WW2: The Terror In The Skies Over Britain | Blitz On The Midlands | Timeline

This is a powerful account of the German bombing raids on the central towns and airfields of England, including the terrible blitz on Coventry and the smaller raids on the airfields of Lincolnshire and East Anglia.

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[Applause] La Pap La A Oh the sirens went and we woke up and then all of a sudden the bangs came the bombs were falling we were petrified they B the uh Co-op Bakery which made a big flame the gasometers made big Flames St christifer Church made big Flames these Flames lit up the

Area for them to concentrate in that area alone now when there was an air eight siren we had to quickly get whatever we could take a blanket we had to go into to the caves on Sherwood Street there was one entrance in Sherwood Street another on Mansfield

Road it was absolutely Eerie that you could smell all this smoke and Flames then there was a big bang a land mine had landed on a street the next thing was clut clut clut bang all down the road I looked out the window again and there firebombs burning everywhere Late afternoon a mid November day in 1940 some 400 German bombers assemble in their various airfields in the north of occupied France ready to take off for a night raid on Britain they’d been doing this day after day for more than two months in their attempt to bomb London into submission attacking

The capital every single night without a break since the 7th of September 1940 but tonight was different London was to be left alone for its first raid free night in 68 consecutive Days the date the 14th of November 1940 the target a city in the very heart of England Centry by the time the operation had been carried out a new word had entered the English language centrate a combination of the words concentrate and Coventry the Midland City had unwillingly given its name to a ruthless new form of concentrated aerial bombardment which was to become an only

Too familiar feature of World War II The Raid exceeded the sheer intensity of anything the German air force had ever done before some historians believe there could be reasons other than purely strategic for the intense ferocity of this particular raid and they claim it could be traced back to bavaria’s Capital City

Munich Munich is one of Germany’s old historic cities and one of its largest it had long enjoyed a reputation not only for its charm but for its Lively character and fondness for festivities a fact well borne out as a center of bavaria’s br industry by its world famous annual October Fest beer festival

And by the presence all over the city of its beer sellers drinking taverns and beer gardens its people Lov to congregate and celebrate in these establishments throughout the year and a particular group of people were doing so more and more frequently in the early 1920s they were members of a political

Party called the national socialists known as Nazi for short they soon felt strong enough to attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government by force the date was November the 9th 1923 the attempt failed after clashes in the beer Sellers and the streets but during the next few years their leader

And his followers gradually Rose to [Applause] power from that time on the date of the attempted Rising November the 9th became an almost sacran fixture in the Nazi calendar each year on the eve of that date the party faithful got together in Munich to celebrate and make speeches about old [Applause]

Times and the 1940 meeting would be a special one for Hitler the first since his great Blitz Creek triumphs a few months [Applause] before unfortunately for him however the RAF chose that date to raid a very special German Target and that day a squadron of British

Bombers set out on the long flight to Munich it was hardly a coincidence that the RAF had picked that Target on that date knowing that the Nazi top brass would certainly be very strongly represented in the city that night the British aircraft met the full force of the German anti-aircraft defenses

But the raid was successfully carried out whatever damage the British bombers may have inflicted on Munich that night was relatively minor compared to the damage it inflicted on the fur’s self-esteem and his hopes for the most triumphal annual November celebration ever the British attack that night aroused Hitler’s deepest Fury and he immediately

Set to work to plan his reprisal as soon as possible centry was selected as the target for a few days later Thursday the 14th of November 1940 the German pre-flight briefing that day included a special message message from the commander of one of the attacking squadrons which read you all

Know gentlemen the purpose of tonight’s operation our task is to repay the attack on Munich by the English on the night of November the 8th we shall not repay it in the same manner by Smashing up harmless civilians houses but we shall do it in a way that will completely stun their

Leaders we have accordingly received orders to destroy the industries of centry tonight you all know what that means the city is one of the chief centers of armaments and War weapons used against us by the enemy Air Force if we can paralyze this Armament center tonight we shall have dealt another

Stunning blow to hair Churchill’s war production tomorrow morning the factories of centry must lie in Smoke and ruins good luck gentlemen good luck The Fleets were composed of mainly hle 111s and juna’s 88s with a few dornia 17s the hle 111 was to become familiar to most Britains easily recognizable by

Its readily identified shape and outlines a low-wing all metal twin engined aircraft with a crew of four a 4,400lb bomb load three machine guns and a speed of approximately 250 mph its brother yuna’s 88 was also a low-wing twin engined aircraft carrying a 4,400lb bomb load and also armed with

Three machine guns but faster than the hanle and capable of averaging over 300 mph able to outpace many of the fighter aircraft of the day it could also be used as a dive bomber discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and AdFree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all from history hit watch

Them on your smart TV or on the- go with your mobile device download the app now to explore everything from the wonders of ancient Pompei and the Mystery of the princes in the tower to the life of Anne bin and D-Day sign up via the link in the description The Raid codenamed munshine

Sonata or Moonlight Sonata was carried out by 145 aircraft of Luft floter air fleet number two and 304 planes of Luft flter number three and each aircraft or group was allotted its own detailed specified Target even down to a named building or Street area of the city as the German aircraft were heading

Towards the city the people of cantry were going about their normal business coming home from work going onto the night shift possibly going to the cinema or a dance and totally unaware of the fury that was to be Unleashed on them within an hour or so the most intensive concentrated and incessant aerial

Bombardment for a city of its size since the invention of the Airlane the leading German planes a dozen hle 111s of Camp grer battle group 100 reached the city and their target area at 1920 hours that evening coming in at approximately 3 minute intervals between each aircraft and dropped nearly 1,000 incendiary bombs whose fires lit the area for the main bomber force and

Within 1 hour of the start of the raid Crews reported that the entire city area was engulfed in a sea of flames The Raid continued unabated over a period of 10 hours and even German Crews with considerable experience already in the bombing of London agreed that they’d

Never seen anything like it on this scaled before they could smell the burning City from a height 2 mi above centry and they were able to see the fires for most of their return flight to their bases in France some of them more than 100 Mil away further south than

Paris when the all clear sounded and people began to to emerge into the streets at dawn the city scene that met their eyes was unrecognizable scarcely a single building remained intact the citizens entered a world of smoke and flames and smoldering Rubble I was a delivery boy working for a firm in Nottingham and I an urgent delivery to make to centry and it was a case of the morning after the night before however I got down to centry and I had to move towards the city center where most of the damage had

Been done and as I approached the city center there was absolutely masses and masses of host Parts fireman’s host Parts everywhere and the only way around was to go past the church the cathedral in the city center and it was just a burning smoldering ruin and you could see from straight

Through from one side the other it was absolutely well I’ve never seen such a s all in my days well in natural fact when I got through the masses of uh o piping around the city center I was trying to find my way to the place that I got to deliver and

Actually I found it impossible because of the Road Old ups and everything was chaos complete chaos and there’s still smoke and steam ising and gushing out from every place that they could see kind of so I thought it safest best and safest to turn around and go back from

Where it come from Nottingham it was just that way on I just dare not go any further all I can remember was the firemen looking really tired and policemen all running around just doing the what they could there was very little that anybody could do to be candid but the look on

These men’s faces tired tired to their eyes there’s red and oh God what they went through that night only got above Know believe me it was terrible [Applause] operation Moonlight Sonata had destroyed or severely damaged most of the city center commercial industrial and residential as well as supplies of gas

Electricity and water worst of all was the number of missing and dead over 500 killed and more than 800 seriously injured Graves had to be prepared for the tragic file of mourners carrying wreaths and flowers a few days later the city of cantry mourned its air raid victims were nearly a thousand

People attended the first funeral service 172 of C dead were being buried in a common grave yet even while the last rights were being performed an air battle was taking place high above the cemetery even while centry mourned her dead the Nazi came to renew his Terror the comment was not strictly

Accurate the German planes above were not on a bombing Mission but on a reconnaissance to assess the damage that they’d inflicted upon the city on the night of November the 14th 15th their reconnaissance aircraft were of course fired upon by the British anti-aircraft as they made their way photographing across the

Area German aircraft had been carrying out photographic reconnaissance operations for many years even before the start of World War II early reconnaissance flights were relatively primitive Affairs using ordinary airplanes often with without fixed camera positions even the pilot himself having to take handheld shots from the aircraft as it covered the object

Area the photographs were processed and printed directly from the plane and used as a basis for detailed up-to-date mapping and planning projected campaigns much of the German success in rapidly overrunning Poland and later Denmark and the low countries was in no small part due to those early pioneering aerial photographic flights before the

Bombing of Coventry photographs were taken over Warsaw and other towns in Poland as well as in the neighboring countries which were to provide valuable information for setting up targets for Air Raids and indeed ground attacks during the blitz C which began at the very start of the second World War

By the time the night Blitz raids had begun over Britain reconnaissance flights were being carried out in Superior aircraft with greatly improved photographic technical equipment and Facilities including fixed camera Positions This enabled the aircraft which flew over centry after the devastating night Blitz on the city even in the face of Spirited aak fire from the British guns below to produce detailed photographs of centry of high quality showing the main Targets in the city including the Alvis Factory Rolls-Royce The damler

Works the the main damage occurred in the medieval Center and around broadgate an area of at least a quar of a million square ft was completely destroyed the Market Hall the fish market Owen oen multi-story building all bombed or gutted by fire but for most citizens the worst

Loss was the destruction of their Cathedral for over 500 years St Michael’s Cathedral had stood at the center of the city more a part of centry than centry itself of all Britain’s Cathedrals centry was the only one to suffer destruction on such a massive Scale the King has been to see how the people of cantry were carrying on after their terrible ordal not only did he find that their Spirit was magnificent and that everything possible was being done to alleviate suffering but it was also quite evident that his 5-hour tour accompanied by Mr Herbert Morrison had

Greatly encouraged them this was the cathedral the city having been mercilessly bombed throughout a whole night without regard to military targets now presents a grim appearance of Devastation The cathedral spire and the font Remain the rest is Rubble but all that the cathedral represented and the spirit of this centuries Old City lives on during the Autumn and early winter months England’s second largest city Birmingham had been attacked on a number of occasions along with other Midlands

Towns though not yet on a major scale it was on the night of Wednesday December the 11th that Birmingham suffered its first major air raid from the yunas and hles of air fleet number three the weather over Birmingham was predominantly clear and nearly 300 aircraft dropped over 300 tons of high

Explosive bombs between 6:00 that night and 7:15 the following morning good Moonlight helped identify Target locations and the crews had no difficulty in bombing visually so that a very large proportion of the bombs fell in the Town Center according to plan causing severe damage it was the largest

Raid that Birmingham had so far endured bombs fell in prior Road a few hundred yards from the family home of Neville Chamberlain Britain’s first wartime prime minister who’ recently Died the city was frequently raided during the following months and considerable damage was suffered in the area of the bull ring by commercial buildings and people’s homes as well as important Birmingham industrial concerns such as wolsley Motors ICI chemicals the Dunlop Rubber Company the Austin Motorworks the singer Works in centry Road another Midland City which was to suffer severe bombardment was Nottingham a city of some 150,000 citizens at the outbreak of the war center of the lacemaking industry with a prominent University which among others DH Lawrence had attended I was born on Independent Street in Radford at Nottingham and the

Day that war was announced was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning all the neighbors came out into the backyard and we’re all chatting and having a drink and all worrying and being worried to death about being gassed by the Germans Hitler may use gas so we must all be

Prepared for that sort of party the police like the fighting services are trained to carry on with their ordinary duties while wearing respirators so take a tip from them get on good terms with your gas mask that particular evening the siren went off by mistake and all the neighbors we

We’d already got shelters built in the backyard but uh my mother she wouldn’t go in there she said it smell to tomats and dogs if you are provided with a steel shelter and have not erected it do so at once first dig a pit 4 ft deep then build your shelter inside it

In those first weeks of the war the general public received its first bombardment streams of government advice and a list of dos and don’ts which seemed positively endless always keep your gas mask handy in the house never go out without it note Down official instructions otherwise you might forget them keep

Pencil and paper by your wireless set avoid Panic buying there are plenty of food supplies in the country those who have laid in an emergency food supply should not consume it now continue to obtain your normal supplies from your usual shops clear your loft of all junk to minimize risk of

Fire have buckets of water and sand on every Landing if you have no sand use dry Earth to obscure all lights in your house do not use the telephone except for very short urgent messages everyone should carry an identity label with name and address clearly written these labels should be sewn on children’s

Clothing Railway and Road services will be drastically reduced and subject to alteration at short notice if you have made plans to go away remember that the government has its own plans for the evacuation of school children and others your Arrangements must not interfere with

These when war broke out I I was 6 years of age um I lived with my grand and my mother in the city of Nottingham uh I was told about a week after the war broke out that I was to be evacuated um I was packed off in a coach

With a load of other children with a gas mask Etc you know a little carrier bag and I was evacuated to works up I stayed there for a long long while well I say a long it seemed a long while to me but it would probably be only be about 9 months

Um I was so upset at being away from mother mother didn’t like being parted from me so I came home and when I got home we weren’t living with Granny anymore but my mother was actually um looking after a very big house which was on aington Villas of Sherwood Street um

And the gentleman who owned it was at wall now when there was an air siren we had to quickly get whatever we could take a blanket we had to go into the caves on Sherwood Street there was one entrance in shur Street another on Mansfield Road we went on there of

Course as children we thoroughly enjoyed it playing around we didn’t realize the seriousness when you hear the warning signals take cover at once you may hear a siren rising and falling in pitch or Hooters sounding short blasts the warning may also be given by short signals on police whistles Do not be alarmed by noise in an air raid much of it will be the noise of our own guns dealing with the Raiders When the sirens and Hooters sound a long steady unbroken signal it means that the Raiders have passed if there has been gas wait until you hear this Bell it will tell you when there is no longer any danger from gas only then is it safe to leave your

Shelter and remove your gas mask no one in this country of ours wants War but don’t be alarmed keep a good heart Britain is a nation Prepared that preparedness depended to a great extent on a large flow of volunteers into the numerous auxiliary Services there are many essential Services calling now for recruit we need nurses stretcher bearers firemen canteen workers then again we can begin our own military training here are some Factory workers

Who have organized their own defense core and drill in their lunch hour when the blitz campaign was almost over Nottingham suffered its first full raid on the night of May the 8th 1941 May the 8th the night of May the eth my father was in the RAF he’ gone

Away and mother and I were alone in the house down Radford where where I was born and uh the siren went off and we we didn’t go in the shelter CU mother wouldn’t go in the shelter so we all went down into the cellar and uh after a

While uh mother she stopped being afraid and she took me back upstairs opened the the back door skoy door and looked out and there was a very very full moon and we could hear the bombers going over this drone of the bombers going over and she said I suppose says I wouldn’t be

Scared she said oh they won’t bomb here they going over to Derby they aiming for rollsroyce they’ll get that lot that prediction unfortunately for Nottingham failed to materialize because the Lu baer’s navigational beams that night were deflected by the British defenses and the German planned attack on Darby and Rolls-Royce did not take

Place Nottingham instead bore the full brunt of the raid in this raid alone Nottingham received almost 90% of all its wartime bombardment I remember the blitz May the 8th 1941 we had our own little private Aid shelter there was my brother and my younger sister and my mother dad was

Walk night patrolling uh night watching and the the sirens went and we woke up and then all of a sudden the bangs came the bombs were falling we were petrified could hear the aak guns from the gun Factory and there was a big army B site near the Trent uh Wilford Bridge

Not Trent Bridge Wilford bridge and uh it was absolutely Eerie that you could smell all this smoke and Flames then there was a big bang a land mine had landed on a street um laer Street then the when the thing was all over uh

Next morning we all had a a run out to see what had happened and it just melt of smoke all the stench was unbearable suddenly I did Jerry aircraft again and there’s a a rushing noise I could hear this rushing noise coming towards me as if but about I should say

500 yards above my head I heard and saw bigon I didn’t see the B but heard them whistling down over my head and the next thing was they crashed allm Mighty crash One landed at the back of uh the church on cnil road caused quite a lot of damage there

Extensive damage and the other on opposite side of the road was at the court Bakery I remember the co-op got hit and what made it worse was that it had been my cousin’s birthday and her father was on duty there and it got burnt very very bad but there were

So many people in that Bakery and the dairy got killed that night it was Dreadful well the places that they bombed was mainly the railway along colic roads Sinton Hermitage over the Trent they’ followed the Trent down all within this circle that they drilled up earlier in the night so whe

They were a Pathfinder group we don’t know they bombed the uh Co-op Bakery which made a big flame the gasometers made big Flames St Christus Church made big Flames these Flames lit up the area for them to concentrate in that area alone I had the sand of aircraft

Overhead and mother woke up she said George she says I believe it’s Jerry she says I says well look quick get the children into the area other and then within a few seconds after that there was a clutter clutter clutter bang bang bang all along the

Road and I looked out of the bedroom window Le and behold all around was incend bombs burning away down Brer Lane so immediately I got quickly dressed and made my way outside mother got the children to the a shelter Anderson shelter and then the next thing was the

Corporation had left all sandbags around the lamp post to put out bombs in case it did fall well naturally the first thoughts were the instructions which we’ve been given during the war to carry on with these bombs was to be cautious because some did explode however I got the first sandbag

Run up to the bomb as it was lying on the floor there on the road burning away brightly BRX Lane really resembled a guy fors night but anyway I um thought well I’ve got to get this one over this fence and I got this sandbag and I jumped over

A 5 foot fence with the sandbag in my hand really was an experience and there was I put I think I put about eight or nine of these bombs out I was playing in the backyard and I can’t remember I think it could be about 19 the end of

1940 on one airplane came over and we think he got lost and at the top of our entry there was a a Foundry and I can remember the plane coming over and I found out after afterwards that he did in fact kill some people machine gunning

Them and I looked up to see what was going over and it was really near I could see the pilot sitting there got a a leather helmet on and he was just firing at everybody you know children there anybody that happened to be in the way during

1941 I was on the way back to school after lunch and a lone German bomber came along the street at rooftop height it was a hanle 111 it I could remember vividly the engines roaring and I looked up and saw the gunner in the front shooting it was

Bouncing his gun was bouncing and he was waving it about shooting at the boys on the playing field field near the uh near the school we went to this made me angry at the time but the boys came in and no one had been hit so years on I think was

This CH aiming to miss because he could see that we were children as I could see that he was a German air force bloke in a black leather suit or a black suit so I think he might have been aiming to miss I gave him the benefit of the doubt

And later on the same day I went to the lace Market my mother’s sister kept a cafe there and my mother sent me up there to see if she was okay after this night of bombing and the lace Market had been badly hit and uh I had to carry my bicycle in

The narrow streets which were full of debris and fireman’s host as the place was still Bur burning and my aunt’s Cafe my mother’s sister’s Cafe was destroyed but they were safe they hadn’t been in it when it was uh flattened well I used to work in the lace market now the lace

Market was a place that got hit badly and uh I was working for the initial Tow supply company which meant I was pushing a cycle around with a load of towels in it to deliver to customers and some of my customers when I got there they were

Just uh the fireman were just ding the Flames down we had to the bike over all the hose pipes and everything and over the rubble that was cascaded onto the road uh the old mood Hall one of my main customers I went there and that was on

The corner of frer Lane and I should say about about 50 yards up the road it had been blasted and just the shell of the front was left standing and after a few years it was demolished and uh it looks like shops now during May 1941 Nottingham suffered a very heavy Air

Aid something in the order of 130 German bombers over a short period of Time Bomb the southern part of the city where I lived in The Meadows I was a newspaper boy and I delivered papers newspapers before I went to school the newspapers came from London on time by rail London had not

Been bomed that night apparently so I set off in my newspapers into the meadows and the meadow was full of debris bits of burning paper floating down from the sky from a boots Factory that had been badly bombed broken glass bits of brick and all sorts all over the place part of

My newspaper round had been demolished by a landmine charmwood Terrace and the newspapers that should have gone there I had to take back to the shop and tell the people that the place is no longer existed it was just a heap of bricks As children the next day we was oh all for it we wanted to see what had happened we went around to the places like uh Trent Lane the co-op and places like this that had been bombed all these factories had been built we made it a little guest amongst the kids how many

Sites you’d actually seen it was a it was like a glory H something that Cowboys an Indians type of thing when we went to have a l where the bombs had hit it was a laundry had gone the houses were covered in red and blue dye the

Govern Factory had just lost a few things but the um bridge wford bridge was safe but that had had a big bomb the side it hit Taylor’s news agents um there was the Fair Ground was absolutely demolished and that was at the side of a

Pub and then we saw the big tail of the bomb and we all started collecting shrapnel as boys we out went around we you made it your business to go around and see these little places that had been done because the night before we were fright to bloody death but we

Weren’t the next day in the daylight we could see what had happened then but we’d gone around and seen this sort of thing then 20 three sites I got officially the night we moved in that’s when notan was raided and Mom just thought oh it it was just the guns you

Know we could see the guns from the bedroom window at bestwood so we looked but anyway the next morning it was the Sherwood Street had been hit and I do remember playing in those that row of houses that had been hit picking the bits and pieces up and that sort of

Thing my father came home from leave I remember he took me all around Nottingham looking at the parts that have been bombed the register office was one and part of uh uh the library where DH Lawrence used to study there there tribet Factory on holl Stone there was

The the college on Shakespeare Street there was one a calf on Fry Lane all these players was it just looked like a lump of rubble at the bottom of carton Hill on uh there was a air raid shelter down there that had received a hit that night and that

Was down when I went past it of course we couldn’t get to it because the police was all it was all CED off by the police and the firemen again and ambulance services were there carrying the bodies out so that was that during this period before America

Entered the war visits to bombed cities by high-ranking American Statesmen were greatly welcomed Mr Wendell Wilkey proved as popular a visitor to centry as to London his tour in Britain has been curtailed but he has inspected the ruins of cantry and of cry Cathedral where he was accompanied by the bishop so now

He’ll be able to tell America what he has seen for himself He also visited factories carrying on at full pressure in spite of the Blitz and at Burmingham 2 he saw both sides of the picture the war effort of the city Rising Superior to all the damage done when it seemed that the blitz campaign was drawing to an end the Luft

Faer returned to strike at Birmingham Once More Night raids over Britain have lately increased a few score aircraft coming over by way of reply to the Royal Air Force hundreds that have been blasting Germany Birmingham has been one of the enemies targets damage was done and lives lost the same is true of other

Places in the Midlands and also in the Eastern counties and although Germany’s reply to our bombing has not yet been on the 1940 1941 scale we should certainly allow for the return of the still heavier Blitz if it doesn’t come nothing is lost if it does we shall be ready to

Beat it again Fighting 600 fires that night had made enormous demands on birmingham’s water supplies in fact 60% of the city was without Main’s water the next day many people had to queue for water at Supply points set up around the city they had no idea just how perilously low that

Water supplies had fallen to the point where one more raid like that next night would be a disaster fortunately the Luft vafer switched to another Target altogether the blitz was of course fundamentally concerned with the destruction of towns but bombs were occasionally dropped in the surrounding Countryside either on specific isolated

Targets or indiscriminately by individual aircraft which had become detached or separated from their squadrons at the time we lived at Village at paleton it was 5 miles from rubby and um the bombs came in the 24th of June 1940 at few minutes to midnight

And uh and because we all had to get up and and my parents thought I were dead they couldn’t wait me but anyway we got up and we went down the road and sat under the Hedge and then the caretake from the school came by and he took us

To his house cuz the school was not far from us and that was bombed and uh and then the next morning my brothers and my father got up early and went to see the animals and and uh one cow was killed and one had shaten on

Its leg and the people in The Cottage next door they uh were taken to a hospital during the early months of 1941 though the intensity and frequency of the night raids overall began to decrease to some degree nevertheless one town or another in the Midlands still suffered damage But as the months of winter passed a gradual but noticeable change in the public mood of the bombed Town’s people seemed to be emerging a feeling that this had all now been going on just a bit too long that the time for brave and stolid British acceptance was passed a

Feeling that was becoming increasingly reflected in the meteor of the day now a word or two to the government and the poers that beat while the courageous attitude of the British people is beyond praise it is very important to take note of another aspect of their mood

You don’t hear anybody saying we can take it now why not because it isn’t true we take taking it for granted but the war has moved on and the phrase which fits our present sentiment is they’ve got it coming to them they that is the Germans have got it coming to

Them we can bide our time if we know that sooner or later preferably sooner the Germans are going to go through it too the anxiety and the suspense of watching the first throbbing note of the Raiders engine the bombs the fires the collapse of shattered buildings the strain of

Firefighting of rescue and Salvage of physical suffering death bereavement all these things are going to be the lot and portion of the German people got it coming to them they’ve chosen this kind of war and that’s what they’re going to get in fact the pendulum was beginning

To swing the other way and raids by the RAF on Berlin and other German cities were gathering Pace true the damage to British towns and cities continued to be considerable as far as the Midlands was concerned no place of any notable size came out of the blitz at all unscathed

And many towns still suffered severe damage to their homes and public buildings but the collapse of Britain and British morale which the Nazi leadership had fully expected failed to take place by the middle of May 1941 the German nighttime Blitz campaign against Britain was virtually at an End [Applause] Pap