COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

To mark the 70th anniversary of these attacks, local Author Trevor Harkin has just published this new book. It remembers the victims of the Easter 1941 raids and also those who died in the raids after 14 November 1940 to this point and those who died in raids after Easter 1941. Combined with his previous book, "Coventry 14th/15th November 1940 Casualties, Awards and Accounts" this means that all known victims of air raids on Coventry are now remembered in print. He has also included people from Coventry or who had strong connections with Coventry who died in raids elsewhere in Britain.

http://www.warmemorialpark.co.uk/

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Thanks Peter

The Easter raids are all too often lumped together with the November Blitz in most historical accounts (including the most recent documentary by the BBC).

The biggest difference that I can tell is that the Easter raids consisted mostly of high explosive bombs as opposed to the incendiaries used in November. That may have been because there simply weren't enough buildings left to burn? The Empire Building complex had the misfortune to be hit both times. The shops on the northern end were gutted by fire in November and the Austin Reed showroom to the south was destroyed by high explosives in April.

I'd be interested to know if the pictures on the cover are typical of the content inside?

Most of the images inside are small ones - mainly of the victims and those who received awards. There are some of bomb damage but there is no separate section of photographs and I think most of the bomb damage pics have appeared elsewhere. Quite a few small pics of memorial plaques as well.