Marples Hotel and the Sheffield Blitz of 1940

[MysTique]

Originally posted by Michael_W

I think you might find this site helpful mate:

Chris Hobbs

Article about the Marples bombing at number 6 in the list.

 

Thank you so much for that link!

 

My Great Aunt and her husband were both musicians in the band at Marples. Unfortunately they were both killed on that night.

 

Through Chris Hobbs' website and also the CWGC link provided, I've tracked them both down and obtained their CWGC certificates.

 

So, once again, Thank You

[lulu77]

my great uncle who was in the canadian airforce was killed in the marples hotel on the night of the blitz bomb, they could only identify him by his cigarette lighter with the maple leaf on it. he is buried in the "blitz garden of rememberance" in city road cemetery.

[Juicy-Lucy]

Hey there,

Just wondering if anyone has any information on the Marples bombing in the second World War

 

I am particularly interested in what they did with all the rubble, as there has been a rumour that it was used in the foundations of some houses near where I live. Was just wondering if this was true

 

Thanks,

 

Lucy x

[Michael_W]

Try this article on Chris Hobbs site:

 

http://www.chrishobbs.com/marples1940.htm

[Kristian]

Mod Note: Threads merged. Please remember to search before posting a new thread.

[Nigel Womersle]

I often wonder just how The Marples (all seven stories of it) collapsed, but the White Building next door was left standing. This also applied to C&A Modes - nearly all of it collapsed, but the Burton building next door remained standing, but became a burnt out shell, the fire having spread to it from C&A. Did the weight of the bombs cause more damage than the actual explosion itself - can anyone advise? The Marples hit was one of the worst things about the Sheffield Blitz. Those poor people, simply trying to enjoy themselves at a time when morale certainly needed a strong uplift. God rest their souls.

[Plain Talker]

My grandma was not that long married when the Marples was "blitzed". she and my grandpa lived just beside the Royal Hospital Off West Street, with my poppa, who would have been little more than a babe in arms.

 

The 12th Dec was a thursday. the raids during the blitz had pretty much razed a lot of the city centre to the ground.

 

There was much loss of life, in the hit that the marples took, and (urban?) legend certainly has it that many of the bodies were not recovered from the flattened building, but just "limed". (I have to admit to feeling more than a little shudder when i went under the underpass beside the rebuilt marples building, as a teenager.)

 

My gran told the tale of passing the bombed out Marples, the next morning, as the recovery operation was under way. (such as they could do, considering the extensive battering Sheffield had taken in the raids, and the way the services were stretched as a result.)

 

She told me, that, as she passed the Marples' ruins, they brought a body out, on a stretcher; a young man, probably not that different in age than my gran (20 or 30 at most, she seemed to think.)

 

She described this young man as being so very handsome:- Blonde, with a beautiful physique, like an Adonis, she said. There was not one mark on him, that she could see; she surmised that he must have suffered internal trauma, causing his death, as was most often the case in an explosion.

 

She was harrrowed by this sight, and was still distressed by the memory, forty- odd years after, in relating the story to me, when she was an elderly woman. The poor chap... so young, so handsome, his life snuffed out in the bombing (like so many others) A horribly sad story.

[bushbaby 3]

my grandad was chief comissonaire at the electra cinema across the square from marples he was working the door the night marples was bombed. he actually saw the bomb drop on it .ther was a snooker hall below the electra and all the audience was evacuated into it the people were sheltering under the snooker tables.he walked home that night through the smouldering rubble to make sure my gran was alright'sadly i never knew my grandad as he died three years before i was born but they said he wasnt the same man ever again after witnessing what he saw.

[Freyrefaxe]

My Father Ernest Fairfax was a fireman in Sheffield during the Second World war. He was on duty on the night of the raid that demolished Marples. The destruction he said was terrible and identifying victims was very difficult but as far as he was able to say all the dead were taken out, although no one could be sure because the pub was so popular and always full. He himself suffered what is now called post-traumatic stress dis-order as a result of his experiences during the whole of the blitz. Then it was called 'nerves'. In the 1990's I made what was something of a tribute to his sacrifice and those of many other 'Sheffielders' of that period in a TV/Video Documentary with the title 'Sheffield Blitz.'