For Your Historians: BombSight.ORG

[6Foot2]

Link: Bomb Sight - Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census

 

The Bomb Sight project is mapping the London WW2 bomb census between 7/10/1940 and 06/06/1941. Previously available only by viewing in the Reading Room at The National Archives, Bomb Sight is making the maps available to citizen researchers, academics and students. They will be able to explore where the bombs fell and to discover memories and photographs from the period.

 

http://i.snag.gy/1Q8i3.jpg

[Gibson335]

Depressingly, I am old enough to have played in bomb sites - in the early 60s there were still a few around in places like Stepney.

[6Foot2]

Another website with a similar objective:

 

Link: Google Map:London landing sites of V2 rockets

 

http://i.snag.gy/xHyS2.jpg

[hawc]

There is one right around the corner from me on the 1st one that I never knew about.

[6Foot2]

Related: Bomb Map Record of Incidents in the City of Westminster 1940-1945

 

http://i.snag.gy/STMDI.jpg

 

Source: West End at War: history, photos, memories, and maps of London during the Second World War

[6Foot2]

Another website with a similar objective:

 

Link: Google Map:London landing sites of V2 rockets...

 

The URL for this map has been updated:

 

Link: V2 rockets on London and surrounding counties

 

 

Please note:

 

1) This map is not comprehensive. Many strikes in open countryside are omitted. And many strikes in the East End of London are missing due to lack of concrete information. Please leave a comment if you have evidence.

 

2) A limitation with Google maps means that not all strikes are showing on the first page. If you spot that something is missing, please scroll to the bottom of the list and try the second page.

[6Foot2]

Link: Why unexploded bombs keep turning up on building sites

 

...most bombs or unexploded ordnance turn up on buildings sites. Figures are scant, but in 2009 the Construction Industry Research and Information Association estimated that, between 2006 and 2009, about 15,000 devices, including grenades, had been removed from construction sites. Five per cent were live, equivalent to roughly 250 devices a year.

 

It would make sense if discoveries are becoming more frequent; in many cases, original sites are being redeveloped for a second time after blocks thrown up in the postwar building boom reach the end of their useful life. Many of the worst hit areas are now sites of explosive redevelopment. And as buildings get taller, foundations go deeper...

[6Foot2]

Link: WW2 Bomb Raids: Portsmouth [Dynamic Maps]

 

[6Foot2]

Link: West Riding ARP Bomb map, 14^th/15^th March 1941

 

 

This map is based upon the records created by the West Riding County Council and the Leeds City Fire Brigade, held by West Yorkshire Archive Service. The 14^th/15^th March 1941 saw the worst bombing raid over the whole of the West Riding of Yorkshire; with Leeds, Castleford and the Huddersfield area being targeted in particular This map logs these incidents as accurately as possible based on the available information. If you have any corrections, memories or comments relating to an incident, please email [email protected]. Additional entries were kindly created by Public History Project students at Leeds Beckett University, 2021. There are two pages to this map, you can move to page 2 via the link at the bottom of the incident list below Key: Red: Incendiary (i.e. fire) bomb Green: High Explosive bomb Turquoise: Unexploded Bomb (UXB). This means the device failed to explode, though often no indication is given as to what kind of device was involved 'Flame': Indicates a a fire location as reported by the Leeds City Fire Brigade Yellow: Anti Aircraft shell Dark Blue: Landmine

[6Foot2]

Link: Where bombs fell over Herts in the Second World War

 

We've plotted every bomb recorded to have fallen over Hertfordshire during the Second World War, according to Bombing Britain data

 

[caffrey]

These are great, keep them coming

[6Foot2]

These are great, keep them coming

Any new ones I find, I'll post in this thread.

 

[6Foot2]

Link 1: Bombing Britain - War, State and Society

 

The freely downloadable dataset details over 32,000 German air raids on the United Kingdom between September 1939 and March 1945. The data includes information on all the attacks, including locations, dates and times of attack, and casualty numbers, based on wartime intelligence files from The National Archives, UK.

Please click on the link below to download the full dataset. The data was transcribed from the Ministry of Home Security's Daily Intelligence Reports, contained in The National Archives' file series HO 203...

Link 2: Bombing Britain – full dataset

[6Foot2]

Link: Brighton and Hove bomb locations

 

The Luftwaffe left a trail of terror across the coast around Brighton and Hove. Every red pin was a bomb and every bomb was a heart-stopping moment of fear, injury or death. The first Nazi bomb to fall on Brighton wrecked homes in Whitehawk Road. Before the end of the war 227 civilians had been killed and 510 seriously injured.

 

[Chucker]

This is a great thread. The V2 map is particularly interesting to me. I never had the pleasure of meeting my paternal grandparents because they were killed by a V1 when my dad was 14. He is 91 now and I'm trying to find more info for him. Unfortunately it was a V1 and not a V2 that killed them. I've been searching for weeks with no luck so if anyone knows of a V1 map please let me know

[6Foot2]

This is a great thread. The V2 map is particularly interesting to me. I never had the pleasure of meeting my paternal grandparents because they were killed by a V1 when my dad was 14. He is 91 now and I'm trying to find more info for him. Unfortunately it was a V1 and not a V2 that killed them. I've been searching for weeks with no luck so if anyone knows of a V1 map please let me know

As you said, it's a bit tricky to find similar detail that can be found for V2 but for V1.

 

However, I have found this:

 

Link: World War Two

 

 

Full-size map in new window = 3000 x 3441

 

Scroll down the page for more maps and content.

[6Foot2]

Link: These Amateur Archaeologists Dig Up the Buzz Bombs That Fell on England in WW2 | History | Air & Space Magazine

 

This patch of English woodland near the village of Bromley Green, about eight miles from the Channel shore, was once a smoking crater. A V-1 flying bomb—fired by Germany’s Luftwaffe at London but shot down minutes before getting there—crashed and exploded here around eight o’clock in the morning on August 27, 1944, gouging a hole in the earth 10 feet deep and 20 feet across. The blast of its warhead and fuel lifted the nearest house, more than 600 feet away, off its foundations.

 

Seventy-five years later, to the exact day, the old crater is the site of an archaeological investigation led by two brothers who grew up hearing stories of the terror wrought by Germany’s V-1s. Colin and Sean Welch have searched for fragments of the flying bombs over the past 10 years. Today at Bromley Green, they’ve already cleared away fallen trees and marked out a grid on the surface. A magnetometer scan has found deeply buried pieces of metal—their quarry in the hunt...

 

 

 

A map of Kent County, created by the Welch brothers, shows the thousands of V-1s that crashed before they reached London and some of the many that made it (in the upper left corner). Fighter pilots, anti-aircraft guns, and barrage balloons brought down the bombs, but doing so came at a cost, draining resources from elsewhere in the war effort. The yellow circle on the map is the location of the Welch brothers’ recent excavation at Bromley Green.

[Chucker]

Thanks for those. Some really interesting stuff in those maps which have helped my understanding and have meant that I have been able to have some great conversations with my dad..........and that is priceless at this stage. Frustratingly the area I am interested in is not clear in either map so my search continues. But I must say thanks from me and my dad. REally appreciated.

[6Foot2]

If I find anything new that's relevant, I will post it in this thread.

 

All the best to you and your dad.

[6Foot2]

Link: Bombs dropped on Herefordshire

 

[6Foot2]

I created this thread yesterday:

 

Link 1: Sunken Ships of the Second World War

 

That reminded me of this thread. Sadly, BombSight.org no longer works and is no longer updated*, while "Bombing Britain - War, State and Society" and "WW2 Bomb Raids: Portsmouth" are behind paywalls (the latter has a version that offers free access but, it doesn't have the same functionality.)

 

However, I have found some other maps:

 

Link 2: Surrey World War Two Bomb Incident Map

 

This interactive map is part of an ongoing volunteer-led project to derive information from a number of sources to map World War Two bomb incidents across Surrey. Click on the icons to learn more about each incident. Click on the legend to display/turn off each bomb type.

 

 

* However, the site was captured by the Internet Archive project (on 1,178 occasions)

 

Link 3: Bomb Sight - Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census [At Internet Archive]

[6Foot2]

Link: Bath Blitz Memorial Project

[6Foot2]

Link 1: Map of V1 attack on Manchester

 

 

*Last updated: 12th of May 2014. Most recent comment: 29th of March 2024.

 

Link 2: Raids Over York