I saw maybe 15 minutes of it. It was quite moving. Made me think how fortunate my generation have been in this country.
For Sama is worth a watch to see we haven't really changed as a species
It's hard to comprehend that about 30000 Londoners were killed in the Biltz.Â
It's hard to comprehend that about 30000 Londoners were killed in the Biltz.Â
And one in six Londoners became homeless
And 800,000 children were evacuated
It's hard to comprehend that about 30000 Londoners were killed in the Biltz.Â
Allied bombing killed about 25000 on a single raid on Dresden. 100000 intokyo, again over one raid(excluding the atomics)
I am not saying one was worse than the other obviously but i think its worth keeping the figures on what allied bombers contributed to also at the fore. I think its fair to say the allies took the ball and ran with it.
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It was superb and sad , it's a shame some things haven't changed for the better 😔
I am not saying one was worse than the other obviously but i think its worth keeping the figures on what allied bombers contributed to also at the fore. I think its fair to say the allies took the ball and ran with it.
And it may have all been avoided if the German planes that got lost in fog, dumped their payloads and returned home hadn't accidentally bombed London, which resulted in a retaliatory strike on Berlin and subsequently led to Hitler demanding further retaliation on London.
In both cases it might have been avoided if the Nazis and the Japanese hadn't been prepared to fight to the bitter end. I was talking to someone today that was in Coventry during the blitz and she recommended this.
it was very good. some proper telly in a world becoming reliable on utter pish.
my mother lived a couple of streets from a area bombed in the Blitz. we played in the Anderson shelter as kids in the 60's in my Nans garden.
Allied bombing killed about 25000 on a single raid on Dresden. 100000 intokyo, again over one raid(excluding the atomics)
I am not saying one was worse than the other obviously but i think its worth keeping the figures on what allied bombers contributed to also at the fore. I think its fair to say the allies took the ball and ran with it.
This is also covered in the programme
Allied bombing killed about 25000 on a single raid on Dresden. 100000 intokyo, again over one raid(excluding the atomics)
I am not saying one was worse than the other obviously but i think its worth keeping the figures on what allied bombers contributed to also at the fore. I think its fair to say the allies took the ball and ran with it.
This is also covered in the programme
Cool, like i say not really making a point other than in terms of how bad the human cost of WW2 the blitz was awful... And then it got really bad.
Does the programme cover the 50-70 000 French killed in allied bombing on France? Royan was particularly futile. The resistance had given plans of where the Germans were dug in north of the town but the raid was cancelled due to bad weather and the plans put to one side. They reprogramed the raid but forgot to give the plans to the crews who just flattened the town where there were no Germans and hit no strategic targets. The guy who owned the campsite I worked on was one of those who ran fast enough to live. There's a little museum in the town if ever you pass through.
My great aunts "companion" was a midwife in London during the Blitz. Was sectioned at one point due to what now would now be seen as PTSD. A lovely but profoundly sad lady.
My Dad was evacuated from London as a child.
When Thump was doing WWII, I got him to ask my Dad about his experiences and what it was like. My Dad told Thump things he'd never told us - a wonderful moment.
His earliest memory was being held up by his Dad to see the glow from the docks as they blazed. He talked about being evacuated and sharing a room with his mum and baby brother in an attic of a woman who did not want them. About how his big sister (aged 8) had to live elsewhere and it was miserable. After a few weeks they returned home - and his memory was the house being dark from tape on the window. He talked about how they shared an Anderson shelter with the family next door because they didn't have a vegetable patch. Later my Dad was evacuated to a family friend near Moffat (who'd served in the Scots Greys with my grandfather) - and I think that was the highlight of my Dad's childhood.
My Mum was born on Malta and survived the siege of Malta - which must have been intense. When she returned to Britain in 1943 at the age of 5, she was ordered not to smile in photographs as her teeth were black from malnutrition.
My great aunts "companion" was a midwife in London during the Blitz.
My mum was born in the East End during the blitz, but all her older siblings were evacuees and so wouldn't meet her til after the war. Her 6 siblings weren't just seperated from their parents but also from each other - so they all spent the war alone in different parts of the uk. One of her sisters didn't get on with the family she was housed with and ran away, and sort of just lived on her wits somehow til the war was over.
My mum was evacuated from Glasgow to Lewis aged about 12. Her mum took her to the station and found a stranger who was going to Mallaig and asked her to put my mum on the ferry where she was met by relatives in Stornaway. She enjoyed her teen years in Lewis. She watched Casablanca when it was first released on the American airbase there which must have been some atmosphere. It also meant her teenage years were spent in an environment where English was only spoken in school. Her part of Lewis was entirely gaelic speaking at that time. In Glasgow it was gaelic in the house but obviously English outside.
The conseqence was that she effectively left home at 12 as after finishing secondary school in Lewis she went to teacher training at Jordanhill in Glasgow and lived in the hostel there. Not sure if that was through choice or a requirement of the course. She was as close to the aunts she lived with in Lewis as her mum and went to Jordanhill hostel re-unions for decades afterwards.
My father was evecuated from Brum. He very much enjoyed the time saying it was some of the best years in his life. He remained good friends with the people that housed him. Six members of the family turned up for his funeral.Â
My mother wasn't evacuated despite living near the Austin works and other targets - that the raids missed completely.
My grandfather was Birmingham ARP. When Coventry was hit they went over to do do some rescuing, just in time to be in the thick of the second bombing wave. They carried on working with buildings being blown up and burning around them, debris everywhere.
My ex mother in law went from the first floor to the basement in her cot totally unscathed when their house was hit by a bomb that failed to explode. She still has a mirror that was in the room and ended up with her in the cot unbroken
My grandad had joined the auxiliary fire service in Manchester in the lead up to the war. They were moved around all over the North and down to the Midlands as they were needed. May well have been a contributor to the lung cancer that meant he lost a lung in 1969. He never really mentioned any of it though and he stayed in the fire brigade after the war. Only retired I believe when his health wasn't up to it
Allied bombing killed about 25000 on a single raid on Dresden. 100000 intokyo, again over one raid
The Nazis had effectively "lost" the war by Late '42, had they thrown in the towel, the bombing of Dresden wouldn't have happened. Likewise I've little sympathy for Imperial Japan, the death toll inflicted by their army on civilians during the war amounts to at least 3 million, and perhaps as much as 10 millionÂ
I don't see how any off that takes away from how horrifically efficient blanket bombing off cities got.
Because if either Germany or Japan had stopped after they realised (and they had done) that it was all for nought, the bombing would've stopped instantly. As bad as it was, The allied invasion of Japanese home islands would've been more horrific by magnitude
The strategic bombing of Germany was also partly the reason D-Day and the subsequent march to Germany was so successful and didn't take anything like as long as they expected, there's a good argument that it contributed significantly to shortening the war.Â
Just finished watching it. A very poignant view of those children's lives and experiences that must be reflected in the lives of children living through war throughout history. All our study of past events, yet we endlessly repeat the same mistakes, causing the same harms.
