The Blitz - 14th November 1940

Dear all We're making a documentary about Coventry before, during and after the war. We are looking for people who witnessed the Blitz and are willing to be interviewed by a group of students. Every contribution will be very valuable. Please reply to this post if you are interested. Thanks! Tobia

Hi Tobia, and welcome to our forum. Maybe you could explain to people who "you" are so they better understand how their memories will be used in your documentary. Where do you hope to air your documentary?

Sorry about that. We are a secondary school in Warwick, "Northleigh House School". The documentary will be aired at Leamington Spa Centre in October, we will produce a Dvd, there's no commercial gain, it's all for educational purposes. The documentary is called "Healing Cities" .We are working in partnership with the Herbert Museum and would like to find people who have direct accounts of the events and the Coventry before and after the war.

Hi Tobia, I'm getting in touch today

You may find something of interest if you type "blitz" into the search box above and highlight "titles"

Hi. I don't personally remember it but my mother had an incredible memory. She had been up in Scotland announcing her engagement to my father's family in Motherwell when the blitz happened, she was desperate to get home as there was no way to contact her family to see if they were ok. She managed to get a train to Birmingham, and then another to I think Berkswell, all rail traffic was stopped beyond, and no buses were running, so she walked! Right through the city centre, she always told me how she cried to see the carnage, roads were blocked with fallen buildings many places were still on fire and smouldering, injured and shocked people were searching through the rubble. She was stopped a couple of times by police and firemen as the area wasn't safe, but she managed to make it across the city to Stoke, it took her 6 hours, and she was exhausted, dirty and hungry when she got home to find her home and family all well. All her father said was "what the bloody hell are you doing here" and she broke down.

I found what the divisional warden said interesting on this link.

Well! As far as us three children in my family were concerned we were never afraid during air raids, in fact we would go in the garden to watch the display. I suppose that we had a childish logic (I was 10) that no matter where you went there was no guarantee that you would be safe. To be totally honest it's an experience that I would not have missed. As for the black out, go out in the countryside at night and you will be able to walk along a path without difficulty. To understand total darkness go down a coalmine. During the war the streets were our playground, there was virtually no traffic. Even our GP rode a bike. Petrol was strictly rationed. I suppose we were quite safe as the nearest bombs that landed in Bell Green was probably a mistake by the bomb aimer. Actually there were two bombs that landed in Bell Green, one was in the car park of the Bell Hotel and the other fell where Bell Green Community Centre now stands. Just rattled a few slates thats all. A point that is often overlooked is that a large percentage of out towns and cities were parks, canals, railways and even large gardens that took a large amount of bombs without doing any structural damage

Norman Conquest, We seem to look at this in different ways, sticks of bombs, not single, only just over a mile from you I could show you exactly where four bombs dropped, of course two dropped in a field but the first and fourth did considerable damage, and I have just posted about Shilton bombing, yes admitted four dropped in the fields, but the first was less than a dozen yards from the banks of the cut and the fourth was less than a dozen yards from Shilton Station and one of the busiest railway lines during the war. And as a twelve year old boy I was totally frightened and still shudder today if I think of the scene I saw. One only has to look at a map, put a ruler across the craters and you can see how close he was to his objective, so twice I was sleeping fitfully within two hundred yards from being a casualty, so I was damned sure I was scared. Norman seven years later I was in a building that was torn apart by a terrorist bomb, so consider some one as been watching my back for me. But working down a mine I'm sure you had some testing times, must take a lot of guts to be a miner, I had the choice, Army or the pit, I chose the Army, seemed safer.

The November blitz didn't make much of an impact on us at Bell Green as not one bomb dropped near us. My main memory of that night was a fire engine from Nuneaton getting hopelessly lost after being diverted and coming along Old Church Rd, no sat nav in those days. The incident I mentioned above was, I think, in the following April. Couple of bombs fell on Taylors fields and another one at the back of the houses in Dudley St. Other than that I don't think any other bombs fell near Bell Green during the war. You had a harder time in Shilton than we did. As for the pit, as in everything it's not what you know but who you know. I always fancied being a submarine captain and wearing the obligatory white roll neck sweater and shouting Dive Dive Dive, saw too many films I suppose. At my medical I was given no choice so decided I would work for the NCB. As I implied we had contacts at Newdigate so after initial training I was put into training as shot firer and deputy. I only ever got a second class deputy's certificate but sailed through shot firing exams. As for mining being dangerous, it could be but if everything is done by the book it is usually OK but as in any job short cuts are often taken as I frequently did but got away with it. But accidents still happen. I think that the casualties in Northern Ireland were far higher than at any single pit.

My housekeeper told me they used the air raid shelter in their garden to store potatoes in during the war and used to shelter under the staircase during a raid. Now, can anyone show me a single instance of a house being destroyed by bombs but the staircase surviving?

Hi Dutchman Yes, my mum & dad survived, in their former home in Grangemouth Rd. I was not alive at the time, but I often heard their accounts of them having to kick the door out, at the end of the blitz night, only to see the sky above them. A triangle is about the strongest joint bond in nature, as is demonstrated by the strength of diamonds, which are made up of triangular shaped molecules. To add strength to the timber, some wartime householders added tubular stiffeners, a bit like scaffold, to the inside of the staircase space.

Yes, the House of God as they call it. Not a house but a staircase survived here in Coventry that still stands to this day, you have to pay an entrance fee to climb it, it is called the Old Cathedral spire. Coventry Cathedral was the only cathedral in the UK to be destroyed in WW2 so I think I would shelter in a cathedral or a church as few churches got destroyed, even today when not in use

Toward the end of the war my parents bought a Morrison shelter when it was far too late to be of any use. A big ugly thing that doubled up as a dining table. After saying that I think there was one last raid on Coventry late summer 1944 that did minor damage in the Ball Hill area. I have no personal memory of that, perhaps I was told or read it somewhere.

Thanks for that Philip, I've learned something new