ste, loose pages I've got from a book, don't know which one though. I'll put others on when i get my act together, center of Birkenhead, flour mills, argyle theatre. little girls must be local, picture was with the others.
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
Get the rest up Bert, looking forward to seeing them
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This will give you an idea of how much force it took to blow this car onto it`s roof and over a garden wall.Please give a thought to all who had to endure the grief and misery suffered during 39-44,not to mention all who gave thier life.
Great photos Dava. I remember my mum telling me about when Christ Church Claughton on Borough Rd got bombed, the house next door to us fell down. We lived right opposite the school, if you are ever travelling down/up Borough Rd when you get to the school look right/left and you will see a big house on the ridge behind the ??service station?? thats were I lived.
Notice that the RAF have already painted out the German insignia and replacd it with Roundalls and tail markings, meaning they have been test flying it (so they wont get shot down!!)
Pinzgaur,I totally agree with your view concerning the bomb disposal squad,as many of thier jobs was trial and error with the Germans constantly boobytrapping thier payload.Thus making thier job harder.If you have seen or manage to get hold of "Danger UXB" tv series,this is an accurate account of what they were faced with.
I know the thread is about bombed Birkenhead and I don`t want to go off topic here but I`ve got a few pics of Liverpool as well,I want to put them on so everyone can enjoy them and so they are recorded as well.
Yes,I recorded the series when it was shown a while back. Then bought the book! Fascinating.
As you rightly say, it was a cat and mouse game. Fritz made another type of fuse with nasty surprise underneath it, then we had to figure out how to disarm it.
I'm sure we were the same, but the variety of German bomb fuses and the construction of them was fantastic. The SD.2 (Butterfly Bomb) is a work of art.
A lot of the devices to "stop the clock" that we used were "Heath Robinson" in the extreme - but they worked!
A lot of VERY brave B.D. officers lost their lives in the early days. Often unsung heroes.
Bert 1, that pic you have shown of the anti personell mine is the "butterfly Bomb", They are meant to be un-defusable, I have a fragment of the same that was blown up by bomb disposal years ago, the guy had it as a souvenir on his mantle piece!!! He had watched an episode of Danger UXB and they mentioned that it could not be deactivated, so he phoned the bomb desposal, who came round immediatly! The guy had then carried it to the bottom of his garden where the crew said that if it was still on the mantle piece thats where they would have blown it!!! The fragment id the fuse cover plate, complete with fuse type, type 41, year of manufacture, 1941 and factory marks!! All very clearly stamped into the plate, about the size of a can lid!
Jeez. One lucky guy there! The Type 41 was designed to go off on impact I think. (Must dig the book out). Another type went off after a set time and a third type armed itself when it hit the deck and then would go off if moved about 2mm (not a lot).
Kids picked them up after a raid. The curious gave them a tap with their foot. Some landed in fields only to give a blundering cow/sheep a bad time!
Recall reading that if anything went tits up when defusing a bomb, you wouldn't know the slightest thing. The train of detonation, the gaine going off and the main charge going pop is far quicker than the fastest nerve transmission in the human body. Not even time to think "Oh sh*t" !! Maybe just as well.
Chris,a short while back you asked for me to enlarge the bombing target pics,I have discovered that the archives have got original German lufwaffe bombing maps that where retrieved by a spy.
Locations:
1) Wirral 2) Liverpool 3) Warrington 4) Manchester 5) North Wales
Scanning and posting,gulp,it took me 4 months to figure out how to post lol,yeah still need to outline the targets first as the originals are in color and the prints I have are in black and white,but will give it a go.
If you send scan them and send them to me, i will edit and highlight the targetted areas electronically. It will be much quicker and probably look better as well.
Thats great Doc,Mark Kindley offered also to help me out on this.I will take you up on that as I think Mark has enough on his plate with sorting out the forums.Thank you Doc.Will send them through in an hour.
Mark maybe you could help me out with 2 other projects mate.I have an 1888 and 1858 map of Birkenhead that I want to post and again they are too big will have to scan them in sections.
I often find that with big stuff, it's easier to photograph it & then crop it into sections for posting, or simply re-size it down to a size you can post.
Thats the problem with taking a photo, it further reduces the quality. Prob better to scan something like that to keep the detail. Just post them through to me when you get time and i'll get to work on it.
Came across this one today,just to add to the collection. This is a pic of the railings around Birkenhead park being removed for the war effort.It did say on it by cricket pitch,so I`m thing poss Ashville Rd.
Hi Bert. I think I remember my mum telling me the last bombing raid over the Wirral was March 1941. Is that correct? Seems a fair bit too early I reckon.
In fact the more I think about it - the more I'm sure it has to be wrong. Bad memory!!
August 1940 9th: First bombs dropped on Merseyside at Prenton, Birkenhead. Liverpool’s first casualty of the 'Blitz'.
10th: First bombs dropped on Wallasey.
17th: First bombs dropped on Liverpool. Liverpool Overhead railway damaged.
19th: Walton Gaol bombed killing 22 prisoners.
September 1940 5th: Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral damaged by bomb blast.
6th: Children’s Convalescent Home bombed, Birkenhead.
26th: Heavy raid on docks and warehouses. Argyle Theatre, Birkenhead, seriously damaged.
October 1940 23rd: Merseyside suffers 200th air raid.
November 1940 28th: Heaviest air raids to date; 200 people killed in total as the first land mines dropped on Merseyside. 164 people killed when a shelter underneath the Junior Technical School, Durning Road, collapsed.
December 1940 3rd: 180 people killed in attack on a packed air raid shelter
12th: Merseyside suffers its 300th air raid.
20th: Start of the ‘The ‘Christmas Raids’ with 365 people killed over three nights. 42 people killed in a bomb attack on two air raid shelters; another 42 people killed when railway arches being used as unofficial shelters are hit; 1399 children evacuated out of Liverpool.
21st: 74 people killed in a direct hit on a large air raid shelter.
22nd: End of the ‘Christmas Raids’.
January 1941 Bad flying weather results in just three air raids in the whole month.
February 1941 7th: ‘Western Approaches Command Headquarters transferred to Liverpool from Plymouth.
Only two raids are carried out on Merseyside in February.
March 1941 12-13th: Heavy bombing resumes. Wallasey suffers its heaviest raids as 174 people are killed.
16th: Baby girl found alive under debris in Wallasey, after being trapped for three and a half days.
April 1941 25th: Winston Churchill visits Liverpool to see the city and port.
The Luftwaffe (German air force) limited the raids on Merseyside to just three this month, conserving their forces for the upcoming ‘May Blitz’.
May 1941 1st: Beginning of the ‘The ‘May Blitz’ 1741 people were killed and 114 people seriously injured by the end of the week.
3rd: Worst night of the ‘May Blitz’, including the explosion of the cargo ship Malakand in Huskisson Dock.
7th: Final night of the ‘May Blitz’;
13th: 550 ‘Unknown Warriors of the Battle of Britain’ are buried in a common grave at Anfield Cemetery.
June 1941 1st: Heavy raids on Liverpool docks; East Gladstone Dock is badly damaged.
July 1941 24th: Light air raid on Merseyside.
November 1941 1st: A light air raid is the final attack on Merseyside in 1941.
January 1942 10th: Merseyside’s final bombing raid of the Second World War sees houses in Upper Stanhope Street demolished.
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
i have just looked at the photographs of the bombings i was born in Birkenhead in may 1939 we lived in Salisbury st off Grange rd during one of the raids we had to go for cover we all went in the basement of the old ROXY cinema on Charing cross When the raid was over my mam left the shelter of the roxy with my brother and sisters and me to be greeted with the site of our house totaly demolished by a german bomb god only knows what went through my mams head when she saw it we had nowere to live so we were shipped out to Wales to live with relations till about 1944 Thank god i was to young to rember what happened i got all the details from me mam there made of strong stuff BIRKONEONS
My Mum has told us harrowing things about the bombings.She lived in Bidston with her parents. The 12th March 1941 was her 16th birthday. She told us that after the blitz she walked to a friends house,the destruction all around. One memory stuck in her mind,so awful that even after 50 years it would make her cry. She had seen a young woman standing by the remains of a house,two little babies lying dead on doors that were makeshift stretchers.The poor woman was screaming and screaming. I think my poor Mum just ran away.God knows how people got on with life,but they did. My Dad lived in Rock Ferry and he also had a memory that haunted him.He was coming home from the cinema in Bebington. He and a mate were walking home and an air raid started. They ran like the clappers and had got as far as Victoria Park when they saw a car get a direct hit. My Dad saw the man in the car on fire. There was nothing that he or his mate could do so they ran for their lives through the park. I think he was only about 16 himself, but just like my Mum the memory stayed with him .He didn't cry like my Mum did, but he got very upset about it.
My Dad lived in Livingstone Road Rock Ferry at that time- he told me about the day a Messerschmitt 110 strafed the street, which had kids playin in it- luckily no-one was hit, but the sandstone fence posts had large chunks blasted out of them. The same night, most of Well lane was flattened by a parachute mine
Thanks to Lynn and Blackadder for sharing these harrowing but amazing insights to the true reality of the scenes of devastation,destruction and personal loss that millions of people around the UK had to bare witness to during that terrible time.
My Dad and Grandfather told me about Well Lane. At the bottom of Well Lane on the opposite side to the Fairfield pub the houses are newer than the ones up towards the Police station. Dad said the houses got taken out by a landmine that caused major loss of life as one of the houses had a party going on. Dad said they found a bed in Victoria park with a headless body in it and remembers the fire brigade removing a body from the top of the telephone wires. He also told me that a German plane was brought down and crashed near Grove Road where the Rock Ferry library (circa 1970's)was. All the kids in the area got chased by the police as they tried to steal bits of it,they used to make rings from the windows of the plane. My friends Dad was an air raid warden down by lairds with his work mate.They stood at the bottom of St Pauls road on the night of the heavy bombing, his mate thought he saw a German parachute dropping from a crashing plane so ran in the direction of the now Rock retail park. My friends Dad said that about a minute later he could see his mate in the distance and a search light swept past the chute to reveal a landmine underneath with about 100 foot left to go. He threw himself on the floor and next thing the landmine went off. They never found anything of his mate.
I was told a story myself years back,a friend of my nan who was obv about the same age.She recalls a night of heavy bombing over Merseyside/Wirral (in general) and she told me of a German plane being shot down over Wirral and the pilot (crew member) landed on the gasometer that used to be at the side of the bus depot,wich was situated behind Laird St.He was arrested and no doubt served the rest of the war in a POW camp.Not as harrowing or unfortunate of the previouse events described but a more lighter hearted account never the less.
I would think that Merseyside would be too far for a Doodlebug (V1) to fly from the launch sites on the wrong side of the English Channel. Never read or heard of any much further north than the northerly outskirts of London.
They used air launched ones, as we moved up Europe, they moved north as well. Project "Driver", which was the re-siting of the AA guns for V1's moved north as well, finishing up in the Newcastle area.
From mid-September 1944 to mid-January 1944, the ground launched V1's gave way exclusively to air-launched V1's, around 1200 were launched, 638 of them were observed, 331.5 were shot down by AA and 71.5 by fighters.
HAA sites were prepared from the SE up towards Newcastle, on Christmas Eve 40 V1's were aimed at Manchester across the Lincolnshire coast. The very last air launched V1 of the war came down at Hornsey (Yorkshire coast) on the 14th Jan 1945
That's an excellent kill rate by the AA against V1s.
There's a real danger that the left will drag Britain back to the 1970s, with secure well-paid jobs, ample housing, properly-funded NHS and social care, free tuition, student grants, final salary pensions, affordable rail fares and fabulous films and music. David Osland 2025
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Next month is the 70th anniversary of the May blitz, tha start of it all. There will be rememberance services held around the country. Liverpool is holding services for all the fire crews killed i heared. I havent a lot of info on this, just what i heared, so if anyone would like to jump in and tell more....! Back then they were called Fire Police, hence the term "Fire Bobby".
I hadn't realised there were air launched ones either. For a while, one of my stepsons had a house in Northern France, inland from Dieppe. There were several launch ramps preserved there. I've also visited a V2 launch site between Calais & Boulogne & in the same area the V3 site (which was never operational).
Most people have heard of the V1 & V2, but fewer have heard of the V3, which was in fact a gun. The site at Mimoyecques is awesome. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/v3.htm
For anyone who is interested, I will be appearing at Fort Perch Rock museum on Easter Monday from 10am till 4pm with my Luftwaffe bomber pilot collection, including original pilots' clothing and equipment from my very rare collection. I will also bring some of the 1:48 scale models I have, including the one of the Ju88 that crashlanded next to Bromborough Dock in August 1940. You can find out more about the model and the last time I appeared at Fort Perch Rock on http://homepage.ntlworld.com/axisas...%20-%20Bromborough%20Ju88%20incident.htm
Hi Guys, I am a new member , just found the site. I was born in March 1938 and when my father was called up and sent to France before war broke out we moved from Bebington to Willey Street, Rockferry,my nan lived on Ebenezer street.I can remember some of what happened as we moved down south to Surrey after the war and I recall stuff that happened before we moved. We( my brother was two years older than I )we had a dried milk tin full of shrapnel'. We had a shelter in the street but no one seemed to use it. I recall the Victory parties in the street over Germany and Japan and there being a painting at the end of the street with VOJ on it. If anyone has any info of that time I would be very interested . My dad, by the way was at Dunkirk ,was rescued ,then sent to Burma and had to walk into india when Rangoon fell, caught cholera ,survived , was sent to Egypt , then back to Burma from where he was demobbed !! regards, Dave Hewson
Your right Chris, it was one of Bernards shops that apart from its frontage was in one of the cellars of the old market as you came down the steps it was on the right hand side as you turned towards Hamington Street.
Last edited by jimbob; 8th Apr 201210:32pm.
Ships that pass in the night, seldom seen and soon forgoten
thanks for the picture johnsonjl no i can't tell either .. i am thinking the house in the background would be one on south road? but thats a guess. i would love to see old pictures of devonshire park, but i can never find any .. so cheers x
Thanks Bert1. I was born in 34 Studley Road Wallasey and it was apparently bombed sometime after September 1940 when I was evacuated to Canada. Would it be possible to confirm this with date? Are there any maps of dropped bombs positions for Wallasey?
Thanks Bert1. I was born in 34 Studley Road Wallasey and it was apparently bombed sometime after September 1940 when I was evacuated to Canada. Would it be possible to confirm this with date? Are there any maps of dropped bombs positions for Wallasey?
Hi Colin and welcome,
If the information you require is available I'm sure someone will put it up if they have it, the link may be of interest to you, Wallasey and the Blitz
Looks like it was a jettison job - destroyed a number of 'new' houses on Berwyn Avenue, damaged some on Pensby Road and heavily cratered the later site of Penrhyn Avenue, which was still a Dairy and smallholding.
Thanks Bert1. I was born in 34 Studley Road Wallasey and it was apparently bombed sometime after September 1940 when I was evacuated to Canada. Would it be possible to confirm this with date? Are there any maps of dropped bombs positions for Wallasey?
There's no "official" map showing the positions of bombs dropped on Wallasey during the war, but there is a semi-official one compiled after the war from various sources. This clearly shows that a bomb did hit the bottom end of Studley Road, the indicated site being centred on no. 31 on the opposite side of the road from your house. This was an HE bomb that was apparently dropped during a raid on 1st November 1941.
Looks like it was a jettison job - destroyed a number of 'new' houses on Berwyn Avenue, damaged some on Pensby Road and heavily cratered the later site of Penrhyn Avenue, which was still a Dairy and smallholding.
I remember reading about a German bomber being shot down and one of the crew bailing out and landing somewhere around Landican. He decided that it might be better to be caught without his pistol so chucked it away on his descent. Wonder if it is still lying in the ground somewhere or did someone find it?
Cheers for that Have dropped them an email to arrange a visit My parents house was destroyed in Rosedale Rd and apparently some relatives were killed in the Well Lane strike
Sorry, it was Project "Diver". From mid-September 1944 to mid-January 1944, the ground launched V1's gave way exclusively to air-launched V1's, around 1200 were launched, 638 of them were observed, 331.5 were shot down by AA and 71.5 by fighters.
The Germans were the leaders in air-launched missiles - especially anti-ship ones such as the Hs293 'Fritz' - which was capable of sinking a battleship - the Italian 'Roma' was sunk by one as it tried to join Allied forces.
Wow, I used to live in Willowbank Road. I think I know where it landed too. The houses are mostly large 4 floored buildings, except for the top of Clarence Road, where there are a couple of bungalows and an electricity substation. I think that is where that picture is taken.
Regarding Willow bank Rd / Clarence Rd. I was brought up in Westbank Rd. I always believed that there had been a school in this area and the ground we playedon was red shale which I believe had been tennis courts for the school. Anyone have further information?
Regarding Willow bank Rd / Clarence Rd. I was brought up in Westbank Rd. I always believed that there had been a school in this area and the ground we playedon was red shale which I believe had been tennis courts for the school. Anyone have further information?
Higher Tranmere High School for Girls Was it bombed?
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
Chris,a short while back you asked for me to enlarge the bombing target pics,I have discovered that the archives have got original German lufwaffe bombing maps that where retrieved by a spy.
Locations:
1) Wirral 2) Liverpool 3) Warrington 4) Manchester 5) North Wales
Basically the North West
I have had 2 copied but they are too big to scan and post.
I know this is old but did anyone manage upload these? Mark and Dr Frick offered to do it for him. The thread dried up in 2009 before it started again in 2011, but then there was no mention of it again.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle
I've heard that doodlebug story as well, it was probably a whistling bomb that was designed to instil more fear and demoralisation in the population. Most bombs naturally whistle but the Germans made alterations to enhance the effect.
Wirral was covered in decoy sites Meols, Thurstaston, Hoylake, Brimstage as well as Burton Marsh. The control bunkers are still extant except for Brimstage.
There's a real danger that the left will drag Britain back to the 1970s, with secure well-paid jobs, ample housing, properly-funded NHS and social care, free tuition, student grants, final salary pensions, affordable rail fares and fabulous films and music. David Osland 2025
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
I believe there was a decoy site on Bidston moss, at the end of the war german prisoners were used to fill in bomb craters there and we used to pester them for badges.which we found could be obtained for a cigarette.
I believe there was a decoy site on Bidston moss, at the end of the war german prisoners were used to fill in bomb craters there and we used to pester them for badges.which we found could be obtained for a cigarette.
Do you still have any of the badges joney? Would love to see them.
Upon reading this I was looking up sounds of the bombs from the war (I didn't know they whistled) and came upon this video of the old air raid sirens....
This is quite a haunting sound, very eerie, cannot imagine what it was like with bombs whistling through the air and the sound of the devastation and destruction all around.
Strange enough and i'm being totally honest here, yesterday (Wednesday 6th January 2021) at 10am sharp for about 30 seconds I heard these sirens. They were faint but very clear.
Yes, I heard the siren as well, I thought it was coming from around Cammel Lairds but couldn't be sure.
There's a real danger that the left will drag Britain back to the 1970s, with secure well-paid jobs, ample housing, properly-funded NHS and social care, free tuition, student grants, final salary pensions, affordable rail fares and fabulous films and music. David Osland 2025
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Having survived the blitz, for many years after the war if I heard a siren of any sort my scalp used to prickle as though my hair was trying to stand on end .
Strange enough and i'm being totally honest here, yesterday (Wednesday 6th January 2021) at 10am sharp for about 30 seconds I heard these sirens. They were faint but very clear.
Managed to confirm that Cammell Laird test their siren the first Wednesday of the month.
There's a real danger that the left will drag Britain back to the 1970s, with secure well-paid jobs, ample housing, properly-funded NHS and social care, free tuition, student grants, final salary pensions, affordable rail fares and fabulous films and music. David Osland 2025
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Strange enough and i'm being totally honest here, yesterday (Wednesday 6th January 2021) at 10am sharp for about 30 seconds I heard these sirens. They were faint but very clear.
Managed to confirm that Cammell Laird test their siren the first Wednesday of the month.
Strange, not heard it before, must be with the lack of traffic on the roads.
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