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Map Of W W2 Bombing

LaytonLily

knowlegable brummie
I wonder if anyone can help with providing me with a copy of a map I had once which showed the site of all bombs which fell on Birmingham. Cannot remember if it was over a particular period or through the whole time of the war. It showed the street names and extended out as far as Kings Heath in the south and Yardley to the east.

If anyone has this map perhaps they could also tell me where it was found in case the resolution allowed on this site makes it difficult to read ?

Many thanks for any help
 
Lily

This is probably what you want, I think it plots where all the bombs dropped on Birmingham were. You are right it is impossible to pick out individual streets and to be quite honest I have no idea where it came from, If you are looking for a particular location I do have one or two smaller maps of a few districts in more detail.
 

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Lily

This is probably what you want, I think it plots where all the bombs dropped on Birmingham were. You are right it is impossible to pick out individual streets and to be quite honest I have no idea where it came from, If you are looking for a particular location I do have one or two smaller maps of a few districts in more detail.
 
phil, that map is not very good, and I don't know if there is a better one , but one of the best sites for information on the bombing in Birmingham and the rest of the country is , to be found on the bbc archive programme "" the peoples war " excellent . rw mcgowan
 
Hi Phil are the smaller maps clearer? If smaller areas are available in districts, does anyone know where people can get access to them ? Viv.
 
Hi Phil are the smaller maps clearer? If smaller areas are available in districts, does anyone know where people can get access to them ? Viv.

Viv

I have no idea, I suppose they must be available somewhere. the smaller maps I have are just more legible parts of bigger maps I have collected from here and there. Though the one I pointed to in my last post is a pretty good one, I wouldn't mind finding the top half of it.
 
There is one shown for Tillingham St Sparkbrook. Recon that's the one that came into box room at #7 and was thrown out the window before it became active. Was dealt with by the ARP warden and the streets stirrup pump.
Cheers Tim
 
Tim

Here is a better version it's a smaller cropping from a larger map as far a I can see, but it shows the area around Tillingham Street.
 

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Thank you for your response. I did find the one I was thinking of on another website but it isn't very clear. I would really like it to be clearer so one could see the actual roads and names of. (attached) Evidently the red dots are incendiary bombs dropped.

I remember as a child we had a big old heavy wooden wardrobe in my parents bedroom, which had one side panel missing and the doors black and blistered, which my parents said had been caused when an incendiary bomb fell on the house.

I think I might arrange to go cental Birmingham library to look at the books they have of old photographs of that time, which I could borrow, and I might find a better copy in one of them.

You used to be able to buy postcards of old photographs of Birmingham at the cental library and I think in other book shops. Does anyone know if postcards of old Birmingham can still be bought like that ? Not that they were 'old' postcards, that people might collect. I have seen some of these photographs in books, which I have postcards of, bought I am sure from the library some years ago.
 

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I remember as a child we had a big old heavy wooden wardrobe in my parents bedroom, which had one side panel missing and the doors black and blistered, which my parents said had been caused when an incendiary bomb fell on the house.
Reading the above paragraph in your post brought back some old memories for me which I mentioned in a post in this thread Old air raid shelter
 
Thanks for the map Phil, sure looks like our house location. That box room was my bedroom as a teenager when we had a couple of "Paying Guests"!
 
Looks like I have a problem.
Thinking that the map was showing our house was hit by an incendiary, as it was, I was ok. Seems that it should have been a red spot because no HE landed on our house or anywhere that I consider "near".
Our house was badly damaged, causing us to be evacuated in c1943, but this was due to the landmine that whiped out a huge area of Highgate Rd behind the back of Tillingham St.
Could be a case that the map is incorrect.
 
Tim

Looking at the larger map that I linked to and then the smaller one that I posted. I think they are obviously from different dates. The larger map shows that in the area of Tillingham Street - Highgate Rd 2 HE and 2 Incendiary bombs were dropped yet the smaller one shows only 1 HE bomb.
 
It might be as well to remember that, as I understand it, the maps can only be as accurate as the information received by the plotters. I assume that on a "busy" night some things might get missed or recorded wrongly.
Janice
 
I also wonder how accurate WW2 'bombing maps' are. I lived in Grindleford Rd on Perry Beeches and as a very young child I was in the house (blue circle 1) when it was hit by an incendiary ... we had the fin off it for years but it got lost in a house move. It is not marked on the map.

In (blue circle 2) a high explosive hit and badly damaged 4 houses, the blast from it shook our house. I have chatted (on the forum) with someone who lived in Bradfield Rd. It is on the map.

In (blue circle 3) high explosives dropped in Perry Barr park, I remember looking in the craters.

Also a large unexploded bomb made a hole at the junction of Grindleford Rd and Thornbridge Ave but is not shown on the map.

Map (sorry I cannot get resolution higher)
Perry Barr Bombs.jpg
 
One of the Knickebein beams passed about half a mile west from where I lived as mentioned in a forum post here https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/bombing-brum.21044/page-6#post-544286
The beam map
index.php
 
Programme on BBC2 last night, "Blitz, The Bombs that changed Britain" mainly featured Hull but Brum got a mention also Solly Zuckerman who was a prof at Birmingham Uni. Worth watching. Great use of achives. No spoilers from me!
 
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