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Off Topic Battle of Britain

Discussion in 'Sunderland' started by Makemstine Roger, Sep 18, 2020.

  1. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    #21
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2020
  2. clockstander

    clockstander Well-Known Member

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    Definitely, they played a critical role in the BoB and it was shocking how they were treat after the war.

    Edit: If you haven't seen the movie Hurricane, I recommend it. It's very good and shows an insight in to what they went through before, during and after coming to the UK to help fight the Nazis.[QUOTE=

    I was once told by a workmate that he had been involved in the German surrender at Monte Casino, although I knew by his name that he was Polish, it still came as a surprise as he had never previously mentioned the war. Sadly he passed away about 10 years ago but I feel very privileged to have met him as it turned out he was part of a very special unit inside the Polish II Corps, and had seen a lot more than he disclosed to me.
     
    #22
  3. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    The Sunderland Blitz was a bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe against the British city of Sunderland during the larger bombing campaign of Britain from 1940 to 1941. Sunderland was an important ship building city and port during World War II. 273 civilians were killed and 389 injured during the bombing. Bombing of the city began on 21st June 1940 and ended in 1941. An estimated 90% of the city's buildings were damaged, and 1,000 destroyed.[1][2]
     
    #23
  4. Makemstine Roger

    Makemstine Roger Well-Known Member

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    When the blitz came to Wearside
    By Look North reporter Peter Harris
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    A direct hit by two high explosive bombs on Sunderland's Central Station
    The first German bombs fell on the north-east of England 70 years ago.

    By the end of the war almost 7,000 civilians in this region were killed or maimed by bombing raids.

    In Sunderland, vital ship building city that it was, 273 were killed.

    The Luftwaffe knew what they were looking for.

    Even before war broke out, they'd built up detailed information mapping out Sunderland's key targets.

    The Wearside yards produced a quarter of Britain's merchant shipping at the time and its value to the bombers was obvious.

    Major shipyards like Laing's and Austin's were listed on the German Ordnance Survey maps.

    Dead, injured, destroyed

    Even now, some of the statistics from the city's wartime experience seem astonishing. Ninety per cent of its houses were said to have been damaged and 1,000 were destroyed completely.

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    Four houses demolished, 146 damaged and ten people killed.
    But the only fact that really matters is the scale of the human tragedy that followed.

    When the bombers missed their industrial targets, the town centre was hit.

    The county borough of Sunderland suffered the biggest loss of life in the North East: 273 civilians died, 389 more were badly injured.

    Key landmarks, like the Winter Gardens, were destroyed and incendiary bombs rained down triggering terrifying blazes.

    Sunderland wasn't alone. In Easington 36 died, in Seaham it was 51. In fact, 36 people died in Seaham in a single raid in 1943.

    Ninety minute blitz

    In all, nearly 7,000 civilians were killed or injured as a result of the bombing of the North East.

    But those figures can never do justice to the suffering of so many people across this region.

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    The remains of a home made air raid shelter - two people were killed
    They can never tell the story of the horrors inflicted on small towns like Seaham or South Shields, where German bombers laid waste to the market place in a 90 minute blitz in 1941.

    Sixty eight died, 12 of them were children.

    It's now 70 years since the bombing started and, to many of us today, all this seems so remote that it might never have happened.

    Yet it's still within living memory and those who witnessed it remember every second as if it was yesterday.

    They recall the devastation, the bereaved, the injured, the funerals.

    Perhaps those of us who came later should take care to remember it too.

    See pictures of the Blitz on Wearside here.
     
    #24
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  5. Evil Jimmy Krankie

    Evil Jimmy Krankie Well-Known Member

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    My grandad was a protected trade during WW2 as he was a shipwright. He told me that when the bombers came over when he was working depending on where he was he just had to stay where he was and wait for it to be over. As you and others say, it must have been terrifying for everyone. He remembers being stuck up some scaffolding on one occasion, probably about 100 feet up.
     
    #25
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  6. Nordic

    Nordic Well-Known Member

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    To be honest, i forget how much of Sunderland was blitzed. The BBC documentarues are good, the McGregor brothers one is a canny show. Respect to those pilots, not many of them left.
     
    #26
  7. Evil Jimmy Krankie

    Evil Jimmy Krankie Well-Known Member

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    #27
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  8. Nordic

    Nordic Well-Known Member

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    #28

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