World War Two: Evidence of damage/stuff left over now.

[loafer123]

MentalSarcasm said:

loafer123 said:

I have a copy of the London Bomb Damage maps which shows the extent of damage caused by bombs in Greater London during WW2 and the location of each V2 rocket landing.

Absolutely fascinating.

They might be the ones that were used to create the Bomb Sight website;

http://www.bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900

Covers 7th October 1940 to 6th June 1941. The pattern of red over certain areas is mind blowing.

Here is an example; The circles are V1 & V2 rocket landing sites, and the darker the colour, the more damage to buildings from all types of bomb;

[Mr Happy]

wildcat45 said:

Mr Happy said:

I'm sure that this building in Hull was left as it was when it was hit by one of the hundreds of bombs dropped there during WW2.

I was going to mention this, but I don't know where it is in Hull. What street is it on?

The odd thing is I love stuff like this - hence the thread - I lived in Hill for three years and knew nothing about it.

Hull, like parts of Sunderland is one of those forgotten victims of bombing. Both places really took a pasting and it's hard to explain, but it seems in some way parts of those towns never really recovered from the Blitz. I wish I could describe it better.

It's on Beverley Road, the main road running through the middle of the city, just before it turns into the Ferensway as it passes the train station.

[Tango13]

Digswell viaduct, as seen on Top Gear (twice)



What I believe to be anti-tank obstacles.



This is one is on the opposite side of the road.

[Rickyy]

We have WW2 pillboxes dotted along the coastline in South Wales.

This one is on the cliffs at Llantwit Major...



A house in the town was apparently destroyed during the war too.

[Dr Jekyll]

There used to be a load of apparent tank traps in the verges under the railway bridge at Darnacle Hill near NewgateStreet in Hertfordshire. I assume railway bridges were regarded as good places to block roads.

[Tango13]

Dr Jekyll said:

There used to be a load of apparent tank traps in the verges under the railway bridge at Darnacle Hill near NewgateStreet in Hertfordshire. I assume railway bridges were regarded as good places to block roads.

Just had a look on google street view and you can see some concrete blocks underneath the railway arch.

[parakitaMol.]

TheJelley said:

Along the length of the Kennet and Avon canal in there are pillboxes from this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-second...

There are loads of them, very interesting. Having had a look around a few of them, they will be here for a thousand years.

The land that used to belong to our house (now divided off) was a WW2 airfield. We have about 6 pillboxes around our lane and behind our house. Recently during some drainage work we found a rusted insignia badge from something - there is probably loads of it around here. There is a group of locals who gather memorabilia & photos.

[wildcat45]

Mr Happy said:

It's on Beverley Road, the main road running through the middle of the city, just before it turns into the Ferensway as it passes the train station.

I must have passed there hundreds of times and never noticed.

[Condi]

Rickyy said:

We have WW2 pillboxes dotted along the coastline in South Wales.

A house in the town was apparently destroyed during the war too.

Stop the thread everyone, we have our winner! ONE house, thats right Ladies and Gentlemen, ONE house was 'apparently' destroyed in some small town no-one has ever heard of in Wales. Sources are trying to work out if this is true or just a terrible hoax.







Sorry, perhaps being facetious, but having lived most of my life in Hull and then moving close to Coventry, bombed buildings and terrible 1960's reconstruction are par for the course.

[NelsonM3]

Raydon airfield in Suffolk. Over 70% of the airfield still remains.







[url]

|http://thumbsnap.com/HOdExs4o[/url]

[mcelliott]

Just a couple from my walk today - loads of these observation towers on our south coast.

[JonRB]

Condi said:

Stop the thread everyone, we have our winner! ONE house, thats right Ladies and Gentlemen, ONE house was 'apparently' destroyed in some small town no-one has ever heard of in Wales. Sources are trying to work out if this is true or just a terrible hoax.







Sorry, perhaps being facetious, but having lived most of my life in Hull and then moving close to Coventry, bombed buildings and terrible 1960's reconstruction are par for the course.

Facetious? No, sorry, weapons-grade wker.

I didn't realise that this thread was a meritocracy and that you had to reach a "worthiness" quotient to post.

Edited by JonRB on Saturday 12th September 20:59

[BryanC]

mcelliott said:

Just a couple from my walk today - loads of these observation towers ....

A superb example of German concrete if ever there was. Great pictures - thanks for posting.

[RB Will]

another one I just remembered is a number of pill boxes along the Thames near Lechlade, sorry fo lack of pics

[FairfieldSteve]

What an excellent thread, thank you!

[nicanary]

BryanC said:

mcelliott said:

Just a couple from my walk today - loads of these observation towers ....

A superb example of German concrete if ever there was. Great pictures - thanks for posting.

Probably erected by the slave labour of the Todt Organisation. They clearly used quality materials.

[yellowjack]

MentalSarcasm said:

loafer123 said:

I have a copy of the London Bomb Damage maps which shows the extent of damage caused by bombs in Greater London during WW2 and the location of each V2 rocket landing.

Absolutely fascinating.

They might be the ones that were used to create the Bomb Sight website;

http://www.bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900

Covers 7th October 1940 to 6th June 1941. The pattern of red over certain areas is mind blowing.

Having spent the last 7 years of my army career in Royal Engineers EOD units, I had plentiful access to the lovely ladies of the EOC (Explosive Ordnance Clearance) Group offices. One of them was responsible for responding to requests from government agencies and private building and civil engineering contractors for information on known impact sites for raids all over the country. EOC Group have a massive archive of OS maps, reporting forms, and hand written notebooks, all dating from during the war and the peak period for UXO recovery and disposal operations in the immediate postwar years. Everything from the individual bomb impacts, to post war mine clearance ops on British beaches.

The archive was in the process of being transposed onto modern maps from the originals, which were drawn to a different scale, and all was to be digitised.

The 'red dot' maps can be used to estimate/predict locations of potential UXO, as gaps in a 'stick' of bombs indicate where it's likely one failed to explode. All based on the RAF reports of which German aircraft types were reported/engaged on the corresponding raids, and known carrying capacities of those bombers. Bringing all of that information together is easier now, with the computer age. Previously all the work was done by pouring over maps and aerial photographs that have often remained unseen in dusty archives since the late 1940s.


As an aside, Pembrey, in South Wales, is stuffed full of WWII 'leftovers'. As a kid, I'd cycle there, to Cefn Sidan sands, now Pembrey Country Park. It was an ammunition factory during the war, and the armoured concrete railway wagon loading platforms were still there, like rows of man made tunnels. Back then, in the early days of the country park, quite a few of the buildings still stood, but I think most were knocked down before they fell down on someone, they were so derelict. There were also three (I think) concrete gun emplacements in the dunes, out beyond the limits of the "naturist" area of the beach.

The motor racing circuit is on an old airfield, and I believe there's a virtually unique "gunnery training" dome-like building there, where bomber command air gunners could be trained using some kind of technological trickery to project images of attacking fighters onto the walls while the trainee manned a turret in the centre of the room. http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/wa-82066-d...

[Digby]

These 'listening ears' are a short walk from my parents house.

http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/locat...

There were plenty of air raid shelters in gardens where I grew up and I still see the odd pillbox dotted around in Kent, including this one at Detling.It's hard to get a decent Google image of it, but you can just make it out past the truck / driver.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3076026,0.606249...

[Coatesy351]

MentalSarcasm said:

Walk down the road that runs between The Natural History Museum and the V&A Museum, the facade of the V&A bears some pretty impressive scars from a bomb that landed in the middle of the road during the Blitz. They have more information on their website, but basically it blew out all the windows and moved a lot of the extremely heavy items were found a few feet away from their original places, but all things considered it did remarkably little damage to the actual contents on the museum.

I always find it fascinating as it shows you the power of the explosion, there's solid stone with huge chunks gouged out of it. It's been left like that as a memorial to what London went through, which I like as I think it's easy to mentally reduce the experiences of the Blitz, so much of it has been renewed and built over, but along that road you start to understand it better.

[parakitaMol.]

As you drive into Guildford on London Road (on the right by London Road Station) there are about 20 concrete pyramid tank barriers. I hope they don't ever move them, stuff like this should stay.