London Blitz

[stewart_M]

Does anyone know any links/websites dealing specifically with the London Blitz during WW2.  My family endured it in Walworth and my partner's family were in Peckham and I'm trying to identify which streets were hit.

Regards

Stewart

[dawnsh]

Hi Stewart

if you google bomb damage maps, you'll find quite a few references including a recently published (2005) book which you may be able to borrow from the library.

I think Yersinia's blog has had all the pitcures removed due to copyright issues.

Dawn

[mc8]

I'll send you the link that I have when I am back home. Are you able to get to LMA? Their map section has interesting maps of bomb damage which shows the streets affected and notes on the amount of damage
Monique

[dawnsh]

The maps at the LMA are featured in the book, it's called LCC Bomb Damage maps 1939-1945 by Ann Saunders

Dawn

[mc8]

I'll send you the link that I have when I am back home. Are you able to get to LMA? Their map section has interesting maps of bomb damage which shows the streets affected and notes on the amount of damage
Monique

here is the link http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_summary_se15.html
regards
Monique

[stewart_M]

Many thanks to you all.  The links are excellent unfortunately the book "LCC Bomb Damage maps 1939-1945" is now out of print and there are no plans to republish it which is a shame.

[dawnsh]

Try your local library, if they don't have it try to get it on the inter library loan service

Dawn

[bykerlads]

Whilst on the subject of the Blitz- when was the first WW2 bombing raid on London?
Also, on what date did the evacuations of children from London begin?
Where would one find a definitive list of all those Londoners killed in the blitz?
Finally, a real "shot in the dark" - anyone out there who was evacuated from London to Shoreham and thence to Dunford Bridge, West Yorkshire?

[Nick29]

Whilst on the subject of the Blitz- when was the first WW2 bombing raid on London?

The first raids on London were in September 1940.

Also, on what date did the evacuations of children from London begin?

Evacuation started in February 1941.

Where would one find a definitive list of all those Londoners killed in the blitz?

There isn't one.  There was too much chaos to record details like that.  My father was a fireman in the WW2 London Blitz and the firemen were often asked to help move bodies of the dead.  My father told me that sometimes all they could do was to put a head, body and limbs into a casket, and hope they all belonged to the same person.  Often the dead were only identified by the fact that their residence had been bombed, and they had disappeared, and that could be days after the bombing.

Deaths during WW2 were all recorded in the usual way.  Some deaths due to bombing had to be "missing presumed dead" because often bodies were either not found or too badly mutilated or burned to be identified.  These will not appear any differently to any other death in the BMD database.