- Liverpool Blitz
The Liverpool Blitz was the heavy and sustained bombing of the city of
Liverpool and the surrounding area, inEngland duringWorld War II by theNazi German Luftwaffe .Liverpool ,Bootle andWirral were the most heavily bombed areas of the country outside ofLondon , due to its importance in the British war effort. The government was desperate to hide from the Germans just how much damage they had wreaked on the ports and so reports on the bombing of the area were deliberately kept low-key. Over 4,000Liverpudlians and Merseysiders lost their lives during the blitz, twice the number killed inBirmingham and even three times that ofCoventry .London , by comparison had suffered 30,000 deaths by the end of the war.Liverpool, Bootle and the
Wallasey Pool were strategically important locations during theSecond World War for numerous reasons. Its large ports on theRiver Mersey on the West Coast of England meant that theAtlantic Ocean , and therefore theUnited States , was easily accessible. This would prove to be a key part in the British participation in the Battle of the Atlantic with Liverpool's and the Wirral's ports being used for import and export of goods as well as naval ships from several nations being stationed there. Over 90% of all the war material brought into Britain from abroad, some 75 million tons, passed through its eleven miles of quays.Preparations for war
Evacuation of children at the start of the war in September 1939 was a pre-emptive measure. The evacuations were organised by
Liverpool Corporation and though some children were transported to smaller towns nearby, many went to far more rural areas inNorth Wales andCheshire .The Christmas blitz
Air raid attacks became heavier towards the end of 1940 and Liverpool and Wirral had suffered over 300 air raids by the end of the year. 365 people were killed between
December 20 andDecember 22 , often due to direct hits on air raid shelters. One in Durning Road was destroyed with the loss of 166 lives and in the north of the city, 40 died when a bomb struck railway arches on Bentinck Street, where local people were sheltering.The bombing decreased in severity after the new year and in the early part of 1941.
The May blitz
The first bomb landed upon
Wallasey "over the water" from Liverpool on the Wirral in Cheshire, at 10:15 pm on the 1st of May. [ [http://www.lmu.livjm.ac.uk/LHOL/content.aspx?itemid=150 Liverpool and the Blitz ] ] The peak of the bombing occurred fromMay 1 toMay 7 1941 . It involved 681Luftwaffe bombers. Half of the docks were put out of action, with 1,741 people being killed whilst 1,154 people injured. Many more were made homeless. 2,315 high explosive bombs and 119 other explosives such as incendiaries were dropped.One incident occurred on
May 3 when the SS "Malakand", berthed in theHuskisson Dock , was struck by a bomb which set it on fire. Despite valiant efforts by the fire brigade to extinguish the flames, the ship's cargo of 1,000 tons of bombs exploded. The blast destroyed the dock itself and caused a huge amount of damage to the surrounding quays. The explosion was so violent that some pieces of the ship's hull plating were blasted into a park over amile away.Bootle , to the north of the city suffered the most appalling damage and loss of life. Whole swathes of streets simply disappeared and today, street maps of the district show huge grassed over areas in an otherwise densely populated area.Today one of the most vivid symbols of the Liverpool Blitz in the city is the burnt outer shell of St Luke's Church which was destroyed by an
incendiary bomb onMay 5 1941 . The church was gutted but remained standing and, in its prominent position in the city, was a stark reminder of what Liverpool and Merseyside had endured. It eventually became a garden of remembrance to commemorate the thousands of local men, women and children who died as a result of the bombing of their city and region.1942
The last German air-raid on
Merseyside took place onJanuary 10 ,1942 , destroying several houses on Upper Stanhope Street inLiverpool . By a quirk of fate, these included number 102, which had been the homeAlois Hitler Jr. , half brother ofAdolf Hitler and the birthplace ofHitler 's nephew,William Patrick Hitler . The house was never rebuilt and the whole site eventually cleared of housing and grassed over.References
External links
* [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/blitz/may.asp More Information]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1061885 More information]
* [http://www.diduknow.info/blitz/0000_info.html SS "Malakand"]
* [http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConNarrative.163&chapterId=1244 Evacuation]
* [http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.1201 Timeline]
* [http://geocities.com/johnhussey1@btinternet.com/blitz.htm] Some details of the Liverpool blitz from first hand accounts. The reason why Edge Hill was a particular target.
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