Bomb Damage

[Si]

I don't think conserving fuel was the main reason for jettisoning bombs. Firstly, it makes the plane considerably lighter, and therefore more manoeverable and faster. This reduces fuel consumption, but more importantly to the crew, it makes it easier to avoid searchlights/night-fighters. However, the main reason was the fact that it's very dangerous landing a bomber in the dark that's still full of bombs, for obvious reasons. Not only are you risking the aircraft and crew being blown to kingdom-come, but you're likely to put a bloody big hole in the runway! I should imagine there were rules against it. There are stories of Allied aircrew trying to dislodge bombs which had got "hooked-up" in the bomb-bay with a hammer or crowbar, before attempting to land.    

[Samson]

Si,Both reasons are correct. They could not get home with a full bomb bay, so they needed to get shot of them near to the target as this was factored into the fuel/distance back. Quite correctly, as you pointed out, they would not want to land with a full bomb bay!!It is amazing how much shrapnel/blast damage there is on surrounding buildings where bombs dropped all that time ago. This is just from my personal investigations up here, but more than likely the same in the Leeds area.I had a map (not any more) which showed where all bombs landed in a particular area of Tyneside. I can not remember what data was used to make it or if it was based on an MOD map. (It showed strings of bombs dropped in fields, although some nearly hit farms, as planes missed their targets on Tyneside and turned to go back over the North Sea) A large city like Leeds with its suburbs may have provided lots of other tempting targets if the original one was not found. Perhaps there is a map somewhere for the Leeds bombs?It has already been pointed out that bomb aiming was not particularly accurate under fire in the dark. It is an interesting investigation as stonework readily shows the impact from shrapnel etc and frequently is left as it was.Cue for lots of shrapnel/blast photos!!

[Si]

Hi Samson,The RAF introduced a method of recording their night-time bomb hits. In the plane was a camera pointing straight down. After the bombs were dropped, a "photo-flash" was dropped which illuminated the bomb-pattern and triggered the camera shutter. The plane had to continue on the straight and level over the target until it went off, hence it was not popular with the crews! I believe that if they came back without the photo, the mission was void, and didn't add to that crew's tally. The photoflash also discouraged dumping of the bombs so as not to fly over the (heavily defended) target.I think Newcastle was bombed a lot more than Leeds, and so there will be much more surviving evidence.

[Briggy]

Nowhere near as bad as some of the earlier photos, but Armley Road suffered a bit. My great auntie lived on Oak Road, Armley Road end, and their air raid shelter was the cellar of the Oak Hotel (there might have been worse places to get stuck for a night!!) and on the way in to hotel she was blown straight down the cellar steps by the force of a bomb. The railway wall on Armley Road showed areas that had been repaired following the air raid.As an aside, my grandad was in bomb disposal. They had a report of an unexploded bomb in the garden of some terraced houses in Bramley, but as it was dark and because of the blackout they couldn't tackle it until the next morning. My grandad warned the householder of the danger and said that under no circumstances should they stay there that night. The next morning when he and his team went back the householder was still there. My grandad asked him if, after the warning, he had still stayed in the house overnight. He answered "Not b****y likely, I stayed with them next door"!!

[Si]

A very brave man, your Grandad, Briggy.UXBs were very dangerous as they weren't always "duds." Some had a timer device so they'd explode several hours after being dropped. The idea was to kill the bomb disposal people. However, we used such bombs too.

[Briggy]

Thanks for saying that Si. Like a lot of other lads he lied about his age so that he could serve in the navy in WW1, so I always admired him, but then I guess I am biased!

[Lilysmum]

Just been reading in tonights EP about the mummy which will be on display in the new Leeds museum.Leeds used to have 3 mummies but the other two were wiped out when the original museum was bombed in 1941.

[drapesy]

Lilysmum wrote: Just been reading in tonights EP about the mummy which will be on display in the new Leeds museum.Leeds used to have 3 mummies but the other two were wiped out when the original museum was bombed in 1941. How bizarre/sad/quirky that the bodies of those ancient Egyptians should survive for 3000+ years and travel thousands of miles to Leeds and then be lost like that.

[chameleon]

I know it's early munki, but there was a post from you just now. Wasn't there.....? Maybe it's the wireless connection in simonm's cellar playing up!

[raveydavey]

Interesting article in this mornings YEP regarding the "Leeds Quarter Blitz": http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... 06.jpMarch marks the 70th anniversary of the heaviest air raid that Leeds suffered in the Second World War. John Lynott looks back on what became the city's longest night.The night of March 14-15 1941 was to be a busy one for the Luftwaffe as it stepped up its campaign to bomb Britain into submission.It was a long battle in what would be a long war.Starting in September 1940, the Heinkel-111s, Junkers 88s and Dorniers of Luftflottes 2 and 3, had targeted London for 57 consecutive nights.From November Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering had switched his twin-engined bombers to England's industrial heartland of the Midlands and the North.Hundreds died in Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.In the third week of December it was Yorkshire's turn. More than 660 people died when over two nights, the Germans dropped 435 tons of bombs on the steel city of Sheffield in aptly-named Operation Crucible.But so far Leeds had escaped virtually unscathed.Despite the tempting targets of Kirkstall Forge, the railway marshalling yards and the Royal Ordnance Factory at Barnbow, the city had been left virtually untouched.Three people had died on August 25, 1940 when four bombs fell on Whitehall Road.Six days later the raiders returned. A 60-year-old man died when a bomb hit York House in the Quarry Hill flats.Incendiaries fell over Middleton on December 12 and 15 – then it went all quiet on the home front.All quiet – that is – until 9pm on Friday, March 14, when the sirens began to wail.In all, 451 bombers were over Britain. Two hundred and three were heading for Glasgow/Clydeside, 117 for Sheffield and about 40 for Leeds.The first incendiaries – one pound aluminium cases loaded with fire-raising magnesium – fell over the Water Lane and Easterly Road areas from about 11.40pm with high explosive bombs following at 12.30am.Over the next two-and-a-half hours bombs hit civic landmarks such as the Town Hall and the City Museum.Leeds General Infirmary's casualty department had to be moved three times during the night after a bomb fell in front of the emergency entrance.Other buildings hit included Kirkgate Market, the central post office, Richmond Hill Council School and the Metropole Hotel.Members of the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) tackled hundreds of incidents across the city, among them those at City Square, Wellington Bridge, the City Station, Albion Street and Leeds University.At the height of the raid, more than 4,000 wardens and 1,845 firemen were on duty alongside 77 ambulance crews. In all, more than 4,500 houses were damaged, 100 of them beyond repair. Gas mains were fractured and 15,000 people were left without water.But it was the human cost that was hardest to bear.By the time the all clear sounded at 3.12 that Saturday morning, 65 people were dead or dying, eight of them children.The figures masked the stories of heroism and ill luck that punctuated the Blitz.Four wardens were killed when their post near Union Street Baths suffered a direct hit.Dr Ernest Donaldson-Sim of Kirkstall Road helped put out several incendiaries and then was killed instantly when he pushed his housekeeper to safety s a bomb plummeted down and exploded at his feet.Stoker and firewatcher Harry Lee became the first man in Leeds to receive the George Medal when he directed succesful efforts to save New Wortley Gas Works as incendiaries showered down. John Wilson, a foreman and a firewatcher at a building that received a direct hit told a Yorkshire Evening Post reporter that when the bomb struck he was saved by his steel helmet and by a door which was blown on top of him, preventing him from being hit by flying debris.The next day the German High Command reported in Berlin that "important war works" had been hit in Leeds and "the dropping of high explosive and incendiary bombs caused big fires".Immediate British press reports told of 'heroic defence work in a north-eastern town' in a bid to mask the impact of the raid.But the impact could not be hidden from the people of Leeds. The first funerals of the raid victims took place four days later when five casualties were buried at Harehills Cemetery, attended by the Lord Mayor, Alderman W Withey.He told mourners: "When the war is over we have a great responsibility in trying to see that such a happening as this will never occur again."The Germans never did return in such numbers to Leeds.On August 8 1942, two people died when a bomb fell in the Cardigan Road district.The last bombs to fall on Leeds, three weeks later, killed five and property in Armley, Bramley, Stanningley and Kirkstall was damaged.The number of dead may seem small alongside the casualty lists from London, Sheffield and Coventry, but they were irreplaceable, mourned, missed lives – and this was at a period of the war when the Germans were killing more British civilians than British servicemen on the fighting fronts.All in all, air raids killed 77 people in Leeds.The March 1941 attack was designated a 'quarter blitz', in that the tonnage of bombs dropped was approximately 25 per cent of what constituted a 'major' raid – 100 tons.Many theories were advanced as to why Leeds was not subject to further, heavier raids. One was that the city was difficult to find from the air at night, lying in a saucer of land.Another was that the Germans did not want any great harm to come to Leeds because they wanted to use the city, after the invasion of Britain, as a regional capital with Luftwaffe chief Goering residing in Temple Newsam House.In reality, the Luftwaffe did not have the tools or the will to totally wreck Leeds. Their twin-engined planes could not carry the massive tonnage of bombs that the RAF's Lancasters and Halifaxes would later drop with such devastating effect on German cities. And the Luftwaffe often failed to follow up raids, flitting from target city to target city and giving the emergency services time to recover.The reference to Leeds being used as a regional capital has been mentioned before, along with Hitler running things from Quarry House (and having his armoured train in Marsh Lane sidings) - but it's the first time I can recall hearing that Goering planned to move into Temple Newsam House!