History Challenge & Journal

[STEVE G]

No. 4 - there's something great missing below the US-Canada border. Or rather some things.

I can't quite make it out but there seems to be at least two of the Great Lakes missing.

[caller]

There is a hillside somewhere in Britain with an outline image of a horse on it. 100 meters +- long, made of stone and a side view. What and where? It can only be seen well from the air, or I suppose from another nearby hillside as high or higher.

Pete, many of these carvings are mysteries, but the best bet of genuiness is the Uffington White Horse, the middle photo in dm's set of 3.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w- ... _horse.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse

Its really not easy to view and within a few miles there are all sorts of ancient burrows and the like, such as this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Barrows

And to top it all, The Ridgeway, an ancient chalk ridge route, runs just to the north:

http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ridgeway ... p?PageId=1

And south, but much later, is ermin street, a recognised roman road:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads_in_Britain

I'll be heading up to the white horse in Uffington shortly, as its just a few miles from me. I'll post some photos here in due course if anyone is interested.

[dtaai-maai]

No. 4 - there's something great missing below the US-Canada border. Or rather some things.

I can't quite make it out but there seems to be at least two of the Great Lakes missing.

KER-CHING!!!

[PeteC]

I keep this as a quiz but the real intention is to get some insight from Big Boy who I think has lived there all of his life, and perhaps his parents as well? Any good tales that have been handed down to you BB?

An excerpt from Wiki concerning the Plymouth Blitz: "During the Blitz the two main shopping centres and nearly every civic building were destroyed, along with 26 schools, eight cinemas and 41 churches. In total, 3,754 houses were destroyed with a further 18,398 seriously damaged." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Blitz

So the quiz part: When was the latest nazi unexploded bomb found in Plymouth?...and as conjecture, can Plymouth be considered the most bombed location in Britain during WWII after London?

[Big Boy]

Pete,

I've not actually lived in Plymouth since 1982. My father came from Hull, and my mother was evacuated to Notter Bridge with her whole family.

Plymouth was certainly flattened by the Nazis. The entire city centre was simply bulldozed away, and re-built again, making it a very modern city at the time. I remember some of the aftermath of the war, although most of it had been replaced before I was born. Interestingly, if you walk around the housing estates around the Naval Dockyard, you can identify the straight rows of houses (about 1 street between each) that had been bombed - the bombed houses had all been replaced by newer styled houses.

I remember when my father worked as a builder for several years - he used to take me to work at weekends and during school holidays (I don't think they'd heard of Health and Safety back then). Several times they unearthed unexploded bombs - always small incendary devices. They never bothered with bomb disposal back then - just tossed them to a bit of waste land to see if they'd go pop. They never did - even I got to throw a couple, which as a youngster was quite exciting.

Regarding your question, "Can Plymouth be considered the most bombed location in Britain during WWII after London?" I'm not sure if it's been made public yet, but it certainly used to be classified information. If you looked at any bomb maps, you'll see that the Nazis never actually managed to drop a bomb inside the Naval Dockyard walls, which is obviously poppycock. The number of hits inside the wall was never revealed while I worked there. However, there were still several buildings with clear bomb damage some 40 years later.

The first bombs fell on the city on Saturday 6 July 1940 at Swilly, killing 3 people.

My mother lived at 53 Swilly Road at that time, and the first casualties were at number 51.

[Big Boy]

Enter "plymouth blitz photos" into Google Images, and you'll get some idea of the devastation. I've just had a quick wander through them, and recognise many of the place names. However, they've all been rebuilt since the photos on Google.

[PeteC]

Thanks BB, very interesting stuff. The answer about the latest bomb is February and of the same type it appears as another one found November 2010, both on Notte Street. Said to be about 18" long and about 70 kgs. Seems heavy for such a small size.

All the time I spent in London walking around it was never clear to me about the bombing there as there is so much old architecture mixed in with the new. I guess you need to go to a smaller place like Plymouth where it's more obvious.

I can say though that it was very obvious to me in Hamburg where just about everything has a 1950's look to it. Pete

[PeteC]

As a side note, I find stories from those whose families experienced the war first hand as civilians extremely interesting, as would any American or others who didn't directly experience bombing or other conflict. Any other hand-me-down stories about Britain or any of the occupied countries most welcome. Pete

[dtaai-maai]

My mother's family came from Dover for a few hundred years at least, and by coincidence I lived and worked there myself for a fair few years. I mention this because Dover is where the first bomb was dropped in anger - in 1914.

To Dover goes the dubious honour of being the place where the first bomb fell on British soil. It was Christmas Eve 1914, the weather bright sunny, when at around midday a German plane was spotted over the town. Its pilot Lieutenant von Prondzynski leaned over the side of his plane and saw Dover Castle and the great naval harbour some 5,000 feet below him. He lifted his bomb in both hands as his knees held his “joy stick”, heaving the bomb over the side of the plane he let it fall.

The bomb dropped towards the Castle but Lt. Prondzynski was about 400 yards short of his target, no mean achievement in days when bomb-aiming instruments were unknown. The tiny bomb landed in the garden adjoining St James’ Rectory and made a crater about four or five feet deep. The blast smashed some windows in the Rectory and knocked the gardener, Mr James Banks, out of a tree he was pruning.

By the end of the First World War 184 bombs dropped from enemy aircraft and 23 shells fired by enemy ships had fallen on the town. There were 113 air-raids in all, 23 people were killed and 71 injured.

In the 90s I lived right next to the Eastern Docks, the main passenger ferry terminal, at the foot of the famous white cliffs in a place called Athol Terrace.

athol terrace 1890.jpg (18.93 KiB) Viewed 636 times

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Athol Terrace.jpg (25.06 KiB) Viewed 636 times

We lived at the far end of the terrace in one of the taller houses. The cliff rises from the bottom of the garden, which was a bit intimidating at first. In fact, it almost stopped me buying the place, but I figured that if the house had survived for nearly 200 years it would probably be okay for a few more.
In the cliff face in our garden was a bricked up entrance to a series of tunnels that riddle the cliffs for miles, but particularly under Dover Castle where we were. Many of them went back to 1800 when we were having some problems with Napoleon, but they were further extended during World War II and used as air raid shelters and a hospital, among many other (military) purposes.

athol terrace caves.jpg (7.53 KiB) Viewed 636 times

As an aside, and since I'm in narrative mode in the 80s I lived oat the top of the cliffs between Dover and Folkestone in a village called Capel le Ferne. It was a very nice house until the Great Storm of 87. This is what was visible the next day from the clifftop over the road:

ferry capel storm.jpg (32.71 KiB) Viewed 636 times

... and this is what was left of the house!

capel storm.jpg (30.14 KiB) Viewed 636 times

What you can't see is that when the roof flipped arse over elbow into the back garden, it took most of the back wall with it.

[Arcadian]

I was born few miles east of Plymouth, it was always the big city to visit for us. There is, or was a bombed out church in the city centre which was left as a memorial to the devastation.

[Big Boy]

Yes, Charles Church is still there http://www.plymouthdata.info/Churches-A ... harles.htm

[PeteC]

Thanks for all the above DTM Now, another question I have in my mind for a long time is if Hitler invaded, where would the landing spot have been? I don't know if the allies ever found any documents outlining his planning. In my mind I'm thinking the less defended lower east coast rather than the south coast. Maybe right up the Thames? Pete

[Spitfire]

They had plans for it alright, was called 'Operation Sea lion' but it required them having air and naval supremacy over the English Channel which was a sticking point after The Battle of Britain.

The whole idea was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940.

This is the Nazi attack map, or proposal of such an invasion. The Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe were not overly optimistic though in their feasibility reports/studies after the drubbing they had sustained so far.

[PeteC]

Thanks for that. Seems my guess was wrong. Looks like an even split between south and lower east coast. Pete

[dtaai-maai]

Thanks for that. Seems my guess was wrong. Looks like an even split between south and lower east coast. Pete

Sorry Pete, but you don't even get half a prize - the east coast doesn't really start until you're north of the Thames estuary...

More seriously, although I've never really thought about it, the coast there is extremely marshy/boggy fenland that might have made a mass landing of troops quite impractical.

(Besides, as Vital Spark will tell you, there's nothing up there worth having...)