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Air raid shelters

eric if you can give me the names of the people that died i think i can post you a photo of their names on the tree of life memorial

lyn
 
That’s kind of you but I let the grandson know and he went and found their names yesterday (Wynne). He has walked past the memorial many times without realising they are remembered there. The slight mystery now is why they were a good long walk away from their home at night at the time of the raid (especially after the heavy raids the previous night).
 
oh thats great then eric...i also have 2 rellies names on the memorial when their house in minstead road erdington took a direct hit...yes i guess that is a mystery but it could be they were visiting someone or on their way home from a cinema when a raid took place and they had to take cover....either way a sad loss

lyn
 
At the very beginning of 1939, Manzoni was advertising in the Birmingham Gazette for engineers to survey buildings whose basements could be made to serve as air raid shelters.

Viv.35A0D62C-F470-4091-9752-B31F5AE9903F.jpeg
Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
Not too sure what to make of this structure at the Longbridge works. It says that sand will be shovelled over the roof. Is that It? Nothing else ? Hopefully it did what it claims to have been able to do. Viv.

8BB3548B-25C8-4D9E-8E06-03510C36BDEF.jpeg
Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
Not too sure what to make of this structure at the Longbridge works. It says that sand will be shovelled over the roof. Is that It? Nothing else ? Hopefully it did what it claims to have been able to do. Viv.


Source: British Newspaper Archive
i looked a few times. there has to be some kind of roof to hold the sand.prob that is what the timber is for on the lft side.
 
Must be Pete. I thought the wood at the side was supporting the side, but looking closer yes it looks like it’s just resting there. Interesting that the shelter was carved out of an old sandpit. Viv.
 
i recall going down a shelter in the grounds of my dad works in nechells it was concrete section bolted together like the london tube.
 
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Must be Pete. I thought the wood at the side was supporting the side, but looking closer yes it looks like it’s just resting there. Interesting that the shelter was carved out of an old sandpit. Viv.
wonder if that is just the front of the shelter it does say 400 ft.the rest might have been coverd in soil. dont think we will ever know Viv.
 
wonder if that is just the front of the shelter it does say 400 ft.the rest might have been coverd in soil. dont think we will ever know Viv.
I think that must be it. I would think even the tree in the background is not 400 ft above the Lord Mayor.
 
The building of really significant and expensive structures like this in late 1938 and early 1939 reminds us of just how inevitable the imminent conflict was regarded. I think that our own, Dad-built structure in the garden at home was probably completed - or very nearly so - by this point.

I wonder how well documented the later use of the above shelter was, how often it was used and how may lives it saved. A decision within the factory as to whether to halt production and send the work-force to the shelters was a major one and, one assumes, not taken lightly. (There survives a wonderful description of how it was done during a daytime air-raid on the ICI/Kynoch factory at Witton). There was just one incident which involved significant loss of life at Longbridge and on that occasion, for one reason or another, employees were not sheltering. Despite the horrors of the Blitz it always astonishes me that Luftwaffe attempts to destroy some of these huge factory complexes were not more determined and effective.

Chris
 
hi chris that has always amazed me as well...i often wonder how the massive lucas factory at gt king st survived the bombings but so glad it did....sad to say that it has gone now

lyn
 
Bombing during WWII was far from accurate especially in 1940/41. I think in the early days of the war the RAF regarded 5 miles as a near miss. I was told at one local history seminar that I attended that there was a massive shadow factory underground at Longbridge and when it was explored before the redevelopment of the site, it was still like it was when the last shift walked out in 1946. I think it was at that seminar that someone insisted that there had not been any preparation for war prior to September 1939. Actually Neville Chamberlain knew that war was inevitable and had instigated preparations well before. We were not ready in September 1939 but we were not unprepared.
 
 
Yes there was. I’ve seen photos of a Royal Visit to the shadow factory. They were making ‘fairy’ something or others. Must try and find the details. Viv.
 
This is a visit to the Austin shadow factory, can’t say if it was Longbridge. And it’s months before WW2 started, Viv.

321D5B47-9A50-4F3C-9E29-E6DB748192F9.jpeg
Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
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