Bombing aftermath

Those before and after images give us a real sense of the amount of destruction

Thanks for tidying up my script, and making it logical. Yes, Swears and Wells it is. You can even see the lamppost extreme top. This must have been the Keresley terminus stop. They had stops all the way down the Burges at one time.

This picture looks the other way at the east side of Broadgate. The left hand building is the mystery building. Just off to the right would have been Martins Bank.

From David McGrory's "Coventry at War"....

Here's one more...

I've spent ages trawling through those Broadgate photo's and I think I've realised what building it is. Someone already said on here it's the Pru building - this building was only completed 8 months before the war, so those extensions to the top windows are probably scaffold planks. The photo was taken as they were finishing the roof!

Mr Taylor was a war office official photographer (Lieutenant E A Taylor) Lots more interesting pictures, more by Mr Taylor on this IWM site I have just found.

Image looking towards Owen Owen A zoomable copy of a previously posted photograph. To the left of Owen Owen you can see the bus, the bus stop, the firemen and them playing a hose on the smouldering ruins. Thanks for posting the link Anne. I searched these previously and few were digitised. I also wasn't ready for the level of details revealed by the destruction.

I cannot stop my mind from seeing a burning city, a scene of twisted girders, broken buildings, a street of tons of rubble, and hundreds of hose pipes laying twisted like a snake's lair, and you burn your fingers if you pick up a piece of metal. And people crying. And people digging like rabbits in the rubble, bits of heavy concrete ceilings tossed aside like a paper chase, sparks from a piece of wire. I closed my eyes and wanted it to go away, for it was my city, my playground. The morning had brought hundreds in to help, soldiers, fresh firemen, tea wagons, ambulances etc. everyone expected them to come back, so the rubble was pushed aside to clear a path for ambulances and fire trucks. The bombing had come early, so catching cars, lorries, bikes, buses, trams in the city centre, even before the early time they would have left. The council had a mammoth task. Soldiers helped firemen with the hoses, unsafe walls, girders etc, and the burnt, twisted vehicles. Boys like me fetched tea or coffee for the helpers.

Those who didn't go through it can't imagine what it was like. We truly respect your memories and when we debate these photographs it's not to dismiss you or the people whose lives were devastated but to provide accuracy. We bring together maps, aerial views and photographs of the area before and after the war. We follow the clues. I've spent the last 8 years looking at images of Coventry. I know the place better than my own street. You see the city in colour, I see it in black and white. I see images frozen in time, you see the places alive over time. I have no memories to change what I see in photos, so I can't be influenced by what might have happened an hour before the photo or an hour afterwards. I can't tell you what it felt or smelt like, I can only work out what the photo was looking at. I'm getting quite good at it but someone else will notice stuff that I don't. Or know something - I don't even know where Keresley is, let alone where it might have had bus stops. This is team work and together we're all better than as individuals.

continued... Some time late afternoon (not sure) the council heard the King wanted to visit (fireman's say). The council now had a nightmare, they had to make things safe where he would walk, and they would want him to see as much as possible to sway the funds and help, so they stopped what was happening and brought in new plans. Saturday morning, the army made things safe (from a fireman) but the fire brigade placed a small pump and two hoses next to the burnt out bus - two very senior firemen came and sprayed the ground, a job the most trivial of firemen could have handled. Did they expect the King might stop and speak to them? Now the firemen had rested, in came the criticism. The firemen were angry that there was no second water supply, and so were Solihull fire brigade - "We would have saved your Cathedral if we had water," one uttered. It was then that buildings became water tanks.

The bus stop can be seen

By 7.40pm Owen Owen was well ablaze - an ambulance man went in because they thought some people in there were hurt, but they had all gone out the back way. Some firemen were fighting a fire near Sylvesters jewellers, a bomb exploded and blew glass all over them. Then a building collapsed on top of them, six/seven trapped and killed. But the Sherbourne river was culverted under the Burges there, a space opened up behind the Wine Lodge pub and firemen took water from it. Rootes works fire service, from Humber Road, took water from the Sherbourne at the back of Blue Coat School. It was them working continuously from Friday to the Monday afternoon that filled all the buildings that could be called static water tanks.

You can see the lamp post on the left in the picture below. You can even see the point where the tram lines parted.

It's more or less agreed that the bus was more or less outside Swears and Wells shop. Why not look up Swears and Wells in the shop directory for the city for the years previous to the war. It would also show the Pru which I would guess is a Broadgate address and Owen Owen which might be Broadgate address as it's just got its "snout" over the line.