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The 1st bomb to hit brum
- Thread starter Astoness
- Start date
Ray Barrett
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN R.I.P.
Thanks Lyn,
That's something else I have just learnt
That's something else I have just learnt
davidfowler
Exiled Brummie
Evening Lyn, any idea where in Bromford Lane pic 2 is?
jennyann
Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
Hi Lyn, I have a photo somewhere of the front of the house on Enstone Road that was the first house hit in Birmingham in WW2.
A friend of mine's family lived across the road and the hit blew all the windows out in this small road and my friend's front door caved in....Grandma was in the hall and ended up in the kitchen unhurt but very shocked!
A friend of mine's family lived across the road and the hit blew all the windows out in this small road and my friend's front door caved in....Grandma was in the hall and ended up in the kitchen unhurt but very shocked!
jennyann
Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
Just to follow up on the above. You can find the photo of the front of the house in Enstone Road on Gary Obrien's "Goose Moor Lane" web site at https://www.goosemoor-lane.com/history.htm It's on the History page under WW2.
Peter Walker
gone but not forgotten
Carl Chinn's book "Brum Undaunted" gives a good summary of the German air raids on Birmingham. He quotes a lady's claim that she saw a plane fly over Birches Green on the first day of the war, heard two bangs and later saw two craters in Rookery Park. He adds that this is not supported in official records.
More relevantly, he writes that the first recorded attack was on 9 August 1939, when Edwin Wilkes heard a lone aircraft over Goosemoor Lane. Nearby Ethel Bishop was in bed in Montague Road. She wrote in 1995 that heard a loud bang, and then an even louder one when she found that houses opposite had been hit, after which there was a quieter explosion. The first bomb had fallen in Lydford Grove, and the third, she thought, in Erdington Hall Road. It is surprising that the first damage should have been on civilians when there were so many military targets in the area. The next attack seems to have been more accurate - on the factory at Castle Bromwich Airport on 13 August 1940.
The first major raid over Birmingham was on 25 August, by 50 bombers. The next months did untold damage, but the worst was over by December. Then there were shorter doses in February and March 1941 and July 1942, and finally on 23 April 1943.
Peter Walker
More relevantly, he writes that the first recorded attack was on 9 August 1939, when Edwin Wilkes heard a lone aircraft over Goosemoor Lane. Nearby Ethel Bishop was in bed in Montague Road. She wrote in 1995 that heard a loud bang, and then an even louder one when she found that houses opposite had been hit, after which there was a quieter explosion. The first bomb had fallen in Lydford Grove, and the third, she thought, in Erdington Hall Road. It is surprising that the first damage should have been on civilians when there were so many military targets in the area. The next attack seems to have been more accurate - on the factory at Castle Bromwich Airport on 13 August 1940.
The first major raid over Birmingham was on 25 August, by 50 bombers. The next months did untold damage, but the worst was over by December. Then there were shorter doses in February and March 1941 and July 1942, and finally on 23 April 1943.
Peter Walker
Betty Hopper
master brummie
Please can anyone tell me the date that Digby Street, Gosta Green, had a bomb dropped on it ? ?
I think it may have been the same night as the Market Hall was hit because when we were rescued from the cellar and got outside the whole sky
seemed to be on fire. In fact come to think of it as if the whole world was alight.
Hope you can help.
Betty Hopper
I think it may have been the same night as the Market Hall was hit because when we were rescued from the cellar and got outside the whole sky
seemed to be on fire. In fact come to think of it as if the whole world was alight.
Hope you can help.
Betty Hopper
Peter Walker
gone but not forgotten
Betty,
According to Carl Chinn's excellent book 'Brum Undaunted', the first major raid on the United Kingdom was over Birmingham in the night of Sunday 25 August 1940, when the centre of the town was attacked by 50 bombers. Among the large amount of damage done, the Market Hall was hit. I don't know what official records are kept on individual raids and properties damaged, although I believe there are maps showing all sites affected by raids. If you can get into the Birmingham Central Library, they have a mass of informaton on the top floor.
Peter
According to Carl Chinn's excellent book 'Brum Undaunted', the first major raid on the United Kingdom was over Birmingham in the night of Sunday 25 August 1940, when the centre of the town was attacked by 50 bombers. Among the large amount of damage done, the Market Hall was hit. I don't know what official records are kept on individual raids and properties damaged, although I believe there are maps showing all sites affected by raids. If you can get into the Birmingham Central Library, they have a mass of informaton on the top floor.
Peter
Frothblower
Lubrication In Moderation
The first civilian to be killed in Birmingham was Jimmy Fry of Montague road Erdington
Templer
Brummie
Hi Peter, I was born in Erdington Hall rd and have never heard of bombs falling in Rookery park, the way all the residents around there related the story is that a bomber got separated from it’s formation, and to try and avoid machine gun fire from a fighter aircraft began to fly a random course, and to lighten the aircraft to give it slightly more speed and manouverability released it’s bombs.
No one was sure exactly where the first bomb hit, but the story goes that there were two around the Goosemoor lane area, it then flew around in an arc to bring it over Pype Hayes park where two more bombs fell, I have played in those two bomb holes as we have always called them, all my younger days ( those two holes are still there to this day ) two more fell in Pype Hayes, others in Birches Green, another destroyed two houses directly opposite the Green Man pub ( now the Lad In the Lane ) in bromford lane.
Another in Alleyne rd, which is off Erdington Hall rd destroying a grocers shop, another in Montague rd, and the last one that I know about was at the top of Minstead rd, off gravely Hill destroying two houses which created another of our favourite play areas, which we called the sandy banks that sloped down to Hawkesyard rd.
Betty Hopper
master brummie
Hello Peter W.
Many thanks for your message. For years now I have wondered what tha date was. It certainly sounds like the right one. Gosta Green was almost in the city centre so it is the most likely.
With that number of bombers overhead no wonder the sky was lit up with all the fires . The amount of collapsed builbings , debris and noise was dreadfull.
Will get a copy of Carl Chinn's book as you suggest.
Again many ,many thanks, Betty Hopper.
Many thanks for your message. For years now I have wondered what tha date was. It certainly sounds like the right one. Gosta Green was almost in the city centre so it is the most likely.
With that number of bombers overhead no wonder the sky was lit up with all the fires . The amount of collapsed builbings , debris and noise was dreadfull.
Will get a copy of Carl Chinn's book as you suggest.
Again many ,many thanks, Betty Hopper.
hi bri..how weird that i should have started this thread..ive just read your post about you playing on the bomb site of the 2 houses that were bombed in minstead road...ive just found out that my gt grandfathers brother herbert harrington and his wife both died when the bomb hit their house at no 19 minstead..just taken a google walk down the road and you can clearly see that they had to build new houses on that site..
lyn
Frothblower
Lubrication In Moderation
The house was never rebuilt Lyn. You can see the gap in the houses from Tyburn road. We used to play there as kids, we called it the sandybank,
Hi Templer
Would this Grocers have been on the corner of alleyne road, can you remember?
Cheers
Maggs
Templer
Brummie
Hi Maggs, this is the shop I refer to, (red arrow) it was rebuilt very soon after the war ended.
I alway's knew it as Foxhall's grocers, on the entrance to the gully that lead from Alleyne road to Croydon road.
It was still owned by the same family when I got married and left the area aged twenty in 1965.
Just as a matter of interest, the white arrow indicates the house I was born in.
Thanks Templar, I dont think this is the shop I had in mind. I have a very old photograph of a house/shop with a very distinctive square bay window with a castle type plaster decoration. I have been trying to work out where it was taken based on addresses where my *Grandparents lived. I have been touring Brum via Google maps and 3 Alleyne Road looks promising if you look through the trees at the windows. The front of the current shop is on Tyburn Road.
On the photo, the Bay window is filled with a display of clothing and hats, so I would think she was a dressmaker/milliner.
The sign above the door is very hard to decipher. Do you have any record of Bucklers in your trade directory records?
Hope to talk again soon
Maggs:cupcake:
On the photo, the Bay window is filled with a display of clothing and hats, so I would think she was a dressmaker/milliner.
The sign above the door is very hard to decipher. Do you have any record of Bucklers in your trade directory records?
Hope to talk again soon
Maggs:cupcake:
Sorry, on reading this again I realise it sounds a bit creepy! I'm just looking at the architecture - honest!
Maggs:uncomfortableness:
Dave Goble
New Member
Hi
I just came across these posts. My aunt, my Dad's older sister, lived in Minstead Rd during the war. My uncle was the manager at the BOC Aston. Walking down Minstead Rd from the Oval it was the first house on the left with a round front bay window. I think it was number 159. My father lived with them at the time and was 21 when war broke out. He had contracted polio when he was six years old and had a calliper on his leg. He couldn't fight overseas so he volunteered for firewatch duties. My parents moved to Oval Road in 1950 just after I was born in 1950 and I used to play on the sandbank as well. I also played in the bomb crater at the bottom of my aunt's garden which had completely destroyed the air raid shelter. They told me that fortunately the raid had happened so fast they hadn't had time to go to the shelter so my Aunt got under the kitchen table with her children. All the doors and windows in the back of the house were blown out by the explosion but fortunately the gardens there go down in a series of levels and the bomb dropped on the lower level so they all survived. To my great disappointment my cousin filled the crater in and levelled the ground in the early 1960's. There was a newer house further down towards the bottom of the hill on the left that my parents explained had been built to replace one that took a direct hit from a bomb, Dad remembered it because he helped to dig at least one body out of the rubble.
hello dave and welcome....what an interesting post...reading it it does look as though your dad helped to recover the body of either my gt grandads brother herbert or his wife who both died as a direct hit....as far as i know they were the only 2 fatalities in minstead road so it does seem likely
lyn
lyn
