel Street Raid - 8 citizens were killed when a Dornier 217 dropped four bombs on South Street and Essex Street on 28 September, 1942. The air raid siren, in this case, only sounded after the bombs had already dropped, causing outcry in the town.
* St Botolphs Raid - In February 1944 a large Luftwaffe firebombing raid dropped a stream of 1400 incendiary bombs on the St Botolphs area of the town, destroying 14 buildings and seriously damaging 99 others. Two-thirds of the Paxman Britannia Works was destroyed during the raid.

Home Guard antiaircraft batteries were established on Abbey Field and engaged enemy aircraft 14 times during a 21 month period.

Can't find any sources of the Zeppelin that landed in a field nearby, but I have seen photos in the Factory Museum :)

[louder]

plymouth was one of the worst bombed cities in the blitz. (: i win.


Plymouth was affected so badly because most of the blitz was at night. The war came and no-one seemed to believe it had really happened and that it would not last long, but in the first few months a substantial amount of shipping was sunk and quite a few people knew someone or lost someone, this brought the reality of the situation to the surface quickly. The first bomb to drop on Plymouth dropped on the North Prospect area. It was a shock to everyone and no-one could really believe it, crowds of people turned up outside the bombed houses, but it was a forerunner of what was to come. It was really surprising how people can cope in times of trouble.
The Anderson Shelters were earthy and damp but whether they liked it or not people had to leave their beds and stay in the shelter for as long as it lasted. They got quite used to the gunfire and the planes above. The morning after the raid you would see alot of people wandering around, but help was always at hand - community centres were set up with rows of beds and hot drinks and refreshments were offered.
The night that Milehouse Cemetery got bombed there was no warning; just an explosion that put a lot of people into a state of confusion. The worst time for Stoke and Devonport was 1941, this was when Fore Street was bombed, houses were left abandoned, the people who lived in them had had enough, some houses that were standing had been damaged by blast from the high explosives, but in Stoke and
http://www.mayflowersteps.co.uk/images/bomb.gif Devonport some families left for good. The dockyard had taken on women workers to do mens jobs, a lot of them really enjoyed their work, you would see them with head scarves and turbans. There was something very lively about it all, even today those that are around will tell you about their stint in the dockyard, and they are very proud to have done their part.
It was with great relief when the war came to an end, but nothing was the same again but even so the matter was made much worse because Devonport was sliced up and cut off. The re-building for Devonport was badly planned, the area around Pembroke Street should have been preserved. Much has changed, so much so, that no-one stops to think about the buildings which are left.
But some are still there, and these deserve a mention, so that the future generations will take more than an interest in the past history of Plymouth. To begin with Devonport Column was built in 1842 to commemorate the new name of Devonport which was formally dock, the Guildhall, and St Andrews church stand, and many buildings on the Barbican, which can be noted as the "oldest" part of Plymouth and still the most historic.

it's kind of weird, because north prospect is about a 5-10 minute walk from me.
it's also a **** hole. quite right it got bombed first :P

and my nan lives on fore street in devonport.

wish i'd actually looked into how badly plymouth got bombed in school.
i knew we got it harsh, but never actually read up about it.

[Oleh]

Sheffield was bombed and with 560,000 inhabitants only 660 died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_Blitz

[lTraditional]

Birmingham was bombed quite abit. It was funny in the 1970s (Yes I got told by my great auntie!) that they found a bomb in somebody garden and they held it and put it in the house - how stupid was that? Anyway back on subject, I don't know much of my history :P

[Blinger$]

It wasn't... Melbourne is just awesome?

[Neversoft]

Unfortunately not much.