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I had been told by an elderly neighbour that my house was one of several in the road that had been badly damaged by a bomb in 1940, and had been rebuilt shortly after the war ended. I managed to find a picture of it on a Kent history website, it was a bit spooky looking at it.
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Looks like indiscriminate bombing to me.
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More like not accurate, wasn't at all back then. They would have had targets but very difficult to hit them.
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I grew up in south London and can identify so many of those sites near where I lived. Many were rebuilt with new blocks of flats, including the one where I lived.
Many were still bomb sites (or playgrounds as we knew them). These days they would be called adventure playgrounds but in the early 50s there was nothing like a bomb site for building camps on and for generally running amoke on. I still bear the boyhood scars where a branch from the overgrown vegetation stuck in my leg.
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>> Many were still bomb sites (or playgrounds as we knew them). These days they would
>> be called adventure playgrounds but in the early 50s there was nothing like a bomb
>> site for building camps on and for generally running amoke on.
In 1956 I bought my first car (a 1936 Wolseley Fourteen) from a "dealer" on a bomb site.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 13:34
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>> >> Many were still bomb sites (or playgrounds as we knew them). These days they
>> would
>> >> be called adventure playgrounds but in the early 50s there was nothing like a
>> bomb
>> >> site for building camps on and for generally running amoke on.
>>
>> In 1956 I bought my first car (a 1936 Wolseley Fourteen) from a "dealer" on
>> a bomb site.
>>
Did it go like a bomb??
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>> Many were still bomb sites (or playgrounds as we knew them).
That's what my Dad used to tell me about growing up in Fulham. The dots on this website in the streets north of Bishops Park and west of Fulham Palace Road correspond precisely to the locations of more modern looking replacement terrace houses which are there today, so I can vouch for the accuracy of the dots.
I note that they missed Craven Cottage, whilst managing to hit the dog track up the road twice.
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Alf Garnet said that hitlers bombers flew up the thames, turned right at Upton park, left at Higbury and dropped them all on the Y**s at Tottenham.
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>> Alf Garnet said that hitlers bombers flew up the thames, turned right at Upton park,
>> left at Higbury and dropped them all on the Y**s at Tottenham.
I really shouldn't green thumb that it's just so Alf!!
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>> I grew up in south London and can identify so many of those sites near
>> where I lived. Many were rebuilt with new blocks of flats, including the one where
>> I lived.
>>
>> Many were still bomb sites (or playgrounds as we knew them). These days they would
>> be called adventure playgrounds but in the early 50s there was nothing like a bomb
>> site for building camps on and for generally running amoke on. I still bear the
>> boyhood scars where a branch from the overgrown vegetation stuck in my leg.
>>
I have similar memories, and to this day have the mark of a rat bite gained in a post war South London "playground". Today's youngsters have no idea how to have fun unless they have an electronic gadget in their hand. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 13:46
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The V1's and the V2's never had a target though, so surely they were indiscriminate.
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They are not V1 or V2 locations, merely the blitz. V1s and V2s came later and most missed london.
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My great grandmother was knocked flying off her feet in Windsor by an errant doodlebug exploding. Several were so wide of the mark they managed to hit Reading.
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>> Several were so wide of the mark they managed to hit Reading.
Much to the disgust of my Grandmother.
Mind you, some of the flights were a little delayed...
www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/3716_messerschmitt_crash_lands_at_sonning
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>> Several were so wide of the mark they managed to hit Reading.
Quite deliberate and our fault. The V1's targetting consisted of a timer system that cut the engine and flipped the elevatro surface after a predetermined flight time.
Knowing this, the British press were told to report V1's falling on Kent in numbers. The germans duly modified their calculations of flight time to determine the timer value, causing them to miss London at the expense of places further west.
The idea being that if you drop loads of V1s on a large and somewhat indeterminate geographic area west of London, most of 'em aren't likely to hit anything important.
Also a significant number of those that do will hit Slough, which amounts to the same thing.
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Interesting TC. Never heard that one.
Although of course Slough didn't become the notable dump it is today until it was "developed" after the war.
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"Although of course Slough didn't become the notable dump it is today until it was "developed" after the war."
Not so sure. Have you ever read John Betjeman's poem written in 1937?
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
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I'd always thought that poem a tad OTT. Even if it were written about modern day Slough (which I've known intimately all my life, born within a whisker, in the grounds of Cliveden - locals will know where I mean).
And I've always thought it very derivative in style of Robbie Burns's "Ode to a Mouse". Don't think much of Betjeman because of this. But I am no expert in English poetry.
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>> born within a whisker, in the grounds of Cliveden - locals will know where I mean).
>>
I am not local but I knew it as my wife was in the CRMH and treatedby the world respected Dr Barbara Ansel. SWMBO was a patient of hers right up until Dr Ansell died. A fantastic lady who from her earliest days treated my wife.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ansell
Want to revisit it ? There was a 30 min documentary on medical pioneers with Dr A wandering the site - very sad!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=we6wFlXPqao
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Thanks, henry, I'll have a look at/listen to the video link when I'm at home.
The hospital's gone now after several decades of decay. Posh retirement homes have replaced it.
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Betjeman was very much a traditionalist and a lover of the English countryside and vernacular architecture. He hated what had been done to Slough and similar towns. At the time of writing the poem hundreds of new factories were being built in Slough.
He did come to regret writing the poem though, particularly after town was bombed in the war. He did apologise for it formally on his eightieth birthday. In view of his other excellent poetry and his role in campaigning for the saving of many Victorian building including the magnificent St Pancras station I hope you can forgive his attack on Slough.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 16:04
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>> I'd always thought that poem a tad OTT. Even if it were written about modern
>> day Slough (which I've known intimately all my life, born within a whisker, in the
>> grounds of Cliveden - locals will know where I mean).
Ah! the reasons for our comrades distaste for nobility, royalty and nobs in general is explained.
He must be the illegitimate child of Christine Keeler and the 5th Baron (john) Profumo, bitter that his birthright is denied.
;P
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>> Interesting TC. Never heard that one.
Almost right. The British were running a network of false german spies in England, the Garbo network. In fact the network of spies didnt exist, and garbo didn't even travel to England, living in Lisbon.
Anyway the netwrok of spies plotted the V1s falling long, so the germans shortened the range, until they were falling int he Kent Countryside. One fell in one of my uncles garden in Petts wood. The press reports were made to back up the agents.
Garbo (Juan Pujol García) was awarded the MBE AND the Iron Cross!
You cant make such stuff up.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia Well worth a read; some of it is hilarious.
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Zero beat me too it. Many targets were just hard to hit, as we were to find out.
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>> The V1's and the V2's never had a target though, so surely they were indiscriminate.
>>
My Dear Mother used to say that you watched them, listened to them and when the fuel ran out and they went silent you headed for cover.
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>> My Dear Mother used to say that you watched them, listened to them and when
>> the fuel ran out and they went silent you headed for cover.
>>
My Dad who visited London in 44/5 said much the same
The V1 had a pulse jet engine with a distinctive noise, bit like a helicopter's chop- chop . Navigated by gyroscopes to an approx target destination where the motor stopped If you heard it stop you were in trouble.
The V2 was a ballistic missile. No warning, it just arrived. As it was doing a supersonic speed you only heard the ones that missed you.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 21:24
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V2s were supersonic, you never heard them travel, only the bang as they blew up. Unless they hit you of course.
Not too sure the total damage done by V2s was that great as there weren't that many of them, although individually they were significant. However the psychological effect of possibly being blown up and knowing nothing of it was huge.
V1s were pulse jets and quite noisy under power so as your mother said.
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My ole mum lived on the top floor of a block of flats within walking distance of Tower Bridge and the docks.
She had 4 babies with her in that flat (I was born in 52) while my ole dad was away fighting Jerry for 6 years.
She wouldn't go down the air-raid shelter but stayed in the flat during the Blitz ('til the kids went to Carmarthenshire)
She (and they) have told me about the bombs that dropped nearby, including an incendiary bomb that bounced off the roof and hit the school that was a favourite bomb site playing area for me in the 50's.
It's kinda strange now to see those actual areas on that map where the bombs landed.
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>>My Dear Mother used to say that you watched them, listened to them and when the fuel ran out and they went silent you headed for cover.
A common misconception. The fuel didn't run out. That would've been a far too crude method of determining flight time/distance. A device (timer I believe) would actuate the elevator to put it into a dive. The angle of flight then deprived the engine of fuel from the tank.
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>> A common misconception. The fuel didn't run out. That would've been a far too crude
>> method of determining flight time/distance. A device (timer I believe) would actuate the elevator to
>> put it into a dive. The angle of flight then deprived the engine of fuel
>> from the tank.
The device was in fact a propeller driven distance logger.
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>> Looks like indiscriminate bombing to me.
>>
Could have been an overshot target perhaps? This was the explanation given for a raid on inoffensive Sherborne, when the bombs were probably meant for nearby de Havilland. German planes fleeing for home after a raid were also said to drop excess bombs to lighten loads and add speed, shedding them over land in the hope of some random gain, as opposed to dumping them in the sea.
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One article in a German newspaper praised German bomber pilots by saying that they had dropped bombs at Random.
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Low level bombing and raids on airfields such as those the Luftwaffe used early in the Battle of Britain were capable of accuracy. Much less so in cities - the docks were a decent target but impossible to hit selctivley. Stukas were deadly accurate but not feasible against a defended target.
The allies began to get the idea of precision bombing towards the end of the war particularly with specialist units such as 617. Much more was carpet bombing with a worrying tendency to driftback from the target as the raid progresssed.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 13:56
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The idea was always there, it was turning it into the practical that was the problem. We were hopelessly optimistic about it.
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Amazing website. I think I've found the site where my great-great grandmother was killed in Dagenham.
I wonder what the map would look like if it could show all those sites which contain a u.x.b?
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Amazing site. My parents bought a house just off the Finchley Road in North-West London. It had suffered bomb damage and I remember scouting round the bomb site, about 100 yards away and finding books and items in the wreckage. The bomb plot is spot on and the only one within 1/4 mile of the house. As an aside, they bought the house for £5000 in 1945 and it has since been converted into 4 flats @ £500K each!
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Amazing how many bombs fell in my manor in North London. I'd always assumed that the overwhelming majority fell in the centre and east.
Also intriguing are the little lines of dots - must be from a so-called "stick" of bombs I suppose.
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It would be great if they could extend this to the whole country but I guess the task would be huge.
My ex-mother in law (who is not one to exaggerate) told me that as a child she stepped out of her parents home in Hastings in to the back garden when the house exploded behind her having been hit by a bomb. This was in Hastings Old Town.
I don't believe that anyone was hurt and if she had been killed I would not have met my ex-wife! Actually I am glad because as mother in laws go, she is rather cool!
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They always said that if a bomb had your name on it then there was nothing you could do.
We weren't too worried but Mr & Mrs Doodlebug next door were terrified !
Ted
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Cpt Blackadder: What are you doing, Baldrick?
Pte Baldrick: I'm carving my name on this bullet, Sir.
Cpt Blackadder: Why?
You know the rest...................
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Just been able to access the site due to heavy useage.
It is not accurate re the bomb that dropped where I now live.
The site marked is at least 200 to 300 yards away from the impact.
I have copies of photos of the damaged houses and area to prove my statement.
I will now see if I can identify bomb sights from my yoof!
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Late 1940, in a Heinkel He 111 bomber over London. The Navigator turns to the pilot, looking pale and shocked.
Navigator: I've just had a vision of London in the future. People are dressed strangely and the buildings are apparently all made of glass.
Pilot: What else did you see in this vision?
Navigator: All the cars seem to have familiar badges on them. I saw Mercedes, VW, BMW and Auto Union!
Pilot: See, I told you that we will win the war!
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For some reason I can't get the maps or any graphics to speak of.
When I was first in London to live, in the late fifties, 'bomb sites' were everywhere. The whole northern block at Notting Hill Gate, from the tube station to the top end of Holland Park Avenue, was a vast hole in the ground with a low wall round it.
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Bomb sites were the origin of NCP. 2 demobbed soldiers, Gosling and Hodson, pooled their discharge payments and used then to rent a bomb site off Baker Street (had been a posh store called Druce ISTR) and the whole thing went on for there.
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Well I checked out were I live now and my father did as a child and I can't believe the lack of bomb hits over and around Biggin Hill aerodrome. I know from seeing the physical craters that it's missing a few in the valley at the end of the runway (strangely the actual runway layout isn't shown on the map).
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Hull was severely bombed during WW2.The town i grew up in also Rotterdam,centre and the harbour not much left of it.Dresden east Germany flattened.
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Not sure what the military targets were on this one but the structures and the civilians suffered
"One of the most spectacular actions was “Operation Gomorrah,” which destroyed large parts of Hamburg in July 1943. The following report by the police president of Hamburg describes the impact of incendiary bombs, one of the deadliest weapons in the British carpet-bombing campaign. A total of seven air assaults on Hamburg between July 25 and August 3, 1943, claimed more than 40,000 civilian lives."
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I suspect someone will discover a face or other image in the bomb pattern :-)
In my area however there are two rather distictive lines of hits with large spared areas around them.
www.bombsight.org/#14/51.3805/-0.3423
On the left, one stream going from Sandown race course north towards the reservoirs and the other going from the centre, North East parallel with the Portsmouth Road.
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Hull was the most bombed city after London:
Kingston upon Hull suffered longer and more frequently than any other place outside London. For security purposes Hull was referred to in wartime news as ‘a North East Coast Town' and most Britons at the time were unaware of the enormous battering that the city was enduring. With its docks, wharves and industrial sites, the city was viewed as a prime target for aerial bombardment. Air raids on Hull went on longer than on any other British city, partly it is thought for German internal propaganda purposes. The city is distinguished not only for the intensity and scale of its wartime aerial bombardment, but also for being the first and last to suffer its impacts. It was subject to the first daylight air-raid on Britain during the war, and it also suffered the last civilian casualties in Britain as a result of the Blitz, when the last piloted air raid, on 17th March 1945, resulted in deaths and injuries of people leaving the Savoy Cinema (there is a wall plaque on the front wall of Boyes Store, Holderness Road, recording this tragic event).
By the end of hostilities, Hull had suffered over eighty recorded raids. In 1951, it was calculated that of the 91,660 houses in the city only 5,945 had survived undamaged. In his autobiography the wartime Home Secretary Herbert Morrison concluded that, 'in my experience the town that suffered most was Kingston-upon-Hull'.
There is still a reminder standing (just):
www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Hull/NationalPictureTheatreHull.htm
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Looking at the image you will see the remnants of craters in fields to the west of Hull where the German bombers dumped the remainder of any munitions before returning home:
maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&output=kml&ge_fileext=.kml
Well you would if I knew how to link to a satellite image of an area:[
Anyway just click on satellite and zoom in to the rural area west of Hull.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 22:26
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Did house insurance cover bomb damage i doubt it if any insurance who paid for your house to be re built?
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Good point. That's way maybe Hull has vast areas of social housing.
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Insurance is null and void by acts of war, however it was ( and still is I think ) covered by government.
No-one owned houses in those days anyway except slum landlords, and quite frankly most of the hovels deserved blowing up.
The houses in the terrace my grandparents live din in Canning Town took a large stick of incendiary bombs that burned a huge gap in the terrace, so badly damaged they were demolished, leaving a large gap in the terrace and the ends supported by huge wooden props (a common sight in London), a gap I played in, one of the many bomb sites that were playgrounds right up to the early 60s in some places.
Anyway, that not marked on the map because it wasnt a bomb per say, most of the east end damage was from fire bombs.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 23:12
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>> Insurance is null and void by acts of war, however it was ( and still
>> is I think ) covered by government.
>>
There was compensation from govt. IIRC there was a right of appeal to the Lands Tribunal, extant until the eighties, for war damage cases where the landowner disputed the government's offer.
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Nice report Fullchat and the pictures.My wife's late father fought in North Africa during the war.Great man I got on ok with him.
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My parent's house in London, mentioned earlier, had its roof blown off by the nearby bomb. It was repaired by the War Damage Commission. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Damage_Commission
Last edited by: Meldrew on Sat 8 Dec 12 at 07:45
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Minor correction - the WDC apporoved and paid for the repair and it was carried out by local builders
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.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Sat 8 Dec 12 at 08:40
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The bomb that landed in the paddling pool in Parliament Hill Fields is shown. As a kid I couldn't understand why that was a target - later I appreciated the proximity to the main electricity transformer station for the North London Line
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I don't think that the Luftwaffe ever had the ability to identify an unlit substation at night, in a blackout and with the navigational accuracy available available to the crews and then drop bombs on it. I have looked at the bomb plots and saw that a lot of parks and playing fields were bombed flat (200+ bombs in Hyde and Green Parks) but no direct hits on Waterloo station for example. They,like the RAF, were using area bombing and hoping for the best. Later in the war they almost gave up bombing, and had no dedicated heavy bomber aircraft anyway, and the RAF used pathfinder techniques to improve their accuracy of night bombing.
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I'm surprised no bombs are marked on Hornchurch country park which stands on what was Hornchurch aerodrome, an important field used by Spitfires during the BOB.
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It seems possible that there is a "boundary" to the area in which the bomb falls are plotted and parts of Hornchurch are not within it? Biggin Hill got some bombs, which isn't surprising but only one bomb fell on Northolt and that was on the perimeter fence! It is a bit hard to deduce what was going on in the minds of the Luftwaffe 70 years ago!
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You have to bear in mind the Germans had terrible target intelligence, poor maps and aerial photos, and an over reliance on technology that had been turned against them (lorenz - "the beams")
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Just read a fascinating book called 'Air Power', which looks at the rise of air power from Kittyhawk onwards, and goes into the problems facing the Luftwaffe at the time.
By a chap called Budiansky
tinyurl.com/ctatcyx
well worth a read
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cor blimey guvvna... its all about london....
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>> cor blimey guvvna... its all about london....
>>
And Hull.
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Crumbs the Germans (or the Nazis as we now have to call them) were using guide books to identify targets !! We weren't any better - we only started to disrupt them when we took to removing grid references by carpet bombing. Not an exact science.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 8 Dec 12 at 16:33
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>> - we only started to disrupt them when we took to removing grid references by
>> carpet bombing. Not an exact science.
Until H2S radar and Gee came along.
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We were still rubbish at precision bombing.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 16 Dec 12 at 18:08
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>> we still are.
>>
No we aren't.
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>> >> we still are.
>> >>
>>
>> No we aren't.
oh yes we are.
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>> >> >> we still are.
>> >> >>
>> >>
>> >> No we aren't.
>>
>> oh yes we are.
>>
Go on then.
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*glances behind*
Oh them...
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It depends I suppose how you define precision bombing. In it's day it was good later one, but one off targets by todays standard then yes poor. Even though it wasn't good it still give the germans a real headache. It really disrupted their war effort. Things like daylight small targets were best attacked by something like the Mosquito.
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How can bombing out of a airplane ever be precise unless it is a specific target.
Women children and older people are the one's left in a war situation in a city or town.
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Mosquito doctrine lived right up to Gulf One when it proved disastrous - attacking a modern air defence was costly in men and equipment.
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Where next I wonder ?? Any one putting money on Syria...?
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what about coventry? and for that matter .....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eUSdL8bqJc
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No Carrier no aircraft to fly off one even of we had one, a/c based in Cyprus, limited flight refuelling capability. Not a lot the fly-boys can bring to bear, I think.
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Oh we could bring enough to the show. Not as much as in the past granted.
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There is Turkey which is a NATO country and keen to do some biffing of its own
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Quite right Rob - I had overlooked Turkey, in my dotage. They have probably got a bigger Air Force than we have!
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Turks have 200+ F16s and 80 F-4s. Looks good, depending how many are available of course!
Last edited by: Meldrew on Sat 8 Dec 12 at 18:00
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Free-falling bombs dropped from any sort of high altitude are wildly inaccurate by definition, although low-level dive-bombing attacks by Mosquitoes and the like could be pretty effective.
There are though (these days) steerable bombs and powered guided missiles that are capable of pinpoint accuracy at least sometimes. But they are very, very expensive, and subject of course to correct identification of targets. A couple of hundredweight of high explosive is no respecter of innocent bystanders.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 8 Dec 12 at 18:16
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This bit of kit helped a bit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight
It is a long article but I found the following para, buried in it.
As these missions broke the Luftwaffe, missions were able to be carried out at lower altitudes, especially in bad weather when the H2X radar could be used. In spite of abandoning precision attacks, accuracy nevertheless improved. By 1945, the 8th was putting up to 60 percent of its bombs within 1,000 feet, a CEP of about 900 feet.[37]
Postwar analysis placed the overall accuracy of daylight precision attacks with the Norden at about the same level as radar bombing efforts. The 8th Air Force put 31.8 percent of its bombs within 1,000 feet from an average altitude of 21,000 feet, the 15th Air Force averaged 30.78 percent from 20,500 feet, and the 20th Air Force against Japan averaged 31 percent from 16,500 feet.
Given that the lethal radius of a 500lb bomb was under 100ft these figures aren't that impressive.
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London Bomb locations - Skip
