Coventrated.

67 Years ago tonight, November 14th. 1940 a new word entered the English language. 'COVENTRATED'
I watched the sky light up and heard the bombing from eleven miles away as the Luftwaffe Blitzed Coventry.
My Dad was there with the Auxilary Fire Service with their two 'Coventry Climax' pumps from the village.
Five Hundred German bombers rained death from the sky in our first 'Blitzkrieg'.

 

That must have been terrible thing to go through.

 

I would imagine the memories are very vivid.

 

Coventrated

You could taste the smoke and dust eleven miles away, the city centre was decimated.

 

thats neat merlin , you were an actual witness to the blitz ,, in germany in the 50s my dad was freinds with a brit officer who in his own youth was put to work with his siblings gasing and rearming hurris and spits that had been dispersed to the countryside near his farm village , the raf was spread so thin they were happy to train voluteer children as assitant petrol and ammo humpers who they worked quite hard ,the brit soldier recalled it as one of the greatest times of his life ...what boy wouldnt?

 

Coventrated

M woody. I've never heard that story, from experience I do know that all crashed planes, British and German were closely guarded by RAF/Army personel, you were sometimes allowed in after the big clear ups but only then. Most schoolboys had bits of Luftwaffe, Bullets, Flare Cartridges etc, I gave my last bit away to a grandson some years ago. I always remember the smell, of petrol, rubber (they had self sealing petrol tanks) and what I now know as death. I remember two RAF chaps collecting bit of dead flyers into a RAF blanket, strangely at the time it did not bother us, especially after Coventry.
A friend and I collected a machine gun at one site and were happily on our way out with it, I remember it had the barrel surround squashed, the RAF guard took it off us, later we thought that if we'd dropped it in the side of the Ashby Canal in the field and gone back later we'd have got away with it.
This is what I joined this Forum for, to pass on what I feel may be of interest, I must admit that 'pie in the sky' numbers and statistics leave me cold. :roll:
I post pic of the German 'Sonata' map for November 14th. 1940.

 

By all means merlin,keep passing it on.

 

Coventrated

Permit me to clarify my statement re numbers and statistics.
When I first found this Forum I naively thought that it was a forum for ex 'Tankies', but found that only two of us actually were, unless there were some from the USofA.
I stayed with it but can not join in the 'Best Assault Rifle', Best Tank, Muzzel velocities, Best this that or the other, what the losses were at such a place etc. because I don't know and quite frankly it does not interest me. I only try to post facts that I know or things that could be of interest or help to the younger posters and the stupidity of war.
If I can mix this with a bit of humour good and well and maybe some of my experience will stay with you.
To return to Coventry, one of my friends, younger than I, had passed all his exams for the Dartmouth Naval Colledge but twelve hours under the Blitz ruined his hearing and he was not accepted into any of the forces, which he has regretted all of his life.

 

I feel pity for the victims of Coventry, like any other killing of civlians, such actions are unneccassary. Should dump the persons in charge for such useless attacks against mothers, childrens, the normal ones.:angry: Beautiful towns Coventry/Hildesheim become the ugly face of modern architecture, what people build with their sweat has been incinerated by bureaucrats, who just saw the name and not the target itself, when they orderd the attack, goddamn SOBsss

 

well che , you see , everyone in 1940 had these heavy bomber thingees and soon it was dicovered that basically the bombers couldnt hardly hit anything much smaller than a city and some highly skilled other people were tasked with picking out a city where the stratgic AIR POWER cabal could justifie their existence .the b17s mabey coudnt hit the ball bearing works but they could for sure hit shwinefurt at least .the guys who pick targets are just smart soldier wonks with maps and recon photos , sliderules and really cool giant magnifieing glasses ...if not coventry , what city should the luftwaffe planners have picked to immolate in 1940 ? im sure the british people would have preffered edinburg or dublin but i dont think the lw sliderule wonks would have allowed it .

 

Brian.

Please do not be discouraged by the difference in your input to this forum, and that of the majority of others. It is precisely this diversification that that makes this forum so enjoyable.
I know that I am far from being alone in enjoying your input. My dad served in WWII, but sadly died before my interest in the conflict was kindled. I think that you & he were almost of the same generation, so I have a special interest in your experiences & perspective.
Also, I have to say that is by far the friendliest of the dozen or so WWII forums to which I belong.

David.

 

"Been there, done that" experience is so much more enjoyable and educational than stats from a book that copied stats from another book.

 

While I can understand why they might have wanted Dublin to bombed instead of a British city, why would they prefer Edinburgh over Coventry ????

 

scotland rather than england?...my point being that the wonks and pols that select the best bang for the buck target wise are merely soldiers doing an unpleasent task..ie people often blame generals or politicians for war as if those politicians arent acting as the agents of the people ..as if if it werent for evil corrupt pols there would be no war...

 

Scotland is British so the British people includes the Scots who I can't imagine would prefer any Scottish city to have been bombed instead of Coventry.

I'm sure we would have been delighted if Dublin had been bombed since a good bombing raid against Dublin would have possibly brought neutral Eire into the war on the Allied side.

 

Maybe no. If the Germans issued a prompt and sufficiently sincere apology and payed a large enough indemnity, I think it's very likely that Eire would have stayed neutral, especially since so many of the Irish were anti-British and/or pro-German.

 

Note that I said possibly. Eire may have been anti-British but they certainly weren't fools, if they seriously thought that they were deliberately being attacked I think a lot of anti-Brit sentiment would be replaced at governmental level at any rate by pragmatism.

 

Simon, I made my statement as a debating point. Besides, any attack on Dublin would likely have been accidental. The Germans were extremely unlikely to bomb Eire deliberately, since this would have probably brought the Irish in on the side of the Allies, giving them some nice bases from which to fight the U-boats.

 

I know you did and the intention of my reply here only to further the dicsussion at hand. According to a friend of mine, one of those funny little ironies of WW2 is that Nazi Germany had to pay to have a Synagogue in neutral Eire repaired after Luftwaffe bombers on their way back from Belfast accidentally hit it whilst ditching their bombs.

Bombs over Dublin were in actual event an accident, I was looking at the situation from a different point of view though as directional homing signals were used against Coventry and I was imagining such an attack against Dublin, the implication being that such an attack was deliberate in nature, now I admit I was to a degree making massive assumptions on the part of Irish military intelligence and playing on Majorwoody's ignorance (I mean no disrespect here, the make up of who counts as English, British, a member of the United Kingdom or a member of the British Isles is confusing enough to those of us who live here!)

That said I would advise Woody be cautious if he is ever to visit Britain, there are some areas that referring to the locals as English may result in bodily harm (Areas of Scotland spring to mind).

 

simon, is it true that you can tell your in scotland when you see the toilet paper hanging out to dry ?

i would guess that the scots grow up being so tuff and pugnacious because of haveing to where a skirt all day and forgoing underwear as well . if a boy had to go to school in the usa everday while wearing a dress , i imagine he would be involved in a great many fistfights and become a skilled and hardened pugilist ...