London lucky to survive The Blitz.

Mint Sauce

Discovered this interactive website over the weekend. Now I know the Germans may not have had the Lazer or Satellite guided bombs that armies have today, but this guide shows the huge extent of their bombing raids, and alot on residential areas as well as the industrial areas of London, showing the raids were pretty indiscriminate.

Might not appeal to everyone, but posters originally from London or England, or anyone with an interest in the subject might consider it worth a look.

News of Website

Website

keith16

I wonder what a similar map of Dresden would look like.

SEPT 23 1989

keith16 wrote: »

I wonder what a similar map of Dresden would look like.

they started it:D

deandean

It doesn't look indiscriminate at all to me, it looks well planned and executed.

There must have been thousands of those red balls all over London during the blitz.

Lapin

Cool Website.

It really shows how insiscriminate and shíte the Luftwaffe were.

My old neck of the woods took a fair hammering but there were no bombs dropped at nearby RAF Hendon. A genuine strategic target.

Pottler

I thought this was going to be about Rugby.

Stained Class

Interesting. I see a bomb landed just yards from my old house in the Blitz.

Never knew that before now.

SEPT 23 1989

Must have been a waking nightmare every night when the sirens started going off

dd972

impressive website, shudder to think what it would look like if the Nazis ambitions were west orientated instead of their lebensraum project

I used to hear those sirens quite often in the early 1970s, in the rural town I lived near, they were used to call the retained firemen to duty.

They used the "all clear" sound (one long blast)

The sirens are still in use today on the North Norfolk coast for flood warnings using the air raid warning sound!

branie

In my Leaving Cert history days, I did a project on the Battle of Britain, which was part of the Blitz

MagicMarker

keith16 wrote: »

I wonder what a similar map of Dresden would look like.

And so it goes...

SafeSurfer

If the Luftwaffe had been allowed to continue concentrating on RAF targets like airfields and radar installations instead of bombing London in retaliation for an RAF raid on Berlin, the Battle of Britain could have turned out very differently.

Mint Sauce

Stained Class wrote: »

Interesting. I see a bomb landed just yards from my old house in the Blitz.

Never knew that before now.

Seen two that landed within the vancity that my estate was built on. Was built during the 70's/80's so not sure what the Germans were hitting/aiming for during the Blitz.

Also looked at residential areas that I knew, some where family are currently living, alot that built during Edwardian and Victorian times, ie, before WW2.

Pottler

Moving the map around using the navigation arrows is about as easy as trying to hit somthing with an unguided bomb.

Going by the map, a bomb fell about 50m from my old house in Finchley, not surprised really, there was a bomb shelter(concrete) in the back garden that had been converted into a coal cellar and the attic was full of gas masks and black-out lamps and even a babys version of a full body gas protector. There were also several ARP helmets, so maybe the wartime owner was an Air raid warden. I left them there, figured they were sort of a part of the houses history.

On another note, should have kept that house, severly posh part of London..damn. Never look back!

keith16

keith16 wrote: »

I wonder what a similar map of Dresden would look like.

It's phenomenal how many people don't know about the bombing of Dresden. I mean, I didn't previous to reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's insane that nobody fully knows the extent of the casualties - numbers seem to be between 130,000 and 300,000, more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - there were too many refugees escaping the war.

http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-10589.html this is an interactive map of aerial photos from after the bombing. It really does look like the moon.

bnt

What a strange thread title. London as a city was in no danger of destruction. A city is more than a collection of buildings.

irish-stew

irish-stew wrote: »

Seen two that landed within the vancity that my estate was built on. Was built during the 70's/80's so not sure what the Germans were hitting/aiming for during the Blitz.

Also looked at residential areas that I knew, some where family are currently living, alot that built during Edwardian and Victorian times, ie, before WW2.

Accuracy was give or take half a mile in those days, with the blackout, there were few visual clues for the night bombers to use. So they usually carpet bombed the area in the hope that at least one would hit the target.

dr.bollocko

SafeSurfer wrote: »

If the Luftwaffe had been allowed to continue concentrating on RAF targets like airfields and radar installations instead of bombing London in retaliation for an RAF raid on Berlin, the Battle of Britain could have turned out very differently.

That seems like an oddly specific statement to me. Can you tell me where you read that because it raises a POV I have not heard before.

The battle of britain involved a number of large scale strikes on RAF targets and sea targets.

The bombed and shutdown radar stations a few times but they could be rebuilt quickly and the Germans didn't realise the strategic impact of them.

Likewise they never had a full intelligence of where the most strategic targets were to bomb. The aim of the Blitz and the sustained campaign of bombings was to demolish British morale and force them to surrender but London was a huge industrial target for the Germans. As was Liverpool.

Also the Germans lacked truly effective bombers for this type of campaign and were honed around a style of war which involved a rapidly advancing ground force. As Britain is an island a large scale ground force offensive was not going to happen unless the luftwaffe paved the way.

The city was destroyed but Londoners weren't lucky. They just would not quit.

Mint Sauce

bnt wrote: »

What a strange thread title. London as a city was in no danger of destruction. A city is more than a collection of buildings.

Strange title, how so? Just take a look at the number of bombs dropped and their spread across both the City of London and Greater London.

The bombs hit every type of infrastructure, commercial, industrial, and residential, involving the military, civilian, public, and private buildings alike.

Rascasse

Deleted User wrote: »

It's phenomenal how many people don't know about the bombing of Dresden. I mean, I didn't previous to reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's insane that nobody fully knows the extent of the casualties - numbers seem to be between 130,000 and 300,000, more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - there were too many refugees escaping the war.

http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-10589.html this is an interactive map of aerial photos from after the bombing. It really does look like the moon.

I assume (or hope) that this is an attempt at a comedy post.

Piliger

Deleted User wrote: »

It's phenomenal how many people don't know about the bombing of Dresden. I mean, I didn't previous to reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's insane that nobody fully knows the extent of the casualties - numbers seem to be between 130,000 and 300,000, more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - there were too many refugees escaping the war.

http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-10589.html this is an interactive map of aerial photos from after the bombing. It really does look like the moon.

That's what you get when you gas millions of people and start two wars.

Pilotdude5

Lufthansa Captain to First-Officer, forgetting that the frequency was open: "We used to come up the Thames, and turn over here for the docks…."

Voice on frequency: "ACHTUNG SPITFEUR"

Pottler

Rascasse wrote: »

I assume (or hope) that this is an attempt at a comedy post.

As in? My old lads family lived about 80km from Dresden at that time and said the night sky lit up like the end of the world. Apparently the fire-storms just raced through the city and killed thousands upon thousands. Comedy how exactly?

summerskin

boneyarsebogman wrote: »

It's phenomenal how many people don't know about the bombing of Dresden. I mean, I didn't previous to reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's insane that nobody fully knows the extent of the casualties - numbers seem to be between 130,000 and 300,000, more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - there were too many refugees escaping the war.

http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-10589.html this is an interactive map of aerial photos from after the bombing. It really does look like the moon.

The Dresden council put the figure at 25k, the figures you quoted have been debunked as false time and time again.

Mr Benevolent

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Must have been a waking nightmare every night when the sirens started going off

Sorry, I thought you said **** nightmare. Danger **** all round!

keith16

Piliger wrote: »

That's what you get when you gas millions of people and start two wars.

The firebombing of a city of no strategic interest and full of internal refugees is very much a war crime regardless of what precipitated it.

Pottler

Confab wrote: »

Sorry, I thought you said **** nightmare.

Probably was fairly hard to remain focussed with all that wailing going on outside..:D

petersburg2002

keith16 wrote: »

I wonder what a similar map of Dresden would look like.

Or Berlin. Bombed to fcuk.

"They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind"

Rascasse

Pottler wrote: »

As in? My old lads family lived about 80km from Dresden at that time and said the night sky lit up like the end of the world. Apparently the fire-storms just raced through the city and killed thousands upon thousands. Comedy how exactly?

Well, firstly he cites a novel as a source, then claims that the number of "casualties" in Dresden were greater than the number of those in Hiroshima & Nagasaki combined which is just laughable.

Where To

Watford escaped relatively unscathed. The Luftwaffe must have seen Watford Services and thought they'd already obliterated it.

Capt'n Midnight

Meanwhile in Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaN_-qiVXX8

More people died in the bombing of Hamburg during the last week of July 1943 than died in the 'Blitz'

petersburg2002

And if De Valera had fallen for Churchill's charms and joined the war effort the Luftwaffe bombers would have made light work of Dublin.

Mr Benevolent

petersburg2002 wrote: »

And if De Valera had fallen for Churchill's charms and joined the war effort the Luftwaffe bombers would have made light work of Dublin.

Dublin wasn't worth it. We were strategically useless.

dr.bollocko

Piliger wrote: »

That's what you get when you gas millions of people and start two wars.

That's somewhat tit-for-tat considering what we're comparing here.

London was seen as a legitimate target by the German military. Dunkirk had just happened. France had surrendered. Germany was cresting a wave of complete and easy victories around a blitzkrieg offensive. Their entire army, strategy and all their resources were concentrated on blitzkrieg offensive.

Their wave of bombings on major cities as well as military targets would all have been viewed by the allies as legitimate military targets because the allies held similar views on what legitimate targets were. And in both cases those on the attack were motivated by ending the war very quickly.

London was seen as a hugely important military city by the Nazis. Dresden was similarly viewed by the allies. The intense campaign around London was maintained to force the hand of the British to sign an armistice to end the bombings. The Germans thought they were hitting targets which as well as destroying British morale would also destroy the British war industry and force Britain to surrender.

The intense campaign around Dresden was launched to strike a blow at the heart of the German war industry. It was viewed by British intelligence as one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich.

Now you can look at it in the larger scale and look how the terms of "legitimate target" was redefined by the allies during the Pacific endgame. But you still have to frame it around a situation where the war needed to be over and the Japanese would not surrender. Hitler would never surrender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#Military_and_industrial_profile

Seeking to establish a definitive casualty figure—in part to address propagandisation of the bombing by far-right groups—an independent investigation conducted in 2010 on behalf of the Dresden city council stated that a maximum of 25,000 people were killed, of which 20,100 are known by name.

The bombing of Dresden is seen as a huge question mark. Were the allies right to do it.
However you have to look at what was known at the time. Dresden was an industrial city in German territory and troops on the ground were dying daily gaining ground on east and west fronts on a war that was essentially already won yet casualties were still high. Hitler was never going to surrender.

Capt'n Midnight

Lapin wrote: »

Cool Website.

It really shows how insiscriminate and shíte the Luftwaffe were.

My old neck of the woods took a fair hammering but there were no bombs dropped at nearby RAF Hendon. A genuine strategic target.

You do know that the Luftwaffe were prohibited from attacking cities until an RAF raid on Berlin bombed some civilian areas don't you ?

And night bombing accuracy at that stage of the war was +/- several miles. Radio beacons and signals helped later, but jamming removed that accuracy too.

petersburg2002

Confab wrote: »

Dublin wasn't worth it. We were strategically useless.

Well British mouths needed to be fed. So we potentially had our uses.

goose2005

Deleted User wrote: »

It's phenomenal how many people don't know about the bombing of Dresden. I mean, I didn't previous to reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's insane that nobody fully knows the extent of the casualties - numbers seem to be between 130,000 and 300,000, more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined - there were too many refugees escaping the war.

The bombing of Japan by conventional bombs was even worse than the nuclear attacks - this is a city hit by ordinary bombs, not nuked - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Shizuoka_following_United_States_air_raids.jpg

Pepe LeFrits

heh, all three of my former addresses got pretty close to bullseyed. I knew the first had as the buildings were old with the odd modern house stuck in between, and in the third place there's a huge gap in an otherwise uniformly housed street.

Strangely, my second address is featured twice in The King's Speech and yet it has the least evidence that it was bombed

petersburg2002

goose2005 wrote: »

The bombing of Japan by conventional bombs was even worse than the nuclear attacks - this is a city hit by ordinary bombs, not nuked - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Shizuoka_following_United_States_air_raids.jpg

A lot of the Japanese buildings were built in the traditional manner (I.e) wood. The old parts of Tokyo for example. So didn't take more than a few incendiary bombs to set off an inferno.

purplepanda

I moved to London when I was a kid, late '60's you could easily tell where the bombs had landed due to the various bombsites not built on & bombsites with buildings built later on in the '50's, 60's & 70's & beyond. Virtually everything else left standing from the war was built in Victorian or Georgian times

Bombsites were still great fun for youngsters even in the '70's. No wonder the relatives thought me & the brothers were nuts when visiting Ireland

Lapin

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You do know that the Luftwaffe were prohibited from attacking cities until an RAF raid on Berlin bombed some civilian areas don't you ?

And night bombing accuracy at that stage of the war was +/- several miles. Radio beacons and signals helped later, but jamming removed that accuracy too.

Yes.

But I don't see how any of that is relavant to my post. The fact is, London was bombed regardless of when it occured and the fact remains that the bombings were indiscriminate.

dr.bollocko

Lapin wrote: »

Yes.

But I don't see how any of that is relavant to my post. The fact is, London was bombed regardless of when it occured and the fact remains that the bombings were indiscriminate.

The bombings were made at night. They were made at night to protect the luftwaffe from being in full view of the RAF.

The missiles were essentially unguided and hugely inaccurate.

When the allies were bombing strategic french targets to prepare for d-day less than 10% of the bombs dropped were in any way accurate in terms of their intended targets. If the huge campaign of pre D-day bombings on France was more accurate it would have hugely helped the ground offensive. The pilots were hampered by having to estimate targets with minimal information to hand.

But the pilots had targets.

Stained Class

irish-stew wrote: »

Seen two that landed within the vancity that my estate was built on. Was built during the 70's/80's so not sure what the Germans were hitting/aiming for during the Blitz.

Also looked at residential areas that I knew, some where family are currently living, alot that built during Edwardian and Victorian times, ie, before WW2.

I lived in a Victorian era street & there were no gaps in the terrace of houses where the bomb fell.

I can only assume that the bomb must have been only a small one & it fell in the middle of the road...

SafeSurfer

dr.bollocko wrote: »

That seems like an oddly specific statement to me. Can you tell me where you read that because it raises a POV I have not heard before.

The battle of britain involved a number of large scale strikes on RAF targets and sea targets.

The bombed and shutdown radar stations a few times but they could be rebuilt quickly and the Germans didn't realise the strategic impact of them.

Likewise they never had a full intelligence of where the most strategic targets were to bomb. The aim of the Blitz and the sustained campaign of bombings was to demolish British morale and force them to surrender but London was a huge industrial target for the Germans. As was Liverpool.

Also the Germans lacked truly effective bombers for this type of campaign and were honed around a style of war which involved a rapidly advancing ground force. As Britain is an island a large scale ground force offensive was not going to happen unless the luftwaffe paved the way.

The city was destroyed but Londoners weren't lucky. They just would not quit.

I thought it was not just a well known point of view but an accepted historical fact that the switching of concentration from RAF specific targets to more general retaliatory targets took the pressure off the RAF at a critical time and effectively cost the Luftwaffe the battle.

Below from one source

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/August%202008/0808battle.aspx

The British people look back on this part of the battle as "the desperate days." Looking back later, Churchill said, "In the fighting between Aug. 24 and Sept. 6, the scales had tilted against Fighter Command."


Just as things were looking grim, Hitler made a critical mistake. He changed Luftwaffe targeting. In August, two German pilots who had flown off course on a night mission dropped their bombs on London. The RAF bombed the Berlin suburbs in reprisal. Germans were shocked and outraged, having been assured by Hitler and Goering that their capital was safe from British bombers. An enraged Hitler on Sept. 5 ordered a change in basic strategy, shifting the Luftwaffe’s focus of attack from British airfields to the city of London.

That took the pressure off Fighter Command at a critical time. RAF fighter losses fell below the output of replacements. In diverting the offensive from the RAF, the Germans had lost sight of the valid assumption with which they had begun: The key objective was destruction of the RAF. Otherwise, the Sea Lion invasion would not be possible.

Pottler

I've posted this before - I'd an uncle who was a Luftwaffe bomber pilot flying in the Blitz campaign. He flew 19 missions and was then invalided out due to mental stress.

Basically, he had a nervous breakdown. According to him, 12 of them would take off from bases in France, flying twin engined light bombers, and 4 or 5 would make it back. Day after day they had to play the odds and after 6 or 7 missions, none of the originals had come back at all, it was all new pilots.

They were so scared they'd drop their bombs as fast as possible, and wherever it could be construed that "they had tried". Doubt accuracy was too high on the lists - the Me109 escorts had so little fuel left when the return flight was taken into consideration that basically the bombers had no escorts over London - and the RAF were considered rather efficent at shooting down Heinkels..

He spent the rest of his days as a very fragile minded nervous wreck making rope ornaments for tourists to buy.

Manic Moran

dr.bollocko wrote: »

That seems like an oddly specific statement to me. Can you tell me where you read that because it raises a POV I have not heard before.

The battle of britain involved a number of large scale strikes on RAF targets and sea targets.

The bombed and shutdown radar stations a few times but they could be rebuilt quickly and the Germans didn't realise the strategic impact of them.

No, the Germans knew exactly what they were, that's why when the Germans switched their emphasis onto dealing with Fighter Command the radar stations took quite the drubbing.

I believe Dowding had said after the conflict that Fighter Command would have collapsed within two weeks has the political decision not been made to stop beating up on the fighters and instead beat up the cities

bluecode

There is a WW2 forum for this kind of topic, although it is sometimes inhabited by neo Nazis and apologists for the Third Reich.

Interesting post from Pottler, not surprising. The Luftwaffe were wasted attacking Britain. As in wasted. Wouldn't have fancied being a Luftwaffe bomber pilot, life expectancy must have been pretty low.

But no match for the life expectancy of RAF bomber command. 50,000 dead and no medal or until recently a memorial, just because of Dresden. Not even their fault.

Pottler

I don't think either side covered themselves in glory with the bombing of civilians, bad business whichever way you look at it. The Americans took it up a notch towards the end of the war with their Thunderbolt attack fighters - they basically flew around the German countryside shooting up everything that moved, which was mostly refugees, cows, women hanging out washing and some military targets.


My old lad said when they saw the first daylight bombing raid, by American bombers, he knew Germany would loose the war - he said the sky was just filled with planes, wave after wave after wave. No way could any power that could unleash that many planes ever be beaten, he knew.

dr.bollocko

Manic Moran wrote: »

No, the Germans knew exactly what they were, that's why when the Germans switched their emphasis onto dealing with Fighter Command the radar stations took quite the drubbing.

I believe Dowding had said after the conflict that Fighter Command would have collapsed within two weeks has the political decision not been made to stop beating up on the fighters and instead beat up the cities

And the French predicted it in advance as well didn't they... Led to Churchill's famous "Some chicken... Some neck" speech.

The only explanation I have ever found that makes any sense to me considering the huge strategic importance of those radar feeds to the RAF at that time was that the Germans did not quite understand just how much the British relied on this technology and by extension other technologies and innovations to gain the upper hand. The Germans knew what those targets were. They knew where they were. They were exposed and easy to spot targets on a huge battlefront of coast and they could have been destroyed easily time and again making rebuilding a wasteful and pointless act. They could be rebuilt inside of two months when they were bombed if I recall correctly.

I think that based on what I have read those targets were under-estimated in terms of how much intelligence they provided as opposed to ignored in favour of randomly killing civilians or ineffectually bombing urban targets.

Basil Fawlty

Our Allies fought and died to protect the life we take for granted today, Dresden may not have been our finest hour but it was unfortunately a fight to the death, us or them. Thats how it was, we can not be expected to feel the way those people did then.

I for one am grateful to all those who fought to maintain our way of life. To forget it is to allow a chance for it to happen again.