Battle of Britain

[cardboard_killer]

80 years ago today: A LW boneyard in England. Bet the Germans would have liked these planes supplying their isolated pockets in the USSR instead.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by cardboard_killer

[Chief_Mouser]

On 12/29/2020 at 4:20 PM, cardboard_killer said:

The journalist Ernie Pyle described the evening for an American audience:

You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires – scores of them, perhaps hundreds.

 

There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it.

 

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen’s valor, only to break out again later.

 

About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation, like a bee buzzing in blind fury.

The guns did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible days of September. They were intermittent – sometimes a few seconds apart, sometimes a minute or more. Their sound was sharp, near by; and soft and muffled, far away. They were everywhere over London.

 

Into the dark shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done their work – another building was on fire.

 

The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there gradually took shape – so faintly at first that we weren’t sure we saw correctly – the gigantic dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

 

St. Paul’s was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there in its enormous proportions – growing slowly clearer and clearer, the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a battlefield.

 

The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow. Immediately above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light – anti-aircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the sound.

 

My mum was in that one. Left Camberwell in an attempt to get home to Dartford. Took forever. The house she had left earlier that evening was destroyed in the raid. My great-grandfather and great-aunt were hospitalised; the people next door were killed and the dog ran off and was never seen again. On reflection she said that destroying the house wasn't too bad; it was near to a slum. For the people involved, that was a different matter.

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Irish Wing Commander Paddy Finucane, commander of No 602 Squadron RAF and 21 years old, is hit by flak on a raid over Étaples-sur-Mer, France. He ditches his Spitfire in the Channel but is not recovered. The Battle of Britain veteran had 28 confirmed victories with 5 probables."

 

Finucane (left) and Keith Truscott after a successful sortie, October 1941

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Single Fw-190 fighter-bombers raid three southeast England coastal towns, dropping 500 kg bombs. One of these “nuisance” attacks will hit the Petworth Boy’s School, killing twenty-seven children and three adults.

 

Burial of the Children from Petworth Boys School

 

- Other raids this week will hit Seaford, Penzance, Colchester, Somerton, Shrewton, Betteshanger Collthbourne, Ashord, Worthing, Lancing, and Colchester. Total casualties this week will be 68 killed and 82 wounded.

[BOO]

1 hour ago, cardboard_killer said:

[80 years ago today] "• Single Fw-190 fighter-bombers raid three southeast England coastal towns, dropping 500 kg bombs. One of these “nuisance” attacks will hit the Petworth Boy’s School, killing twenty-seven children and three adul

 

 

 

Petworth School Attack

 

Not 23/09/42 but 29/09/42

 

Likely not Fw190 with single 500KG but JU88 with a stick of 3 bombs according to eyewitnesses. One eyewitness states the aircraft was an all black JU88 but conditions were reported as poor. Some believe the aircraft was later shot down up country but there is no evidence I can find for this.

 

Likley not a nuisance raid per se but a tragic event resultant from either a miscalculated attack on troops at nearby Petworth House or a panicked bomb release from a pursured and/or harrassed intruder or both. Several eyewitnesses state at least two bombs riccocheted into the school after being dropped from a very low level. Few believe it was a deliberate act. 

 

Some more info on this terrible event.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/29/a4529829.shtml

 

http://www2.westsussex.gov.uk/learning-resources/LR/learning/learning_resources/wartime_west_sussex_1939-45/case_studies_for_teachers/petworth_bombing.html

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The Luftwaffe launches Operation Steinbock, a night-time strategic bombing campaign against the UK. In the first raid, a motley force of 447 aircraft are sent to London, including some bombers recently retired to be trainers. Most of the aircraft fail to find London, which results in Göring being chewed out by Hitler. Fourteen people are killed on the ground. Nine aircraft are lost.

 

Aftermath of a Steinbock raid in February, 1944

 

- Known as the “Little Blitz”, raids will continue through April but with 329 German aircraft lost. 1,556 civilians will be killed with 2,916 wounded. After that, the only attacks will be by small scale intruder raids and by V-weapons."