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The Blitz

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
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During the dark days of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain the Royal Family came closer to the people of England than at any other time in History.
The King and Queen, King George V1 and Elizabeth (who were the parents of Queen Elizabeth) walked among the people, talked and suffered with them when his home was bombed and sympathised with the bombed out people who had the grit and determination to carry on regardless of their suffering. He inspired like Churchill did with his speeches, praising the ambulance teams the ARP teams and all the other super human efforts that were going on to keep the peoples spirits up.
People's attitudes hardened in statements like "Don't Worry we can have a cup of tea when the Blitz is over" they had met Hitler's threat head on and the determination grew to one of "Throw everything at us we still won't be beaten"
The King knew what brave efforts the Bomb Disposal men made risking their life to tackle unexploded bombs, which required a special kind of courage. Firemen and ordinary folk risking death to rescue people trapped people in all kinds of dangerous situations.
The King sought and found a way of expressing his admiration for the people, civilians and service personnel by introducing two new medals on 24th Sept. 1940
The George Medal and The George Cross which rank's second to the Victoria Cross
As he made the announcement to the nation on the radio, air raid sirens could be heard in the background.
One of the first men to receive one of these awards was R.Davis of the Royal Engineers, Bomb Disposal who tackled a High Explosive Bomb that landed right outside St. Paul's Cathedral and disarmed it
First Photo, looks like something out of a disaster movie were brave folk risked life and limb to rescue people in the fastest way they could knowing the whole building could come crashing down, catch fire or another bomb might go off.
Bottom pic.George Cross and George Medal
 
Government instructions that were issued to every household before the Blitz
 
I found most of the following in a booklet that was issued to every house in the country before the blitz, this little piece is about the blackout
Though the blackout had to be as black as possible, there were certain vital industries and other undertakings which could carry on without some external lighting during the blackout. Under conditions agreed with the Air Ministry, external lighting was allowed for railways, docks and certain industries. Some lights, such as railway signals, were left on after an Alert had sounded, but it has been proved by observation from the air that those lights gave no help to enemy pilots.
Except for lights specifically allowed, no external light was be shown during the blackout. A bonfire, for instance which remains alight after the black-out had began was an offence, and the person responsible was liable to be prosecuted. Outside garage and porch lights, like other outside lights, were prohibited, and people were told the electric bulbs should be removed so that the lights could not be switched on by mistake.
Torches were not be used out-of-doors, at any time during the blackout unless the light aperture had been reduced to not more than 1 inch in diameter (the size of a half-penny) and also dimmed by the insertion of a piece of, newspaper or its equivalent (two pieces of tissue paper are not an adequate equivalent). The light must be white, and the torch must always be pointed downwards. It should never be flashed in the eyes of an oncoming driver, or a serious accident may result. Correctly dimmed torches may be used after the Alert unless the police order them to be put out.
The hooded A.R.P. Hand-lamp" may used by anyone until there is an Alert and this lamp need not dimmed like a torch; but after the Alert the hand-lamp may be used only by Civil Defence personnel or other people authorised by me police. Until there is an Alert, hurricane lamps may be used on farms or for other kinds of work for which such lamps are necessary, but they must be kept as dim as possible, and screened so that no light goes upwards.
The 1st photo shows searching for survivors
2nd photo rescuing a women for a cellar
 
In Repy 83 I talked about an anderson shelter that was blown over the houses in Avenue Rd, I since have got photo's from an old friend which gives a clearer picture
Second photo shows the Midland Wheel Company 28 Avenue Rd in the 1980's
My wifes family lived opposite were the anderson shelter landed
The Prichards lived at no 6 Avenue rd
Woodcock 8
Wright 10
Rainey 12
Juxon 14
Wilkins 16
Cross 18
Painter 20
Phillips 24
Heath 26
The Midland Wheel Co at number 28
3rd Photo shows Joan Pritchard and and unknown chap outside 12 Avenus Rd. the chaps opposite the car are just by the Midland Wheel Co (pic taken about 48-50's )
 
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The Blackout during the blitz when the heroic firemen and rescuers try to save people trapped in burning building
 
"Number please ? Would you mind speaking up......there's some noise going on round here." In heavy raids, the girl operators dealing with emergency calls at the G.P.O. exchanges were workmanlike about their duties. Sometimes they could sit at their switchboards in shelter, but if anything went wrong they or their men colleagues might have to climb to a top floor and there handle special business while the raid went on. Bombs blasted in the windows of exchanges, incendiaries fired their buildings, ceilings and rooms filled with rubble, dust and smoke. Operators crouched beneath their switchboards to avoid flying bomb fragments and then got out to carry on.
The exchange might be a one-woman affair in a small village, on which depended the prospect of help for the civil defence services under one of those senseless and devastating attacks that did afflict villages. Then some elderly woman would sit at work for hours among the bombs and fires, all night and well into the next day. Upon her, as upon telephonists in every raided area, pivoted all the complex working of the defence machine.
When the Exchange got hit it was left to despatch riders and believe it or not kids on bikes to get messages through and they quickly grew up.......
Here are two extracts from official reports that tell the Messenger's story.
John Smith. Aged 16. Cyclist despatch rider (part-time). Normal civilian occupation: schoolboy.
"During last Thursday's enemy air attack, telephone communications were put out of action at an early hour. Smith maintained contact between the Report Centre and services in action by carrying operational messages on his cycle, riding the whole time except for three short intervals, once when he dismounted to extinguish an incendiary bomb that had fallen in dangerous proximity to a wooden fence, and twice when he was forced to disentangle his cycle from, loose telephone wires fallen across the roadway. The roads were also seriously obstructed by bomb craters and debris, as high explosives were falling continuously in the district.
Though exhausted from his efforts, he insisted on continuing to carry messages throughout the area all night. During the ten hours he was on duty Smith was the main channel of communication with the services."
This is the second :
"Particular praise is given by wardens to several boys who frankly confessed themselves frightened, but still did not hesitate to go out on long and hazardous journeys, not even when flat tyres could have been used as an excuse. Among the messengers was a small pale boy who begged to be allowed to take a message, but the Chief Warden, feeling that the danger was too great for him, put him off time after time with various excuses, the final one being that he had no bicycle. "Please, sir," said the lad eagerly,  "Billy will lend me his bicycle."
After some hesitation the Chief Warden finally sent him off. After a long time he returned, breathless, wild eyed and bleeding, and covered with dirt. He asked to speak to the Chief Warden privately. "Glad to see you back, my boy," said the Chief Warden as he bent down to listen to the lad's agitated whisper. "I daren't tell Billy, sir, but I've lost his bloody bicycle. I was blown off it, and when I got up I could only find the front wheel."

Bottom photo GPO Exchange after a hit
 
I've been trying to locate the pics in Reply 150, and think they were probably in that bit of Gt Lister St that was badly damaged in late 1940. The trolleybuses had not been running for a few months, and the overhead wires were never reinstated on that bit of road, although the rest were not taken down after the war. Otherwise it would have to be Coventry Road somwhere, which doesn't look likely to me. Not Digbeth or Bradford St, because they had tram tracks under the trolleybus wires in 1940.
Peter
 
Hello,

can anyone tell me if bombs fell in Franklin St/Rd and also 83 Albert Road or neighbouring houses. My great grandparents were bombed out and moved in with my grandparents at Kings Rd for a short while and I am trying to establish where they may have lived.

Thank you in advance for any help, it is greatly appreciated.

:smitten:

Sue - jetcat
 
Houses were demolished in Ettington Road ( about opposite the fire station ) incendiaries were dropped around the area but I don't remember any major damage in Albert Road.

Mike
 
Hi Cromwell, Do you know what date the HP vinagar vats & 155 Tower Road was bombed as that was the night my Gran & Gandad were made homeless?
ASTON
 
Aston I have not got a clue, I have Home Guard maps for 1940 and 1943 so it could be in between
 
Neville Chamberlian made his speech on 30th Sept 1938 "I believe it is peace in our time"
He made the Declaration of War 11-15am Sunday 3rd Sept 1939
Britain stood alone on the edge of western civilization. Across the Channel the German armies were consolidating their conquests. Hitler and his staff looked across the narrow expanse of water and considered the best way of subduing the small islands that rashly stood between Germany and the domination of Western Europe.
It seemed absurd by German reckoning that Great Britain, with her forty six million people, would continue to fight. The enemy's broadcasting stations poured forth a mixture of jibes and threats. German propagandists invented the myth of a half-starved British population clamouring for peace at any price.
But in the our cities a moral calm prevailed that astounded foreign observers. It was almost as though centuries of tradition inspired the British people with the inherent belief that their country had not attained a glorious destiny to become enslaved by the Nazis.
Winston Churchill was voicing the sentiments of the silent millions of his countrymen when he announced Britain's determination to fight on.
The ordinary folk of Britain rolled up their sleeves and went to their action stations.
In the munitions factories by day and the pubs by night with a devil may care attitude
"We will never be beaten" houses blown to bits but still we smiled and fought on
Not alone but as a single force with a single aim.......we won't be beaten till we are dead.....I wished I could have recorded those balmy nights in the pub next door at the height of the blitz........and recorded my Father thought's as he shielded my mother as the bombs rained down during a bomber's moon in Cromwell Street.
The United States of America came into the war on Dec.8th 1941
 
The First photo is the old St. Mathew's Vicarage which was damaged in the Blitz, St Mathew's Church was in between Great Lister St. and Lupin St. now its in Nechells Parkway. St.Mathew's once did have a spire but I don't know what happened to it.
All the Local churches had vaults or underground rooms which were used as air raid shelters and could accommodate 100's at a time.
During one air raid St.James Church on Barrack St got a direct hit burying over 100 people the vicar was down their with them and while they were being dug out he led the singing which grew louder and louder as they were uncovered........Not one person was injured.
The Second photo is Rocky Lane Chapel which had its roof blown of but it was soon back in service after a clean up and dust down and the following week it was Service as usual with no roof........
 
St James, Ashted Row before the war and after................our playground
 
I have a memory which I think I've mentioned somewhere on the forum before, of seeing the ruins of St James Chapel from a passing No 10 tram, a day or two after it had been bombed, I think it was December 1940 or January 1941. What was spectacular was that the roof gave way in the middle, while the gable ends remained moreorless intact, with the middle bit sagging into the building. I don't remember anything about the tower but perhaps you couldn't see that from Ashted Row anyway.
Peter.
 
Most of my memories in that vein come from my memories of the bombed houses along Summer Lane which I have mentioned before and from our family holidays to the coast in places like Margate which got very hard hit since the German bombers often released their extra bombs on the run across the Channel after being in transit over London and in dog fights very often with the RAF. Called "Tip and Run Raids" I believe there is a book about all of them on that coast between l942 and l944. My mother-in-law moved to the coast and told me about these German planes coming out of no where flying under the radar. Also, they thought nothing of strafing the High Streets of the coastal towns before turning out into the the English Channel.

The Holy Trinity Church, in particular in Margate just down the road from the guest house we stayed in had been bombed and left as is for a year or so after WW2. My brother Peter always wanted to play in there after he discovered he could get in. Like Cromwell says bomb sites were very exciting places for kids and no one stopped them having their adventures on them. I like to watch the film with Ian Bannen and Sarah Miles
called "Hope & Glory". I think that film says so much about the way people carried on
during the WW2.
 
Now here is an intresting little piece......these ARP Consols were made in Birmingham and were tested to the full with falling walls etc.......they were made to hold 4 people at a time and I don't know if anyone was in them when they were tested but if their was......... it would give you a headache
 
The house can get blown to bits but for some reason some things are not touched, when our Ma's house got hit everything was blown to smithereens, she was in the cellar untouched.....
 
I just wonder how many bits of Shrapnel are lying about in garden shed etc. and people ain't got a clue what it is or care........but to us it was like bits of gold ya could trade with ya mates
Shrapnel was the term used in WW2 for Bomb shards, pieces or splinters, (Shrapnel were steel or lead balls packed into a shell and exploded)
 
I can just remember my Dad and I collecting bits of silver paper strips that fell from the sky, I later leaned that this was some anti radar ply by the germans is that correct?
 
Yes and No............To baffle radar beams the RAF dropped tinfoil strips to confuse German Radar and interupt German Radar beams
 
The Germans sent a Radio beam and it criss crossed at Coventry and the German Bombers flew along this line .........we tried a lot of things to interupt this beam and progressed as the war went on.......also learning along the way.........both sides used tinfoil
I am trying to put what I say in a"Nutshell" if you want to find out more go on the internet as the subject is vast......if I tried to explain everything it would take the whole forum up......
 
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Hi Cromwell: Forward to Victory poster is very dramatic... Just wanted to comment on
post #157 the photo of the bombed houses with pictures on the wall and items on the shelves. That's exactly how I remember the houses in Summer Lane from the top of a 5a bus especially on the left hand side. Seeing those bombed houses was very puzzling to me as a very small child and I have never forgotten them.

As an aside, re the photo.....I have a Marley Horse statue that I picked up over 25 years ago from an antique shop in Vancouver. I see that there are a pair of them on the shelf on that photo. I looked on E-Bay and there are a pair for sale at sixty-seven pounds and this seller said he has seen an exact pair in an antique shop for two hundred and sixty pounds!. My statue is worth very little because we filed off the small bush on the side so that the horse would be the star.
Every once in a while you will see them in British film sets.
 
The Knickebein or Crooked Leg was a system of radio navigation used by German Bombers early on in the war. It was cleverly based on a aircraft landing aid system called Lorenz, it employed a three element Ariel.

A radio station transmitted two overlapping beams, coded with Morse pulses. By listening to the receiver, the pilot could determine whether he was in the left beam, the right beam, or in the overlapping area that would lead him to the target. Later on it was replaced by First the X Gerat then Y Gerat I think these used a higher radio frequency, and then a single beam nicknamed Wotan after one eyed god. Because the new X Gerat system required a complete and updated radio system there were not enough to go round, so the Germans used a Pathfinder system, the suitably equipped aircraft lighting up targets, which were then more easily identified by the none equipped aircraft.

The Air Ministry in England had many who doubted that the Germans had developed the system and Frederick Alexander Lindemann one of Winston Churchills advisors claimed it wasn't possible anyway due to the curvature of the earth, while a guy called Eckersley of the Marconi Radio company disputed this and said it could work.  The Brits however were soon able to jam the signals of the earlier Crooked Leg system but sharper filtering in the aircraft meant with the new system the jamming wasn't effective. The Brits were however catching up and recieved valuable intelligence from a HE 111 that crashed on the English Coast. The Brits were I think ready for Y Gerat using the BBC television transmitter at Alexandra Palace to re-transmit the signals which made the system inaccurate Over a period engineers slowly turned up the power so the Germans did not cotton on. Unfortunately this all came too late for the poor folk of Coventry.

The story of the Battle of the Beams is really quite fascinating and its worth reading up on it, my explanation leaves a lot of the facts out, Ive made it very brief.
 
Thanks for posting that Rod,
The RAF Plotters at the start of the war could not get their calculations right for the Fighter pilots to intercept enemy plane's and tried all different kinds of gadgets and instruments which only partly worked.
The man who came up with the solution was Wing Commander E.O.Grenfell who told them that he could do it all better using his eyes and was challenged to prove it against all the other methods........and like a red rag to a bull he accepted the challenge and completed a perfect interception........
All the computers and Mathematics were discarded and it was back to basic's to the simple "Principle of Equal Angles"
By drawing a line from bomber to fighter and making this the base for an isosceles triangle with the fighter angle always equal to the bomber angle............the two formations would meet at the apex of the triangle.........if the bomber altered course the plotter could work out a new triangle and tell the fighter pilot..........it was tried over a 100 times and got a 93% interception rate
 
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