Blitz Cities. But not Sheffield.

[Harleyman]

One story I heard was that fires were lit outside Sheffield on the moors. From the air they were supposed to look like foundries. I wonder how much the Luftwaffe was fooled by this.

 

An incendiary bomb landed on our house on Montgomery Terrace Road. Didn't do any damage though and my father kept the bomb's metal frame for years afterwards

[JFKvsNixon]

One story I heard was that fires were lit outside Sheffield on the moors. From the air they were supposed to look like foundries. I wonder how much the Luftwaffe was fooled by this.

 

An incendiary bomb landed on our house on Montgomery Terrace Road. Didn't do any damage though and my father kept the bomb's metal frame for years afterwards

 

Many years ago when I was a student I used to live in Montgomery Terrace road, Upperthorpe, if we're talking about the same street.

[Harleyman]

Many years ago when I was a student I used to live in Montgomery Terrace road, Upperthorpe, if we're talking about the same street.

 

The street ran parallel to a hospital whose name I cant remember and in the vicinity of Hillsborough barracks.

 

I visited the street in 1997. Most of the houses had been demolished by then but I believe the one we lived in was still standing. A food supermarket had been built at the bottom of the street

 

Do you remember the house number you lived at?

[blake]

the big blind spot for the German bombers was the South Wales valleys. There was a lot of war industrial production going on there, more than in Sheffield and South Yorkshire, but the nearest they got to it was when they bombed Cardiff which they did because it was a port, like Plymouth and Hull and also Liverpool got bombed so badly. That was the story of the German bombing campaigns really. They could get to the ports, and don't forget that was another reason why London and the south east got hit so much, but the German bombers could not affect the industrial production which was where the war was won really. Later on in the war the British were able to affect German industrial production much more when they bombed Germany, and it had a key effect on the outcome.

 

---------- Post added 11-09-2015 at 21:50 ----------

 

One story I heard was that fires were lit outside Sheffield on the moors. From the air they were supposed to look like foundries. I wonder how much the Luftwaffe was fooled by this.

 

LOL. I would have thought not at all. They would not have thought that the fires were foundries. but they might have thought that the fires were caused by one, 5, or 10 of their previous incendaries so PERHAPS another pilot might have dropped another few thinking that it was a target. The Germans knew that there was a blackout, which was enforced. They knew that the British weren't going to leave any lights or fires on show if they could help it.

[JFKvsNixon]

The street ran parallel to a hospital whose name I cant remember and in the vicinity of Hillsborough barracks.

 

I visited the street in 1997. Most of the houses had been demolished by then but I believe the one we lived in was still standing. A food supermarket had been built at the bottom of the street

 

Do you remember the house number you lived at?

 

No, unfortunately I cannot remember the number having moved around a bit as a student, but I was living there in 1997! The supermarket was partially on the site of the old hospital, which was the old Royal Infirmary Hospital.

[TJC1]

i watched an excellent program regarding Blitzed cities on the beeb a few nights back. it concerned liverpool and featured ricky tomlinson as part of a series of programs covering cities that had suffered in the blitz.

 

there are 5 programs but sheffield isn't covered. it seems the beeb couldn't find a suitable sheffield celebrity to host the program. celebrities being more important than content.

 

Do you know how many sheffielders died in the blitz?

[choogling]

Sheffield Blitz Casualties

Dec 12-14 1940

Dead 601

Serious 513

Slight 1053

[Daven]

Add to that 40,000 Sheffielders were made homeless, 3,000 homes were demolished and 3,000 badly damaged.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Daven

[Harleyman]

Google Sheffield blitz then look on Wikipedia. A lot of photos of the damage to Sheffield city centre

[Daven]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sheffield+blitz+damage&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCwQsARqFQoTCNuKmsD0-ccCFQedGgodxyMP-A&biw=1440&bih=759

 

This is the city we love circa 1940 - within living memory.