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Don't let Sheffield become 'the forgotten Blitz'

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Thanks for letting us know about the documentary time, I wasn't aware it was on so I'd have missed it.

 

I remember seeing a photo printed in the Star a while back which was taken of High Street after the bombing, with vast craters, bombed out buildings and rubble strewn everywhere. It was incredible strange to look at a familiar and recognisable place like that so devastated and to realise that the changes in architecture along that short row of shops running upto Fargate reveal which buildings were destroyed and which survived. I'd never really thought about it until I saw that photo.

 

And thinking on it, I probably wouldn't have been born if not for the Blitz since both set of my grandparents moved to one of the new housing estates built immediately after the war because their homes had been destroyed. My Mum and Dad would probably never have met if not for that.

Edited by Funky_Gibbon

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There have been a few lectures and exhibitions in the Weston Park museum and the winter gardens galleries.Very good.

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My question would be why was Sheffield not bombed more often? Only one major raid compared with many more on Manchester and Birmingham to name but two. The bombing was very scattered and the raid didn't achieve its objective of hitting the important steelworks and munitions factories in the Lower Don Valley, so why didn't the Luftwaffe keep on trying?

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I think you will find that there was 2 raids.As to the question of why Sheffield was not bombed more,could it be that they had a long way to travel over England to get at Sheffield with the Lincolnshire fighter bases to pass over. Just a thought.

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Good cause, but please try and get your facts right. There are NO bodies under, what was, Marples.

 

Petition signed.

 

Get your facts right . yes there are they were left there as it was decided at the time that it would be too difficult to remove them.

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My question would be why was Sheffield not bombed more often? Only one major raid compared with many more on Manchester and Birmingham to name but two. The bombing was very scattered and the raid didn't achieve its objective of hitting the important steelworks and munitions factories in the Lower Don Valley, so why didn't the Luftwaffe keep on trying?

 

As was aied on look north the other night, the raids on sheffield were terror raids, the steelworks etc were secondary targets. The primary objective was the civillian population.

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Get your facts right . yes there are they were left there as it was decided at the time that it would be too difficult to remove them.

 

 

As below:-

 

 

Good cause, but please try and get your facts right. There are NO bodies under, what was, Marples.

 

Petition signed.

 

 

AS has been said many times, there were a few of the people killed who would have been fragmented by the blast, (sorry to put this so bluntly) so there would have been very little to recover.

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My Dad and my grandparents spoke much of the blitz,2 of our family were "bombed out" not hit directly,but close enough for thier homes to be classed unsafe.

This meant both familys had to move into my nans house for the duration,my nan had 5 kids,one aunty had 3,and the other had2 kids,so thier home on birley street in sheffield housed them through the war,with my dad going in the army in 1944,and serving for the last year of the war in germany.

I was told how all 10 children slept in one bed!!times were hard and of course cramped,but everyone chipped in to make life as bearable as possible,people didnt moan,they just made the best of what they had,my grandad was an arp warden,mostly working at night,sleeping the day,so the children had to be quiet,he was a VERY authorative figure!!

My grandad would occasionally walk upto wharncliffe craggs to rustle sheep,then walk back to birley street with it over his shoulders,the entire sheep would be shared between the whole of the small back yard they shared with other nieghbours,no part of the carcass was wasted,with my dad and the other children enjoying sucking out the sheeps brains through the boiled head!

And once my grandad had finished his sunday lunch,hed purposely leave his plate with just enough gravy,so that the children could mop it up with dry bread....happy days!

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Get your facts right . yes there are they were left there as it was decided at the time that it would be too difficult to remove them.

 

Difficult? The entire plot was cleared of debris. I posted something on here the other week which stated how at the time, bodies and parts were recovered from Marples. The idea that bodies remain is just pure fantasy, especially as the site was redeveloped many years later.

 

http://www.chrishobbs.com/marples1940.htm

 

Although it clearly states quicklime was used on the site, it does state that was a common practice. It does not mention that bodies were left and if the figures are anything to go by, it seems everyone was accounted for (dead or alive).

Edited by Agent Orange

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My father was a small child at the time of the blitz, but he remembers being bombed out of their house, and carried from Eldon Street/ Broomhall Street, through town, by my Grandpa, all the way up to my great Grandparent's place on Arbourthorne, and seeing the buildings ruined and burning.

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Good cause, but please try and get your facts right. There are NO bodies under, what was, Marples.

 

Petition signed.

Bodies remained under the debris of the Marples Hotel throughout the war. At Christmas and birthdays of the victims, wreaths were thrown onto it by surviving families. I can't remember anything being reported about disinterment having happened when the site was cleared. The new Marples had a plaque in the doorway listing the victims. But I will bow to your better information, I left the city in 1968 and much has happened since.:)

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Why is Sheffield the forgotten blitz? It's no more fogotten than any of the other blitzes on provincial towns, except that on Coventry because of the total destruction of the mediaeval city and its cathedral.

 

It's London that really got hammered.

 

If you want a forgotten blitz then look up the Baedeker bombings. We had bombed Lubeck, an ancient German Hanseatic port so in retaliation the Germans used their Baedeker tourist guides to look up the English cities with the most historic buildings and bombed them. They bombed York, Canterbury, Norwich, Bath and Exeter.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker_Blitz

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