Blitz:The bombs that changed Britain.

Yesterday, I watched a recording of this programme which was shown on BBC2 on Saturday night. This one was the second in a series of four (missed the first one).

The series deals with the effects of a single bomb out of the many dropped on Britain during the Blitz. This one was about the bomb that hit and destroyed two houses in a street in Hull. (Hull was a target because of it being a large port for shipping and food supplies). The programme talked with survivors of the blast about the number of casualties (all buried in a communal grave). One woman, a child of six when the bomb hit her house, didn't know that she had two siblings killed in the explosion as her parents never talked about the situation - such was the reserve of the British in those days. Only in later life when her older sister let slip about her dead brother and sister did she find out the truth.

Remarkably, the programme managed to recover hundreds of essays written by schoolchildren about the incident some of which were given to those who are still alive today. The essays related about all the horrors they had seen with their friends and families being killed, blown apart and maimed. Very touching as they read their essays as it brought back all the memories which they had suppressed to the fore.

The programme went on to say that those essays were used by the War Office to assess the levels of stress caused by the bombing, the upshot of that was that the people cared more about the loss of their homes than the people killed. (I don't think stoicism among the working class was considered by the high and mighty). This information was used as a reason to carpet bomb certain towns and cities in Germany, the belief being that if German morale could be brought low, they would sue for peace and end the war. The tactic didn't work even after the flattening and obliteration of Dresden, all it did was to strengthen the resolve of the German people.

After the war, it was concluded that the carpet bombing was a completed waste of time and the money and effort gone into the carpet bombing would have been put to better use by bombing strategic targets such as factories, railways and docks which would have shortened the war.

Next episode is about the bombing of the shipyards in the Glasgow docks.

Re: Blitz:The bombs that changed Britain.

Many decades ago, I watched a BBC (?) series called "UXB". It was the story of the men who diffused unexploded blitz bombs during the war.

I hope I get to see this new series.

Re: Blitz:The bombs that changed Britain.

I saw these programmes a year ago, Jem and was very interested especially as the programme from Hull was only filmed about half a mile from where I live and my wife actually knows one of those women. Very interesting programme. The other programmes are Glasgow, Coventry and Liverpool, if memory serves

Re: Blitz:The bombs that changed Britain.

Programmes like that tend to put everything else into perspective. I can't imagine the horrors that people faced up to during the wars.