UK Bombed areas during WW2

[Kagemusha]

I get access denied now, pity.

[mozart]

I lived on Portland for 30 years (for the "foreigners" not in the know, Portland is famed for its stone used for hundreds of years for building many places of repute, St Paul's Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament being two-such).  The quarrying industry still continues on the island (Portland isn't actually an island since it's joined to mainland England by the Chesil Bank (lots of pebbles of varying sizes!)), but in the late 1990s quarrymen unearthed a German WW2 bomb.....Portland Harbour housed the Home Fleet which was extensively bombed in the early years of the war, notably by Herman Goering's son who I understand was shot down (Bf110?) and killed, (the local RAF fighter base was Warmwell.)  Anyway, when the bomb was discovered we, and many other families, were evacuated for the weekend whilst the Bomb Disposal crowd successfully blew up the (500kg?) bomb.  Made a big hole even bigger.  Just one example of a bomb going astray and causing some angst 50 years later! 

Edited October 18, 2019 by mozart

[curiouslysophie]

11 hours ago, RLWP said:

 

Presumably, the maps could only give locations of known bombs, so it's inevitable yours are not recorded. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there

 

Richard

That is usually the problem, but sometimes they show hits but it is indeterminate whether they were exploded or not. The records were only kept as well as they could be.

[LSP_K2]

10 hours ago, mozart said:

I lived on Portland for 30 years (for the "foreigners" not in the know, Portland is famed for its stone used for hundreds of years for building many places repute, St Paul's Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament being two-such).  The quarrying industry still continues on the island (Portland isn't actually an island since it's joined to mainland England by the Chesil Bank (lots of pebbles of varying sizes!)), but in the late 1990s quarrymen unearthed a German WW2 bomb.....Portland Harbour housed the Home Fleet which was extensively bombed in the early years of the war, notably by Herman Goering's son who I understand was shot down (Bf110?) and killed, (the local RAF fighter base was Warmwell.)  Anyway, when the bomb was discovered we, and many other families, were evacuated for the weekend whilst the Bomb Disposal crowd successfully blew up the (500kg?) bomb.  Made a big hole even bigger.  Just one example of a bomb going astray and causing some angst 50 years later! 

 

Yep, precision bombing was not always precise, on either side.

[RLWP]

3 hours ago, LSP_K2 said:

 

Yep, precision bombing was not always precise, on either side.

 

I'm reminded of Len Deighton's excellent 'Bomber'

 

Richard

[Kagemusha]

I was talking about this site with a friend yesterday, and he mentioned Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb the Midland Hotel in Manchester - incidentally where Rolls met Royce - but if you're flying in the middle of the night, bombing the city with the technology at the time, it would be nigh on impossible to determine where your bombs are going to land. 

[RLWP]

7 minutes ago, Kagemusha said:

I was talking about this site with a friend yesterday, and he mentioned Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb the Midland Hotel in Manchester - incidentally where Rolls met Royce - but if you're flying in the middle of the night, bombing the city with the technology at the time, it would be nigh on impossible to determine where your bombs are going to land. 

 

The Manchester Evening News on that subject:

 

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-christmas-blitz-hitler-boms-10622931

 

If he did, no-one told the target planners

 

Manchester's Finest isn't keen either: http://www.manchestersfinest.com/articles/myths-manchester-hitler-midland-hotel/

 

Richard

Edited October 18, 2019 by RLWP

[GusM]

Golf course at Kirriemuir, a very small town in Angus, nowhere near anything of significance has a bomb crater where a load was jettisoned on one of the Clydebank raids - only 100 miles plus off target! Similar tale in Forfar and Stonehaven. Again sites of no strategic import but hit anyway.

[vince14]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:22 AM, LSP_K2 said:

 

Yep, precision bombing was not always precise, on either side.

True, and it's amazing how the 'Bomb in a Pickle Barrel' myth still exists to this day. During 1943 the USAAF heavies were only able to put 16% of their bombs within 1000ft of the aiming point - which was actually lower than the RAF was achieving at night. By 1945, and even with the benefit of the Norden Bombsight, something like 40% of bombs dropped failed to land within 1000ft of the target.

[Chek]

In the '70s-80s, I lived in the Cranbrook area of Ilford, a town seamlessly on the eastern edge of London. An article in the local paper at the time recalled when a V2 missile impacted the area in March 1945 and as I was living in one of the streets mentioned, I took an interest. The area has a large number of parallel streets of Edwardian era, double-fronted terraced housing, and it was possible to note the difference in more recently re-built houses from the street's bombed whole middle terraces at the epicentre of the strike on Endsleigh Gardens, gradually lessening in decreasing diameter rings through the neighbouring streets. I never thought to count the number of destroyed houses, but it would have been in the many dozens.

 

Even more sobering was the thought that even those who might have survived on the perimeter of the massive blast would have had no idea what had just happenend or where it came from. The 13 ton rocket impacted at over 3000 miles per hour. 

[RLWP]

22 hours ago, GusM said:

Golf course at Kirriemuir, a very small town in Angus, nowhere near anything of significance has a bomb crater where a load was jettisoned on one of the Clydebank raids - only 100 miles plus off target! Similar tale in Forfar and Stonehaven. Again sites of no strategic import but hit anyway.

 

Is it know which air force jettisoned the bombs?

[GusM]

As far as I can remember it was a Luftwaffe Do-17 but I'd need to confirm with my father. He lived a few hundred yards away, although he was only 2 at the time.

[GrahamF]

One of the Squadrons in my barracks were EOD [ Explosive Ordnance Disposal] when I was in the Army and I heard that one of things they discovered in London was when one of the big gasometers [ Gas Storage Tanks ] were dismantled a bomb was discovered just lying inside it, they realised that after a bombing raid the holes in the top of these tanks were just plated over and not checked inside, so when they checked others some of them also had bombs lying in them.

 

Graham

Edited October 21, 2019 by GrahamF
typo

[Out2gtcha]

Wow, what a discovery!

[PhilB]

It was always a real problem early in the war to get any decent accuracy.

Things did improve a lot though and with the Tallboy and Grand Slams the accuracy got a lot better.

I remember the documentary on 617 Squadron the Dambusters going after the Tirpitz and the accuracy was pretty good.

I recall the bombs landing near the ship did just as much damage as direct hits due to the water pressure.

 

Edited October 22, 2019 by PhilB