HULL BOMBING MAP
A TESTAMENT to FORTITUDE
Being a street plan of Kingston upon Hull
circa 1945
plotting the position of all bombs dropped by
enemy action during the Blitz.
please see various additional notes below: updated 17.5.2007
Grid of all 16 maps
This is now an "Image map", so that the sections can be
clicked on to load the relevant map.
Or if you prefer the geographical descriptions,
use the link table below.
Each map is about 4 times the screen size, so you'll need to scroll around.
Close each map as you finish with it, and remember to
use F11 to get the best of a full screen view.
They're a bit rough, but all main roads and most minor ones are shown.
From the time it was originally prepared, they're not half bad.
See my tribute below.
MAPS
Each map covers roughly the same screen area . .
the digital size difference represents the amount if information,
literally the number of black pixels used in a map.
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Map 1: part of Cottingham
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Map 2:
North Hull Estate
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Map 3:
Bransholme area
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Map 4:
Out in the Sticks
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Map 5: Hotham Rd / Wold Rd |
Map 6: Cott. Rd / Chants Ave
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Map 7: Stoneferry Grn
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Map 8: Sutton Village & |
Map 9: Askew Ave |
Map 10 : Spr Bk / Anlaby Rd /
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Map 11: Bankside / Hold. Rd |
Map 12: Southcoates Ave |
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Map 13: Hessle Rd &
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Map 14: Hessle Road
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Map 15: Sammy's Point
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Map 16:
Southcoates Ave
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Each map opens in a new window . .. close as you finish with each one.
To view map FULL SCREEN, no toolbars, etc, Press F11 . . .
then press Alt + F4 to close each map window when done.
Use either scrollbars to move around,
or Ctrl + PageUp, or Ctrl + PageDown, plus cursor arrows, etc.
LEGEND TO MAPS
explaining types of bombs, and dates dropped.
all 16 maps, in a 4 x4 grid, take over 2.28 Mb of disk space
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The Hull Blitz Some thoughts It should be mentioned, indeed remembered, that over 1,200 people in Hull lost their lives in these raids, and some 3,000 were injured. Over three-quarters of the total housing stock was either destroyed or damaged. Some families were 'bombed out' two or even three times. In all the radio and newspaper reports of the time, this great port city was only ever referred to as a "North East Coast Town", to avoid giving tactical information of damage, and succour, to the enemy. Consequently, it is only in more recent years that Hull has been recognised as one of the most severely bombed places in Britain, and her citizens paid a higher price than most for their east coast position. Hull often took bombing meant for more inland places, or from enemy aircraft fleeing down the Humber to the open sea after failing to find Sheffield, or Leeds, or other northern towns, the victim of pilots who needed to 'dump' their bombs. It sounds cruel, but it was normal practice for bombers to have to dump their unused, unloaded bombs, before returning to base. No pilot would risk a potential heavy or crash landing with live and armed bombs still aboard. But the difference between RAF crews returning from bombing raids over Germany, and German crews returning to their bases, is that pilots of the Luftwaffe didn't care where they dumped their bombs ... the RAF had strictly observed dump zones in each of the North Sea and English Channel, where pilots could unload unused bombs with minimum risk to civilian safety. The RAF didn't dump indiscriminately, without thought. Perhaps critical folk on the continent in Holland and Belgium and France, and yes, even Germany, should remember that occasionally. So, in their rush to dump, Hull often got more than her share. You will probably also notice, as others have and I often wondered about, the large clusters of bombs that are recorded on the outskirts of the city in what were then fields, and also in places like Pickering Park. I hadn't realised until recently that there were upwards of 80 barrage balloons moored around the city. The balloons forced enemy pilots to fly higher, or else risk whipping a wing off on the thick metal hawsers that ancored them to the ground. Several were moored to specially adapted balloon barges out on the river and in the docks, and most of the others were moored to a winch on the back of a heavy lorry. These were mobile and could be moved about, though in practice, most stayed relatively fixed. The RAF took over a site at Sutton, along Wawne Road, which became 'Hull's Own Air Force Station', and was the maintenance site for all these balloons. They weren't really effective against high level bombing, but were more designed to discourage dive bombers, Stukas, such as those that had such devastating effect in places like Warsaw. Dive bombers were perceived as the real terror weapon, not least because of the screaming noise as they dived ... and they were incredibly accurate. To that degree, the balloon barrage did work, as by and large, Hull was not dive-bombed. Alongside a ballon site was often an anti-aircraft gun site, of one, two, sometimes three high-angle guns, plus searchlights. By neccessity, these were usually sited on open ground ... in parks within the city, and open fields without. Additionally, the city was ringed by a system, top secret then but common knowledge now, called Starfish, of decoy sites to lure enemy aircraft away from the blacked-out industrial and docks area. False fires, burning tanks of old oil, plus searchlight and anti-aircraft batteries making an area appear to be heavily defended, were out in the open fields ringing the city. The decoys obviously worked, and thus saved many more lives, as shown by the plotted number of bomb falls. But, as is the way with these things, many fell on the nearby outlying housing estates with devastating consequences. Unintended consequences indeed, but it does explain the maps to a large extent. I find it incredible, and amazing, that through all this chaos and carnage, time and effort was taken by the authorities at the time to plot the fall of every bomb, and note every type, no matter how devastating the raid. Without that record keeping, under the most severe of circumstances, this map couldn't have been made. Of course, there was a good pragmatic reason for it ... not all bombs went off. Plotting a stick of 6 bombs and only being able to account for 5 gave bomb-disposal squads a good idea where the missing one might be. For often, an unexploded bomb, lying in a garden, was then buried by the spoil from another blast nearby. So they needed to know. All in all, it says much about the British of the time, of our forefathers and grandfathers, and their sense of order amid chaos. I doubt we would achieve as much now in only half the circumstances. With the way the world is shaping up at present, we may soon find out what our limitations are and be found wanting. So I take my hat off to them, every council worker, train and tram driver, all the police and emergency services, every postman and midwife, waterworks and gasmen, and engineers of all kinds as well as the myriad of other staff in every type of public and commercial life, on the docks or in the town, who attempted to make life as safe and as normal as possible for the many, and to mitigate the worst effects of the horrors of war on children and the elderly. It is now fashionable for certain foreigners to criticise the British for our 'stiff upper-lip". But that is just what was needed then. No room for wailing and hysterics at a time like that. No time for tears and histrionics before news cameras and thoughts of compensation and someone must be sued. No mamby-pamby gutter-press journalists hoping for people to break and crack before the all-staring camera lens. No spare staff for counselling and making folks believe they hadn't really just lost half their family that night. They gritted their teeth, cried in private, and went to work next morning. Sick leave wasn't an option. As many people said ... and with a characteristic smile ... "Business As Usual". And they just got on with it. That's why we survived as a nation, and that's why we won. For those that didn't make it, we should remember what it cost them. Hull has its own mass graves .. in Chanterlands Avenue Cemetary . . to remind us. These maps are therefore a testament to fortitude. May the Lord help us if it ever happens again, for I'm damned sure the society we live in now couldn't help itself. A good 10% of them in this town would be the first to loot your house if it ever did. There are many accounts, not just in this city but also London and all the others, of bombed out families coming back to their properties when the authorities had made the street safe, sometimes a week or two later, to find whole rooms essentially intact .... and everything untouched. I kid you not, that's how it was. It wasn't a question of just locking the front door ... many houses had neither a 'front' nor a door to lock. But they remained untouched. Things broken, yes, covered in dust and debris, but cupboards and drawers still often contained personal effects, even valuable items. It really hacks me off when I hear folk today talking of how easy it is for the military to avoid civilian casualties, such as the current events in the Middle East. For war is war .. total war involves everyone. Everyone is in the front line, including women and children. The descendants of those 3,000 Hull casualties can testify to that. It has been fashionable in recent years for some "British" folk to question our actions against Nazi Germany, re the retaliatory bombing. They forget who started it. One big difference between our veterans, and German veterans, when they all line up on November the 11th to remember their respective dead .. our servicemen and their descendants do not have to search their conciences for the reasons they were fighting and giving their lives. Germans, in the main, were not fighting for survival, they were fighting for a meglamaniacal dictator who promised them great things at others' expense. They have to try to forget that when remembering their comrades in arms that died for an idiotic tyrant. Our veterans will never forget it, and probably not let them forget it either. Terrible things are done in time of war, by all sides, some out of sheer cruelty, but many are out of accident or lack of imagination as to what might happen. Such is the fate of war. If you want to see an authoritative diary of day to day action over the North East, including up to Tyneside, do see NE DIARY ... and when looking at a section on Sunderland, look for the account of the Heinkel Bomber that was shot down over some terraced houses, killing a mother and wounding her husband and daughter when it finally crashed. That is typical of the tragedy of war .. our little victory, but her death as the price for it. That sort of thing happened not once, but with variations, hundreds and hundreds of times. So the next time you hear someone, usually younger than 50-60, spouting off about civilian casualties, tell them they don't know what they're talking about. They don't know how fortunate they really are. With all the information there is around now, all the museums and films and books and rolls of print on how it was, what it was all about, and the price that was paid, it really is time some folks grew up. Tell them to come and live in Hull, and try and buy a house built BEFORE 1939 that WASN'T damaged ... not an easy task. 86,715 homes were wrecked to some degree ... 152,000 people were made homeless. And that is just in ONE city in the UK ... others were nearly as bad ... London, Manchester, Sheffield, Plymouth, Coventry, the list is almost endless. ADDITIONAL NOTE: added 26 Sept 2005 It was recently brought to my attention of a serious omission to the bomb plot data on Map 5. On the night of 14th April, 1942, a High Explosive bomb fell into the back gardens of 2 and 4 Woodlands Road, just off Willerby Road. The bomb destroyed a garden air raid shelter, and 4 females from those two houses were killed, one of them a two year-old baby. I am grateful to Mr Terence Vickers, whose grandfather lived nearby and attended the scene to assist in the rescue of those trapped and injured, for bringing this omission to the original data to my attention. Therefore, Map 5 has been duly amended to set the record straight. The details are recorded in the Civilian War Dead Index, and in the NE DIARY quoted above.
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