O
O.C.
Guest
No one could put into words the terrible carnage that came to Coventry and Birmingham in the dark days of the Blitz, our Ma lost 3 homes through the bombing Dad was buried alive in one of them till he was dug out only to have it happen again when he was on.‚.. fire watch at the local church when it received a direct hit. He was entombed for three days while our Ma had gone into labour and was being rushed to hospital by ambulance when the baby was born, the ambulance hit a shell hole and crashed, the autopsy on the baby found that a swab had gone down the baby's throat and he had choked to death. All round us growing up in Nechells we were left with the scars and memories of those terrible dark nights which started.‚.. on....................
November 19th 1940 a night that nearly destroyed everything but the Brummie Spirit
For nine agonizing hours, wave after wave of German bombers dropped over 400 tons of high explosive (5,129 High explosive bombs 48 Parachute Land Mines) on our beloved city and over 30,000 incendiary bombs rained out of the sky to burn our homes, and destroy our will, which it never did.
Over 200 homes were blown to bits and twice as many wrecked by the blasts and over 50 shops were gutted by fire. My father always said the strongest part of the house was the chimney as that was always left standing, never go in the cellar which he never did but look what happened to him
The worse incident that night happened as the men were in the factories toiling away at their machines helping the war effort, one factory got a direct hit and 53 workers were killed and 89 buried alive under the rubble. That factory was the BSA (by a strange coincidence the grave of my grandfather and my uncle is right next to the Memorial to those men in Yardley cemetery.)
When the all clear sounded that night over 350 planes had passed over Birmingham
That night was not the first night we had been bombed but it was far the worse.
Then on the night of the 22nd and 23rd the Germans bombers returned and call it what you like but fate was on our side
The water that supplied Birmingham came for the Elan Dam in Wales and a bomb had hit a viaduct cutting of our water supply so we had no water to fight the fires with, so lakes and canals were drained nearly dry to fill the tenders of the fire fighters
The Royal Engineers were on high alert to start blowing up Birmingham to create massive firebreaks if a firestorm started as that would have been the only way to have stopped it as the city would have burned from end to end.
Men were working night and day to repair the Viaduct knowing it was our only chance to save our city but they knew it was going to take least 5 days to repair
The following night came and everyone waited and waited for the end to come but the Germans Bombers never came back. I bet there were a few frightened smiles that night.
All our neighbours took a terrible pounding, 52 died in West Bromwich, Smethwick 78 died, Solihull 36 died, Willenhall 13 died and in Darlaston 12 died
With scores burnt, wounded and injured
Birminghams death toll reached 2,227 and 3,000 seriously injured and over 12,000 homes were destroyed along with 99 factories and 184 that had to be demolished
What saved the people of Birmingham? In my opinion it was the humble Anderson shelter which someone had had the foresight to issue over 82.000 enough to protect over 410,000 people. Not forgetting the Morrison Shelter made for inside the home and countless concrete air raid shelters
Lewiss Stores and Ansells Brewery provided the hospitals with annexes in their large basements
Although the German Bombers hit it, what the German High Command tried to destroy and failed was the BSA where they made the Browning machine gun for fighter aircraft, The Austin Aero engine works at Cofton Hackett, The Rover and the Spitfire Assembly Plant at Castle Bromwich
On the 11th December a night that no Brummie from the war years will ever forget came the longest night raid of the entire Blitz starting from the first bomb that was dropped at 6.30 p.m. 200 German Bombers pounded Birmingham for 13 hours and as the last Bomber flew away the clock was showing 7.30 a.m. the next morning and 263 of our folk were dead but with the water now at our disposal those magnificent men the firewatcher snuffed out the fires that could quickly have become a raging inferno
Running tirelessly through smoke, fire, shrapnel and everything that came their way to try and stop the fires while their families were taking shelter.
The next day it was business as usual for folk who had not lost loved ones and it was a task of clearing up and trying to clear roads for the traffic, but how sheer soul destroying it must have been when they did all this and on the night of 9th and 10th April 1941 Birmingham was ablaze when over 650 bombs and 1000s of incendiaries fell on the city centre destroying the Prince of Wales Theatre, New St and High Street
Back they came in 1942 and 1943 till the all clear sounded in July 1944
When talking about the Blitz, Coventry has to be mentioned as that great City was nearly razed to the ground by the Luftwaffe and the Germans coined a new word which they said the would do to any British city that word was Coventrate
Their Hell on Earth started on the 14th November and tested the men of the Auxiliary Fire Service and the A.R.P to the limits of physical endurance, the A.A, guns started firing at the Bombers who came on a night of a full moon dropping parachute flares over the city to illuminate it
And the rattle of the thousands of rounds of tracer bullets to shoot the parachutes down by setting them on fire. And then it grew in intensity.
The glow could be seen from Birmingham as the fire took hold and lit up the night sky, our firemen desperately tried to help by rushing their engines as fast as they would go in the blackout hurtling down the Coventry Road to assist those tired ARP Men, Home Guard and civilians who were trying to fight a courageous losing battle with the fires.‚..
The full fury of the attack reached its height with a savagery of bombing of almost unbelievable ferocity, which left a night of unforgettable horror with the fire taking hold and being whipped up by the thousands of incendiaries that came raining down
that went on 11 hours. When it was finally over there was an uncanny silence everywhere as though the world have come to an end, everywhere, never to be forgotten scenes of ruin and total devastation that beggared belief or description.
The word Coventrated has gone down in History coined out of tragedy and wickedness that destroyed the heart of that Medieval City.
As the World learnt what happened to Coventry there was anger and outrage that this could be done to a city as the Germans had cast all rules of engagement and battle to the wind, that made us fight back with a vengeance.
November 19th 1940 a night that nearly destroyed everything but the Brummie Spirit
For nine agonizing hours, wave after wave of German bombers dropped over 400 tons of high explosive (5,129 High explosive bombs 48 Parachute Land Mines) on our beloved city and over 30,000 incendiary bombs rained out of the sky to burn our homes, and destroy our will, which it never did.
Over 200 homes were blown to bits and twice as many wrecked by the blasts and over 50 shops were gutted by fire. My father always said the strongest part of the house was the chimney as that was always left standing, never go in the cellar which he never did but look what happened to him
The worse incident that night happened as the men were in the factories toiling away at their machines helping the war effort, one factory got a direct hit and 53 workers were killed and 89 buried alive under the rubble. That factory was the BSA (by a strange coincidence the grave of my grandfather and my uncle is right next to the Memorial to those men in Yardley cemetery.)
When the all clear sounded that night over 350 planes had passed over Birmingham
That night was not the first night we had been bombed but it was far the worse.
Then on the night of the 22nd and 23rd the Germans bombers returned and call it what you like but fate was on our side
The water that supplied Birmingham came for the Elan Dam in Wales and a bomb had hit a viaduct cutting of our water supply so we had no water to fight the fires with, so lakes and canals were drained nearly dry to fill the tenders of the fire fighters
The Royal Engineers were on high alert to start blowing up Birmingham to create massive firebreaks if a firestorm started as that would have been the only way to have stopped it as the city would have burned from end to end.
Men were working night and day to repair the Viaduct knowing it was our only chance to save our city but they knew it was going to take least 5 days to repair
The following night came and everyone waited and waited for the end to come but the Germans Bombers never came back. I bet there were a few frightened smiles that night.
All our neighbours took a terrible pounding, 52 died in West Bromwich, Smethwick 78 died, Solihull 36 died, Willenhall 13 died and in Darlaston 12 died
With scores burnt, wounded and injured
Birminghams death toll reached 2,227 and 3,000 seriously injured and over 12,000 homes were destroyed along with 99 factories and 184 that had to be demolished
What saved the people of Birmingham? In my opinion it was the humble Anderson shelter which someone had had the foresight to issue over 82.000 enough to protect over 410,000 people. Not forgetting the Morrison Shelter made for inside the home and countless concrete air raid shelters
Lewiss Stores and Ansells Brewery provided the hospitals with annexes in their large basements
Although the German Bombers hit it, what the German High Command tried to destroy and failed was the BSA where they made the Browning machine gun for fighter aircraft, The Austin Aero engine works at Cofton Hackett, The Rover and the Spitfire Assembly Plant at Castle Bromwich
On the 11th December a night that no Brummie from the war years will ever forget came the longest night raid of the entire Blitz starting from the first bomb that was dropped at 6.30 p.m. 200 German Bombers pounded Birmingham for 13 hours and as the last Bomber flew away the clock was showing 7.30 a.m. the next morning and 263 of our folk were dead but with the water now at our disposal those magnificent men the firewatcher snuffed out the fires that could quickly have become a raging inferno
Running tirelessly through smoke, fire, shrapnel and everything that came their way to try and stop the fires while their families were taking shelter.
The next day it was business as usual for folk who had not lost loved ones and it was a task of clearing up and trying to clear roads for the traffic, but how sheer soul destroying it must have been when they did all this and on the night of 9th and 10th April 1941 Birmingham was ablaze when over 650 bombs and 1000s of incendiaries fell on the city centre destroying the Prince of Wales Theatre, New St and High Street
Back they came in 1942 and 1943 till the all clear sounded in July 1944
When talking about the Blitz, Coventry has to be mentioned as that great City was nearly razed to the ground by the Luftwaffe and the Germans coined a new word which they said the would do to any British city that word was Coventrate
Their Hell on Earth started on the 14th November and tested the men of the Auxiliary Fire Service and the A.R.P to the limits of physical endurance, the A.A, guns started firing at the Bombers who came on a night of a full moon dropping parachute flares over the city to illuminate it
And the rattle of the thousands of rounds of tracer bullets to shoot the parachutes down by setting them on fire. And then it grew in intensity.
The glow could be seen from Birmingham as the fire took hold and lit up the night sky, our firemen desperately tried to help by rushing their engines as fast as they would go in the blackout hurtling down the Coventry Road to assist those tired ARP Men, Home Guard and civilians who were trying to fight a courageous losing battle with the fires.‚..
The full fury of the attack reached its height with a savagery of bombing of almost unbelievable ferocity, which left a night of unforgettable horror with the fire taking hold and being whipped up by the thousands of incendiaries that came raining down
that went on 11 hours. When it was finally over there was an uncanny silence everywhere as though the world have come to an end, everywhere, never to be forgotten scenes of ruin and total devastation that beggared belief or description.
The word Coventrated has gone down in History coined out of tragedy and wickedness that destroyed the heart of that Medieval City.
As the World learnt what happened to Coventry there was anger and outrage that this could be done to a city as the Germans had cast all rules of engagement and battle to the wind, that made us fight back with a vengeance.
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