Exactly 70 years ago today...

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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby dutchman » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:14 pm

Another uncaptioned view from the Telegraph. This is Broadgate looking south-east from in front of Holy Trinity towards Smithford Street. The big building on the left is Burtons on the corner of Broadgate and Smithford Street while on the right are the temporary Woolworths Store (obscured by the van) and pre-war City Arcade much further down Smithford Street:
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby dutchman » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:19 pm

This is the priest's home of St Osburg's church on the corner of Hill Street and Barras Lane:
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby dutchman » Sun Nov 15, 2015 12:31 am

Ken Ludgate can remember watching the German bombers flying in to Coventry on the dreaded night of November 14 1940.

He was just five years old as he sat on the roof of an air raid shelter with his neighbour and saw the Nazi aircrafts filling the sky over Wyken.

The horrors of that night still live with Ken, now in his 80s, who says he can “remember it clearly as though it happened yesterday”.

Ken, who now lives in Australia with his wife Desma, said: “My father and mother moved to Farren Road, in Wyken, in 1938. My father worked at the Humber Hillman during the day and was an AFS fireman during the night.

“I was nearly six years old when the Blitz on November 14 happened. I can remember it clearly as though it happened yesterday.

“My father and the next door neighbour, Mr Nash, put an air raid shelter in next door. I can remember sitting on top of this shelter with Mr Nash w atching the bombers going into Coventry.

“They came from the north direction over Wyken. As soon as they had gone, in we went down the shelter.

“I would lie in a bunk while the grown-ups sat on benches.

“There was a concrete shelter outside our front door, but my father would not let us use it.

“I still get a tingle when I hear an alarm siren go off - we used to listen for the all-clear siren.

“I now live in Australia and have been back to Coventry three times, but Coventry has changed.

“Our friends from Shirley Road, Walsgrave, and our neighbours from Kimble Close, Allesley Park, have all gone.”

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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby Melisandre » Sun Nov 15, 2015 2:03 am

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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby rebbonk » Sun Nov 15, 2015 10:23 am

I really can't imagine what they went through, but I thank God that I've never seen anything like it first hand.
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby Melisandre » Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:49 pm

Nor me Rebbonk I think how lucky we are and I appreciate what our parents and grand parents did to give us all a better life here.
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby dutchman » Mon Nov 14, 2016 3:10 am

Albert Bateman recounts his memories of the night Coventry was battered by the German bombers

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Albert Bateman was 15 years old on the night that the Nazis unleashed their bombs on Coventry.

What he witnessed that night has stayed with him ever since and he remains adamant that the city “did not deserve what the Luftwaffe did to us that night”.

Albert, now 90, can clearly remember the anti-aircraft guns being set up in Tile Hill on the night of November 14, 1940, and the chaos that soon followed.

He describes Coventry as being a “city in turmoil” once the dust had settled and that everyone could finally see the true extent of the devastation.

Albert, who lives in Brandon, said: “After Dunkirk, June 1 1940, the only equipment that was brought back were the uniforms the soldiers were wearing. Everything else was left destroyed in France.

“This country was on its knees. I was 15 years old in November 1940, 75 years ago. I lived in Fir Grove, just a few yards from Job’s Lane, just one mile away from a lot of the factories.

“There was an anti-aircraft site off Tile Hill Lane, half a mile from Whoberley School. There were only six sites around Coventry.

“The night of the Blitz, they brought anti-aircraft guns into Job’s Lane, between Tile Hill Lane and Broad Lane. It was obvious to us that something big was happening because we had air raids on other nights before the Blitz.

“Claims about anti-aircraft gun crews being exhausted are not correct. The reason the guns stopped firing was they had run out of anti-aircraft shells. Also, the gun barrels were red hot. This is a fact.

“The city’s water mains had been damaged early on, there was no water for the fire brigade to put the fires out, so they were all left to burn out.

“The trams never ran again in the city. All overhead cables were down and bomb craters damaged the rails. All the small shops and cobbled streets were destroyed, and also the medieval cathedral.

“Everything in the city was in turmoil.

“We in Coventry did not deserve what the Luftwaffe did to us that night. Then you wonder why we hated the Germans?

“Even if Churchill had known about the raid, there was nothing anyone could have done to stop it.

“So we were sacrificed in a way – but it was the best kept secret of the war, not to let the Nazis know we had broken the Enigma code.”

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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby Melisandre » Mon Nov 14, 2016 3:04 pm

Its nice to hear the truth at last from some who actually lived through it and not from made up stories from journalist .

Anti aircraft guns were placed on the roofs of the Humber to according to my dad who worked for Humber.
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby rebbonk » Mon Nov 14, 2016 5:50 pm

Interesting point about the truth Melisandre.

An older acquaintance of mine often tells a tale of those being trapped, with no hope of ever being dug out, being gassed to put them out of their misery. True or not, I wouldn't like to say.
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Re: Exactly 70 years ago today...

Postby Tricia » Mon Nov 14, 2016 9:39 pm

Great photos.
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