Between May the 3rd and May the 9th 1941 Hull was systematically blitzed by the German Luftwaffe. It had strategic importance as a port and they attempted to take it out of commission. In that week there were 400 civilian deaths and huge amount of damage to housing.
During the war my mother-in-law told me she was bombed out of three houses. They used to hide under a big metal table for protection. I used to joke with her that the Luftwaffe were after her. She told me that Hull was the most bombed city in Britain. She was right.
Extract from Wikipaedia –
Hull was the most severely damaged British city or town during the Second World War, with 95 percent of houses damaged.[1] Hull had more than 1,000 hours spent under air raid alerts.[2] Hull was the target of the first daylight raid of the war and the last piloted air raid on Britain.[1]
Of a population of approximately 320,000 at the beginning of the war, approximately 152,000 were made homeless as a result of bomb destruction or damage.[3] Overall almost 1,200 people were killed and 3,000 injured by the air raids.[4]
More than 5,000 houses were destroyed and half of the city centre destroyed. The cost of bomb damage was estimated at £20 million (1952, £518,985,637 as a consumer price equivalent), with 3,000,000 square feet (280,000 m2) of factory space, several oil and flour mills, the Riverside Quay and 27 churches, 14 schools or hospitals, 42 pubs and 8 cinemas ruined; only 6,000 out of the 91,000 houses were undamaged at the end of the war.[5][6] The extent of the damage was similar to that of the Plymouth Blitz.[5]
Despite the damage the port continued to function throughout the war.
Let us hope that we’ll never have a war like that again!
I’m glad I wasn’t there.
I think my mother spent 6 years down in an air-raid shelter. At least that was the impression I had.
One landed about 200 feet from her building and remained an open space until 2008!
First bombing in UK:
March 16 1940 at Scapa Flow, Orkney Isles.
Seems that Germany had not forgotten when their naval fleet was scuppered in WW1 off Scapa Flow. A message there, I think.
WW2 Bombing deaths of civilians
Total at 40,000
#1 London at 17,500
#2 Liverpool at 2,677
#3 Birmingham
#4 Bristol
#5 Hull
#6 Plymouth
#7 Coventry
#8 Portsmouth
#9 Belfast
#10 Glasgow
Glasgow city itself was never an intended target by there were bombs dropped.
Glasgow – Clydebank
Over 2 nights – 13-14 March 1941
528 dead
617 seriously injured
+ several thousand minor injuries
Of 12,000 houses only 7 remained undamaged
4,000 completely destroyed
4,500 severely damaged
35,000 made homeless
Glasgow was lucky being in part surrounded by the Campsie Hills. These were rigged up with lights to imitate the River Clyde, therefore successfully fooling the Luftwaffe into bombing the hills.
The hills were full of concrete anti-aircraft bunkers that could shoot some planes down onto the hills minimising further civilian deaths.
We still had an old Anderson concrete shelter in our back garden. Can’t think that would have helped much. Luftwaffe bomb Milngavie! Maybe not!
I think there must be lots of criteria for judging the harm of a blitz on a city. It must have been terrifying. I cannot believe how people survived it. The damage was enormous.
I remember as a child going through London and seeing all the rubble in the bomb sites. So much senseless damage, loss of life and misery.
By my school in Beverley there is the Westwood and it still has bomb craters in it.
My Dad was off fighting in Italy and my Mum worked in London in the war office with Churchill. Her tales were scary. My Dad rarely talked about it.
My granddad was traumatised by the First World War and my parents by the second. I’m just immensely glad that, neither I or my children, were caught up in any wars. The number of people messed up by it must be in billions.
Indeed, the repercussions last a life time. I recall my gran (born 1894) telling me she had been lucky to have had a husband and family as most of her friends in her younger days were left with nothing as all the men had evaporated.
A tragedy.