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The Bombing Of Coventry BBC 2

Alf

Alf

Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
Did anyone see this programme last night.

Its a must see:(

If you didn't you can get on BBCi Player
 
Morning Alf,
Yes I watched it, quite a harrowing experience just doing so.
They say that Malta was the heaviest bombed place on the planet during WW11, but I reckon Coventry has to be in the running.
Regards John.
 
Morning John

Yes John even hairs on the back of my neck started rising again.

For years everytime I heard a siren they use to do that, its only in the last few years that I stopped doing it.
 
I watched it and couldn't believe how bad it was. My Dad was an electrical engineer in the war and his job was to keep the factories going. He was sent to Coventry after the first bombing raid. My mother said it was awful as there was no way you could contact anyone there. She was in Great Barr and she said the sky over Coventry glowed red. Dad nearly lost his life but was saved by a work mate, when a building they were working on to get an electricity supply collapsed.
I thought the programme really bought the horror of war home to people like me who weren't born until after the war.
 
Yes Wendy I've seen programmes on the Coventry Bombing before but that was something else.:(
 
On the night coventry was bombed,I was standing with the grown up's looking at the red sky in the distance,and remember it being said" Coventry is being hit...and probably grateful it wasn't them.
A few years later,c1947,our school boxing team from U.T.S.went to Coventry for a tournament at a drill hall,living in Aston I was quite used to bomb sites,but nothing like what I saw there...
 
My Dad was on leave the night Coventry was bombed and had volunteered for fire watch duties on the roof of Times Furnishers in New Street. I remember him telling me years later that the horizon lit up like a sun rise, and, every now and then when the wind turned he could hear the sirens & bombs, he felt utterly useless.
He hardly ever spoke of his time during the war and after seeing last nights documentary & others like it, who could blame him.
 
Been reading the posts on the Bombing of Coventry BBC 2 programme. I thought it was impressive but there is probably more to be told.

I went to College in Coventry in the early 1970s and lodged with an old lady. She and her friends still felt very sharply about the causualty (death) figures released at the time and just after the war, that were the same ones used in the programme. They thought the figures had been massaged down to a third of the actual. They based this on trying to find people they knew at the time and years after and checking them against the missing and the dead. I didn't take much notice at the time but looking at the film the casulty figures from the bombing and firestorm looked low.

They also talked about the workers brought in from Birmingham after the raid to get repairs and production running again, again scarcely covered in the film.
 
hi all
my mom was home on leave in Brum from the WAAF the night Coventry was bombed and went with ARP ambulances and other vol's to help in the aftermath.
regards
paul
 
Good on your mom Paul,giving up her own hard earned R & R,to help others,a good woman, doing the best she could in very difficult times.
 
Growing up during the war I was aware that Coventry cathedral had been bombed and that was about it. I have never been to Coventry and when I saw the documentary on TV, I was quite shocked to learn how severe the bombing had been. I am very pleased I watched the programme as it was quite enlightening. Anthea:)
 
It makes your heart bleed to see what happened to the people and their city and it makes you proud to see how they overcame the awfulness of it all.

I remember my Mother telling how she saw the bombers going over and they didn't know if it was Birmingham that was going to get it "but we soon saw it was Coventry" I was a month old..........how terrifing for a young (she was 23) widow with two tiny children
 
I didn't realise rowan how many historic buildings Coventry had all we have ever saw was clips of the bombing and the place after.

I wish I had the chance to see it as it was.
 
I watched it tonight on BBC 2 and I wept. I've also recorded it but I don't think that I'll have to heart to look again.:cry:
 
Graham I've watched it a couple of times and I wept the first time, the last time I tried to understand how the people felt and I don't think I would ever beable to do that.:(

Most people should see that Film and understand how lucky they are.
 
i agree with you alf...we all know and respect how hard the wars were for our soldiers fighting on the front line but until we watch something like this its quite easy to forget the horrors and heartache felt by those who never knew if they would still be alive the next day and then having to pick up the pieces if they were bombed out....ive said it many times before i have the utmost respect for the folk who lived with the unknown who picked themselves up and carried on best they could...

lyn
 
It was horrible what Germany did to Coventry.
I read somewhere that Birmingham was hit just as hard, but their was a block on reporting about it, too keep it secret from the Germans.
War is terrible we bombed them a lot harder.
 
yes it was horrible what they did to dear old cov;
the other week on the news they mentioned it about cov;
and they said churchill had some inclinings but he never
the sad unfortunate of the story was the germans was stupid
and read there maps wrong they had intended to both us
we the brummises , [ b,ham ] and they mistaked dear old cov; for birmingham the heart of our bomb making city ,and industry.
thats the real cluts of the matter thats why they was severely damaged and lost of lives and i know we took a pasting as well
and there was a great big one dropped around great king st
my mother was young and lived in the coffee house as recalls
in telling us her memory of frights of the bombing of birmingham
they say church hill won the war ,
but it was us the working class and our shear back bone ,blood sweat and tears that made us come through and win the war
but as i expect some-one will say church hill and dear old monty
done the planning .yes monty was out there doing is bit but churchill
no the only thing he done was in the office or moving around with
is favorite cigar -but yes we will never forget those and our men we lost so guys don,t forget your poppy,s on poppy day
i have a lot of poppies in my special draw which i have kept for many years and i still save them i have bought myself one yet again
for this year and i will continue until the day i die
last year i was in hospital and my little grandson brought me one to the hospital so i would have one as he knows i would never forget one
best wishes astonion ;;;;;
REMEMBER POPPY DAY,---
 
My great Uncle, John Wilcox Oswin, his wife Margaret and daughter Margaret (Peggy) were all killed when their Crosby Street Anderson Shelter took a direct hit during the April raids of 1941. Their house however, was left standing, just a section of the roof being damaged; had they stayed beneath their own stairs, they would have survived. Another relative was killed that same evening, whilst he was in hospital, recovering from injuries received during an earlier air-raid. Nearer to the Cathedral, my Great Grandfather's 'silk-weaving loft' was hit by an incendiary bomb, breaking just one pane of the glass sky-light; the incendiary burnt its way through three floors before destroying the living accomodation on the ground floor. The largely glass 'loft' was left intact!
 
RobertS said:
Been reading the posts on the Bombing of Coventry BBC 2 programme. I thought it was impressive but there is probably more to be told.

I went to College in Coventry in the early 1970s and lodged with an old lady. She and her friends still felt very sharply about the causualty (death) figures released at the time and just after the war, that were the same ones used in the programme. They thought the figures had been massaged down to a third of the actual. They based this on trying to find people they knew at the time and years after and checking them against the missing and the dead. I didn't take much notice at the time but looking at the film the casulty figures from the bombing and firestorm looked low.

They also talked about the workers brought in from Birmingham after the raid to get repairs and production running again, again scarcely covered in the film.
Click to expand...


As a child, I recall hearing something very similar from my relatives who survived the Coventry bombing; I remember being told that over 36,000 homes, shops and businesses were destroyed during all of the raids upon Coventry. I cannot believe that so much devastation was accompanied by the stated death-toll; bad as it was, it must surely have been more?
 
I can well remember the raid on Coventry althoughI was ony ten years old,
my Dad was a ARP warden and I stood with him in our back garden, the
whole sky was on fire, the sight will stay in my memory for ever.
I n more recent times my wifes brother lived in a hight raise flat at Tile
Cross, and we used to visit them quite often and we aways finished up at
Coventry, not being keen on shops I used to wonder around the City with
my camera hense photo, cheers. Bernard
 
Astonian said:
yes it was horrible what they did to dear old cov; and they said churchill had some inclinings but he never

REMEMBER POPPY DAY,---
Click to expand...

My mother (1910-1977) lost her dad and her husband in two world wars, hated Churchill calling him a "war monger".
 
Some of you will know I was a tourist guide with a Hackney Carriage and one day I was approached at the N.E.C. by a group of Afrikanes, I hope that is spelt o/k. They had been told I was a guide and they wanted to see a few things before they went home. It turned out that there was ten of them, some being German. I got another driver to help me and we arranged it for the next day. They wanted to see the old Triumph works at Meriden and Warwick Castle. I had the germans because they have a wierd sense of humour and the other guy had the others. They were impressed with meriden, then we shot into Coventry and showed them the ruined Cathedral alongside the new one. My friend said " the bloody rotten Germans did this during the war". I could have slid down the crack betwen the paving slabs. After a quick look around we set off for Warwick and we went through Kenilworth. Of course the foreigners wanted to see the castle so we did a quick trip round it. Then they wanted lunch so we ate at The Castle pub on the green. The Germans insisted on paying the bill in retribution for the damage in Coventry. Of course we were now late for Warwick but we went anyway. We entered the gates and were told it was shut. One of the germans saw a painting of the old King and he remarked that it resembled me. I told him it was one of my ancestors and he played holy hell with the staff because he wanted to buy this painting. Anyway, we took them back to the airport for their flight home, they paid handsomely and arranged to use me next time they were here which they did. That story is absolutely true and is one of many that I will remember until I die.
 
I have some 8mm Film taken from the top of the burnt out Coventry Cathedral, I took it around 1960. Can you still go up the Tower now anyone know.:)
 
hi all
I never saw my dad (1915-1998), cry ever as a kid, but I was home on sick leave in 1965 and he crIed like a baby over winston churchills funeral, he truly loved that man.
REGARDS
PAUL
 
Glad they still allow people up the Tower what with all this elf & Safety going on now:)
 
i remember my mother in law a nurse at kynochs witton telling me how they stood on the outside fire escape stairs and could see coventry burning..
 
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