Bomb Damage

pooh1982 · Post by **pooh1982** » Fri 07 Mar, 2008 11:43 pm

I belive our house was bombed, we live on model rd, near armley jail, I have a map of the early 1900's showing a house on the plot were ours is but our deeds show that it was built in the 1930's. on Leodis ther is a pic of no 8 damaged by a bomb but cant work out where ours should be

fevlad · Post by **fevlad** » Sat 08 Mar, 2008 8:48 am

farbank wrote: Who can tell after all these years whether it was deliberate or bad aiming.? But from probably 40,000ft. up, and given all the engineering firms just t'other side of the river. I reckon it was a damn close thing.! But given the number of homes destroyed and peopled killed, and with such a diversity of spread of damage, I would imagine it's a case of '' over the target, bombs away, let's get out of here''I appreciate Kirkstall Forge was a prime target, and some were killed there that night. But many raids were supposed to be after Avro's at Yeadon. Or Barnbow. [According to Lord Haw Haw on next evenings radio broadcast]. much lower thqan 40,000 feet, but your point is still a good oneright through the war aiming bombs by both sides was a very imprecise art in the best of conditions, add weather conditions and anti aircraft fire and it becomes more sobombs would more often than not miss their targets by miles-true of both sides.that was one of several reasons that the RAF and the USAAF resorted to area(carpet) bombing.by 1942 the luftwaffe wasa spent force in western europe and was more occupied with the eastern front. Also it never invested in long range strategic bombers. It's response to this was the flying bomb and the V2-too late in the war to be of military significance-but still a highly destructive weapon.also bombers again on both sides if damaged, intimidated or unable to identify a target would simply jettison their bombs to lighten their plane for the journey back and to make landing when they arrived less hazardous.

Misc · Post by **Misc** » Mon 01 Sep, 2008 1:40 pm

Fascinating stuff and great to hear from folks who were there. Does anyone know if it would be possible to get some sort of programme for putting people's recollections on the site? I'm thinking of material from reminiscence groups, could it be transcribed for future generations to goggle at?

sundowner · Post by **sundowner** » Mon 01 Sep, 2008 10:09 pm

Misc wrote: Fascinating stuff and great to hear from folks who were there. Does anyone know if it would be possible to get some sort of programme for putting people's recollections on the site? I'm thinking of material from reminiscence groups, could it be transcribed for future generations to goggle at? Hi Misc good point young ones today have no idea what it was like in the old days. I can only go back to the fortys even then it was a world away from now. I wish i had asked my mum more about her childhood sorry to say its too late now.To get back to the bomb damage the Germans had a very good idea about targets in a given area so may not have been off the target by as far as you may think.I seem to remember reading that only about ten% of bombs hit there intended target.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Mon 01 Sep, 2008 11:38 pm

As you travelled by train through Kirkstall you passed the rear walls of the Forge - for many years the walls were painted like terrace houses, with black squares representing the wndows and front doors - sadly I can't imagine that this was much of an effective deterrent to bomb aimers, but a worthy attempt I suppose.

Si · Post by Si » Tue 02 Sep, 2008 9:12 am

pooh1982 wrote: I belive our house was bombed, we live on model rd, near armley jail, I have a map of the early 1900's showing a house on the plot were ours is but our deeds show that it was built in the 1930's. on Leodis ther is a pic of no 8 damaged by a bomb but cant work out where ours should be On the 1908 OS map, the streets where Model Road is, are shown laid out, but not yet named or built on. I have an RAF 1947 aerial photo of the area which clearly shows bomb damage around the jail, but unfortunately, Model Road is just off the edge. It looks like a "stick" of bombs landed in a line from the Congregational Chapel at the end of the Stapletons (badly damaged, but demolished in the photo) across the rec and ending behind the jail (where the end semi-detached is in the process of being rebuilt in the photo.) If your house was rebuilt after being hit, wouldn't the deeds say the 40s, not the 30s? Sorry I can't be of more help.PS Just had a look at the Leodis pics. The houses look like a 1930s design to me, certainly not Edwardian, but I'm no expert. Interesting to see the air-raid shelters built in the street! I'll post one.

Si · Post by Si » Tue 02 Sep, 2008 9:23 am

There you go. Those window frames definately look 1930s.

Si · Post by Si » Tue 02 Sep, 2008 10:30 am

Here's the Chapel at the top of the Stapletons showing blast damage. It's difficult to work out where exactly the bomb exploded.

Misc · Post by **Misc** » Tue 02 Sep, 2008 11:15 am

I can't remember the name of the book offhand, but I have a book of supernatural stories that has the tale of a little girl from Armley who is supposed to have become hysterical and insisted that a lady (who very much resembled Our Lady) has told her that her family mustn't stay in their house - apparently after consultation with her teacher and the doctor her parents decided to humour her and stay somewhere else just for a night or two...that very night their house was destroyed.I think the book names her (if memory serves she was about 9 years old and had red hair?) and gives an address or at least a street - if I can find it I'll post.Is this story familiar to anyone? Can anybody remember hearing about it at the time?

Samson · Post by **Samson** » Thu 04 Sep, 2008 12:26 am

These stories on this thread match with the ones my parents told me.They said that the Woodpecker was hit as a result of the Germans aiming for Marsh Lane rail marshalling yards (where goods trains were made up) . I think they also hit/near miss the old Richmond Hill school and it had to be closed. This would tie in with one target on the night being Marsh lane.There were other targets that night as well though, already mentioned.I think the bombers of the time had to jettison bombs to conserve fuel for the journey home. In the North East I know that strings of bombs were dropped in fields before the planes crossed back over the north Sea if they were lost or missed their target. Depending on the pilot they sometimes dropped the bombs on other 'suitable' targets such as search light batteries, factories and docks etc.One was the little fishing village of Alnmouth where a bomb was dropped on a house and it killed five people. I mention this as the street has new flats in the middle of it, with the original Edwardian stone houses nearby. Just as people have indicated on this thread there is the same shrapnel/blast damage to the stone of the houses and this matches the ones posted on here from Leeds.