Coventry & Warwickshire in WWII

Don't know the dates of these I'm afraid. Grandad worked there from about 1914 to the fifties we think. Best regards, DT

Norman Conquest, thank you for your reply, but tell me, wasn't the Grand Union Canal in Warwick, and wasn't the Oxford Canal used because it was approx. six inches higher water level than the Coventry Canal. I remember the old saying, if they had to get to Coventry from the Grand Union, they either took the high road or the low road, but one canal was much more difficult and the other a lot longer. I have a small and dirty photo of the men working on the lock. Now I believe my sister once told me (she was on an AA gun site, Raynes Park, London) if they got twenty seconds on target they were lucky. Now the aircraft that bombed Ald.Green and the 'leckie' was considerably lower than anything we ever heard, in fact people said just over the rooftops, quite a number of people thought it was about to crash, there was all sorts of rumours. We had no door on our shelter and he was coming over the clod banks straight up the back field and in through the door, and we screamed, landed in a heap on the bottom bunk. But we couldn't see any obstacle to persuade him not to fly low over Brinklow-Ansty-Longford, except for the guns by us, and yes there only seemed to be the one aircraft at that time, as you can imagine, there was all sorts of debate for some weeks, You have to remember, these guys were very experienced operational crews, they had had plenty of practice over Poland.

At least four balloon sites in that area. Enemy fliers were afraid of hitting cables.

Barrage balloons were four miles high? That would be a very long and heavy cable.

Aircraft, Primrose, not barrage balloons

He could have been on a strafing run Kaga? I've heard first hand reports of strafing runs over Craven Street.

75 years ago today, German bombers attempted to bomb Belfast Docks - but missed their target, resulting in over 900 civilian deaths in non-evacuated areas

Yes Helen I did word that rather badly, there is another error that, thankfully no one has picked up yet. 25,000ft put aircraft above guns, balloons and searchlights but this was not the only reason for the desire of height. Fuel economy. I know that there was long distance flights on both sides but a fear for both was running out of fuel and falling into the sea on return. Germany tried using drop tanks made from plywood, I have no idea why these tanks were not used on both fighters and bombers. Look at the ME109. On escort to London the 109 had only 20 minutes over the capital before the pilot had to return. With engagement even less. There was always a fear of falling into the sea so height and economy was always an issue. British and American aircraft had, on long runs, used drop tanks. So, height where the air is thinner was preferred. I have read, true or not I have no idea, Goering was alleged to have asked Churchill for permission to build a runway in Kent to remove the fear of his air crew falling into the sea. Sadly Churchill's reply is not on record. As a total aside, Helen is correct about the weight of rope. Newdigate Colliery shaft is 750 yards deep. Cage loaded, 10 tons. Rope had to lift at least 10 times that weight, so with rope and cage they couldn't reach coal, so miners built a drift to get down to the coal.

Actually the lifting power of balloons can quite easily be calculated Hydrogen gas (H2) has a molar mass of 2.02 grams per mol. Air is a mixture of ~20% Oxygen gas (O2) and ~80% Nitrogen gas (N2) and has an average molar mass of about 28.82 grams per mol. The difference in the two gasses molar masses will give you the lifting power of 1 mole of Hydrogen gas in an air atmosphere when both gasses are under the same temperature and pressure. 1 mole of Hydrogen gas has a "lifting power" of about 26.80 grams per mole. At STP (standard temperature of pressure), 1 mole of an ideal gas has a volume of 22.4 Litres which would mean that Hydrogen gas would have a lifting power of about 4.20 grams per Litre (@ STP). 1 kg = 1000 grams. It would take about 3.3 Litres of Hydrogen to lift 1 kg at STP, this does not take into account the weight of the balloon holding the Hydrogen gas nor does it take into account any extra mass which might be attached (rope?). A 10" diameter sphere has a volume of, 4/3 * pi * r^3, with r being the radius, volume = 4/3 * pi (10")^3 volume = 2189 cubic inches. 1 in^3 = 0.016387 Litres, 4189 in^3 = about 68.65 Litres meaning that you would need about 1.22 balloons in total. 1.22 Balloons will hold 12961.1 Litres of H2 with a lifting power of about 10153.3 grams. The balloons themselves will have a mass of 140 grams, plus the 1 kg mass being lifted, making the total 1140 grams. Of course one would need to know the weight of 10mm rope to do an exact calculation but I now think it's possible.

Norman Conquest, you do go to some lengths to explain, which is too much for me to handle. I was just a kid that heard and saw during the war and that's all I know. Now my money says the ceiling they used mainly was nearer 2,000ft than 25,000ft. 90% of the balloons was left out to fill with normal air. There was more friendly aircraft hit the balloon wires than the German planes. We saw more German planes flying in formation, waves and waves of them, just standing looking at the sky, as to what we saw that was caught in the searchlights The dam busters flew below 1,000ft along the German canals. When they burst the dams the authorities knew full well that hundreds of people would be drowned, mostly allied prisoners, but it was war.

LOL Kaga. I was a miner and ambulance driver not another Stephen Hawkin. My last post was mainly intended as a humour with the hope of lightening the topic. I failed.

The above book is still available and a good read. Gives lots of info about range and operational heights of both German and British aircraft.. Its from this book and another similar that I have gleaned most of my information. I was never a war time pilot for either side so most of our technical information must come from what we read. There is another useful book still on ebay written by a German pilot but sadly my copy accidentally went to a charity shop.

Dutchman, fair comment, and weren't those strafing runs in daylight by low flying aircraft machine-gunning small targets? Sorry Norman, but we do paint different scenes. Local ARP, Home Guard and workers at the plant etc, I call 'we' for I overheard and was told what I post. Strafing was the first thought, but it looked a clear case of a well planned attack on the Power Station. If people are interested, then look at Davey's picture of the Power Station, to attack from every direction you would approach, only one bomb would hit a target, except the one they used, put a ruler across the top of the tall chimney stack and the larger cooler from right to left, and think a little wider, the first bomb the t-junction of A.G Rd and L.Lane, the second wasted, the third either the canal or the cooling towers, the 4th Sutton Stop, the 1st a few yards miss, 3rd between the canal and coolers, the 4th bullseye S.Stop. Now early war time in the background of the photo from Bedworth to Brinklow, mainly fields,I cannot recall one barrage balloon or gun, I think even Bramcote only had Lewis guns, so a quick veer right and he's away. The big gun that was just out of picture at the bottom, to clear the towers and chimneys the elevation would have to be high so was a partly blind spot. Looking at the picture, bottom right hand corner was Tusses Bridge and the planks were in (this stopped the boats working at night), so the canal only drained from Tusses Bridge to Sutton Stop and you can see the hollow between the canal behind the cooling towers, the water flowed down in to a small brook and down to the 'slough'. The water from the cooling towers was not some small pipe, it was a 4-5 ft wide concrete channel, the water between two to six inches deep (fluctuated) constantly day and night as far as I can recall, so an enormous amount of water was taken from the canal, returned or lost in steam. But why did they not return and finish the job?

Most of what I have posted on here about the war is not from personal memories but what I have read. After all I was only eight when the war started. Of course I still have my own memories but I have put little of them on this thread. Most don't make good reading. For my familly each bomb that fell made them more determined to do what they could for the war effort. My father quit the Merchant Navy to join the Royal Navy for the sole reason that he wanted to have a pop at the enemy. Sadly his first voyage was to sink the French fleet, something he was never comfortable about. I think that what was remarkable about my father was that he said very little about his experiences. His brother, my uncle Len, was flight engineer on bombers. He was shot down over Germany in 1945 and spent a short time as a prisoner but on his return to the UK he would say little of his experiences over Germany. I know he wasn't proud of the actions of Bomber Harris, air crew called him Butcher Harris. I know that he flew three times to Dresden to kill thousands of people. Stalin requested this raid as Dresden was home to a big rail junction and German supplies went through there. At height the railways couldn't be seen so the whole town was destroyed to achieve the object. It is wrong to glamourise war and I don't want to be part of fiction or half remembered "facts". Most of what I have posted on this thread is from what I have read, right or wrong? I can't prove it either way, the rest is from memory but memory of a little boy. Both my uncle and my father regretted their actions and didn't glamourise their part in the war but like many others on both sides, just obeying orders.

Norman Conquest, you and I experienced the war, but a lot of people did not and so are asking questions, and asking for stories. I feel it only to be courteous to tell them what we can. I was in the most brutal reg't of the armed forces, and have many thoughts about the past. They live and die with me.