interactive map that shows every bomb dropped on London during The Blitz

stona · Dec 9, 2012

Readie said:
Ah yes, Canvey Island would disappear it that little lot went off..

Would anyone care? Apologies to my old mate Wynney....Canvey Island born and bred,not forgetting the great Dr Feelgood

Steve

nuuumannn · Dec 9, 2012

I heard that when Wimbledown Common was bombed it was a ploy by the LW to get rid of the Wombles and their blasted theme tune...

bobbysocks · Dec 9, 2012

Glider said:
I live close to SOuthend on the north bank of the Thames where it meets the sea. The bomb disposal teams are often out dealing with UXB's probably on average every 6-8 weeks. They go out at low tide to deal with them, the tide goes out about a mile so it takes a while. Once while I was there the disabling charge set off the main explosive in the bomb and a huge amount of mud was thrown up into the air.
Its so common and the bombs are so far out, they don't close the seafront, they just get on with it.

as i was catching up on this thread after a couple days i was thinking how dangerous dredging would have to be in town like london...berlin...any place that was heavily bombed. if the ordnance didnt explode it would sink into the soft silt of the riverbed. I would imagine before any area is dredged it would have to be "swept".

i also wonder why they delayed doing anything with the SS Richard Montgomery??? if that stuff is 60 years old there's no way of moving it now. the best they could do it probably blow it in place...and i dont think that is an option.

Glider · Dec 10, 2012

Papers issued by the Government showed that they put cost first so didn't do anything. The main channel was of course swept and continue to swept when new channels are dredged.
As an aside I used to work in Marine Insurance and the war premium for any dredging work in the channel is pretty high. When you think of the mines, bombs, ships aircraft lost over/in the channel in the 20th century you can see why

Glider · Dec 10, 2012

Duplicate post

stona · Dec 10, 2012

nuuumannn said:
I heard that when Wimbledown Common was bombed it was a ploy by the LW to get rid of the Wombles and their blasted theme tune...

They missed them as well

Steve

Edgar Brooks · Dec 10, 2012

stona said:
One bomb landed on the square (the central area where the pitches are prepared) of Lords cricket ground. Now that is worthy of retaliation!

It might have played havoc with transport, for a time, too; not everyone is aware that the GWR tracks ran/run through tunnels under Lords, and into Marylebone Station. I've only been inside Lords once, but under it dozens of times.
It would be interesting to see a similar map of Hull, which is claimed to have received more bombs, per square mile, than London; to their credit, the local council, when a building was destroyed but the facade remained standing, preserved the wall, and have since built onto the back of it, so preserving (or appearing to) at least part of the old city.

Milosh · Dec 10, 2012

Here you go Edgar, THE HULL BLITZ - a HULL BOMB MAP

Edgar Brooks · Dec 10, 2012

Milosh said:
Here you go Edgar, THE HULL BLITZ - a HULL BOMB MAP

Thank you; I'll now pass the reference on to friends who live there, and have a deep abiding interest in Hull.

Readie · Dec 10, 2012

Its easy to overlook the scale of the Blitz.
These places were the hardest hit.

London, Barrow-in-Furness, Bootle, Birkenhead, Wallasey, Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Exeter, Sheffield, Liverpool, Kingston upon Hull, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham, Brighton, Eastbourne, Sunderland, and Southampton. Cardiff and Swansea in Wales, Belfast in Ireland as well as Aberdeen, Clydebank, Greenock, and Glasgow in Scotland were also repeatedly hit. These cities suffered the most.

Bootle, Kingston upon Hull, and Coventry were almost wiped off the map due to repeated bombings.

Smaller raids hit Newcastle, York, Exeter and Bath in England and Edinburgh in Scotland.

The doodle bug hits are another matter.

Very few of these cities were as attractive after the post war rebuilds and its easy the 1950-60 concrete block buildings.
Such are the spoils of victory

Cheers
John

Hop · Dec 10, 2012

interactive map that shows every bomb dropped on London during The Blitz

As far as I can see the map only shows the HE bombs, not incendiaries. It also excludes the first month of the blitz, which saw a fairly large proportion of the attacks on London.

Its easy to overlook the scale of the Blitz.

Yes. British civilian deaths from German bombing:

1940
July - 258
August - 1,075
September - 6,954
October - 6,334
November - 4,588
December - 3,793
1941
January - 1,500
February - 789
March - 4,259
April - 6,065
May - 5,394

The Germans didn't begin keeping records until October 1940. German civilian air raid deaths:

1940
October, November, December - 349

1941 - 2,785

1942 - 4,327

It wasn't until the Hamburg firestorm in the summer of 1943 that the RAF caught up to the devastation the Luftwaffe had inflicted on the UK.

bobbysocks · Dec 10, 2012

Hop said:
The Germans didn't begin keeping records until October 1940. German civilian air raid deaths:

1940
October, November, December - 349

1941 - 2,785

1942 - 4,327

It wasn't until the Hamburg firestorm in the summer of 1943 that the RAF caught up to the devastation the Luftwaffe had inflicted on the UK.

are those numbers accurate? for the entire year? i would have thought the number would have been way higher even in 41 and 42...i am surprised really. i am sure 43 through 45 are a lot different.

Readie · Dec 11, 2012

This was the first proper hit back...Bombing of Cologne in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia bobby.

Hop's figures need to include other attacks on British cities to fully reflect the death rate

John

Hop · Dec 11, 2012

The figures for Germany are from one of the USSBS sub reports, "The effect of bombing on health and medical care in Germany". The report says the original source is the German statistical office. The USSBS report says checks were made to ensure the German report was accurate. The conclusion was it was reasonably accurate up to the attack on Hamburg, where deaths were underestimated (the German report shows 34,323 for July 1943, post war the figure is put at around 45,000). 1944 showed "wide discrepancies".

It seems logical to me that record keeping would be more accurate with smaller numbers of casualties.

The full report can be read here: Catalog Record: The effect of bombing on health and medical... | Hathi Trust Digital Library

i am sure 43 through 45 are a lot different

The Germans recorded 103,271 in 1943. The devastating effect of Hamburg is clear when you consider somewhere between a third and half of all the German civilian deaths by bombing in 1943 came in 1 night in Hamburg. In fact, the RAF probably killed as many that night as they had in the entire 4 years of war up to that point.

I'm not sure of the figures for 1944 and 1945 but the total number of German civilians killed in bombing is usually given as 500 - 600,000, so around 450,000 must have been killed in 1944 and 45.

The figures for the UK are from the totals released by the government at the end of each month. They cover the whole UK.

stona · Dec 11, 2012

Hop said:
The Germans didn't begin keeping records until October 1940. German civilian air raid deaths:

1940
October, November, December - 349

1941 - 2,785

1942 - 4,327

It wasn't until the Hamburg firestorm in the summer of 1943 that the RAF caught up to the devastation the Luftwaffe had inflicted on the UK.

Those British deaths were the sowing of the wind

The German figures for 40-42 are Harris' "gentle zephyrs of last summer."

After that the figures from 43 through to the end are the reaping of the whirlwind.

All exactly as promised by Harris at the beginning of June 1942.

Cheers

Steve

Readie · Dec 11, 2012

stona said:
Those British deaths were the sowing of the wind

The German figures for 40-42 are Harris' "gentle zephyrs of last summer."

After that the figures from 43 through to the end are the reaping of the whirlwind.

All exactly as promised by Harris at the beginning of June 1942.

Cheers

Steve

Quite so Steve quite so....

stug3 · Jan 9, 2013

The destruction around St Paul's Cathedral caused by air raids on London is softened by a heavy dusting of snow. A mobile crane and truck can be seen at work to clear up some of the debris, January 1942

interactive map that shows every bomb dropped on London during The Blitz

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