Sheffield Blitz

[Floridablade 11]

Yes stirrup pumps were about as much use as a chocolate kettle in my opinion since a bucket of water would have done the same job. The gas masks were issued in a cardboard box but most people kept them in an Ostermilk tin and the babies had the ones which enclosed them completely. For families without a garden like so many living in back-backs they were issued with a steel box which doubled as a dining room table, that was their shelter. My father and older brother dug a very large hole in the back garden and dropped the Anderson into it then covered it but it was still about 18" above ground so it became a raised garden with paving slabs to make it safer. It became at bit of a showpiece, councillors would with dads permission bring people round to see how it should be done but most turned them into garden sheds, too lazy I suppose.

 

My grandmother had an incendiary bomb fall straight through the roof and two floors into the cellar but it was a dud. She hallucinated the night after the blitz in our shelter, she lived on her own in a large house, about how she could see the stars above her bed at night now, it was a beautiful clear full moon night, almost like dawn all night then it snowed and covered the scars as though nature didn't approve, or did nature try to hide the fact that it had created a monster in man.

[Falls 10]

Hi,

 

I thought this thread might have responses from more people who were actually there at the time of blitz, but I guess there are not many of us left or have access to the Forum.

 

I grew up on a street off the Wicker and was a pre-schooler at the time of the blitz. Now you are going to ask what would a young kid remember about all that. Quite a lot really.

 

Of course you remember things like the approx.time of day when something happened but whether it was a Tuesday or a Thursday is something you find out later.

 

First, Thursday December 12th, 1940 was not the first time the Lufwaffe had come looking for Sheffield. There had been a number of attempted raids over the city before that. How many raids: I don't know. Poeple who were out side on these nights on fire-watch will tell you that could hear the bombers overhead but they couldn't find the targets. What saved us was bad weather such as cloud and the terrible atmosheric polution from all the steelworks. I remember being awaken by the sirens quite a few times before the actual blitz. Even now if I happened to catch part of an old war-time film where the sirens sound. It still gives me a little chill.

 

Our nearest siren was across the Wicker on a building belonging to Balfour's. It was right behind what used to be Fredrick's butchers shop. The whaling sound it produced was really frightening to a kid as you struggled to get out of bed and make a start on putting on your siren suit over you pyjamas before your mum or dad came along and finished the job. Then it was off to the shelter.

 

What made December 12, 1940, different was the absence of both clould cover and smoke. A few reports make reference to it being a clear night with lots of stars. As far the Luftwaffe were concerned, it was near-perfect bombing conditions and they certainly made the most of it.

 

We went into the shelters on Stanley Street when the raid started but sometime sometime during the night, the police came and said we had to move. John Wood's lumber yard on Nursery st. had been hit by incendairies and was on fire. We moved to the cellar of a three-storey cutlery works on Andrews Street.

 

We were there until the end of the raid, including the big bang when the building shook and all the doors blew open. This big bang was later attributed to the 1000 kg bomb that went clear through the Wicker arch and blew up on the roadway below.

 

That old cutlery building was later incorporated into the works of Snow & co. It was only demolished a couple of years ago to make way for the new ring (link) road system in the Wicker area.

 

One other anecdote. A family member was due to start work in the lab at the Royal Infirmary on Monday December 16th, 1940. On the Saturday morning after the first raid, he received a post card from the hospital (post cards were the normal way of communicating with people when most didn't have telephones), saying don't come until the New Year.

 

When he did finally report for work, the grassed part in front of the hospital which may have once been a bowling green, was covered by tarpaulins. I think you can guess what was under the tarps.

 

Regards

[Texas 10]

I can remember being in the Anderson shelter at my Grandma's on Fox Street. I was seven at the time. The candles or nightlites causing condensation on the metal sides, we had a blanket over the entrance, my Grandad was outside giving us a report on what was happening over the City. Occasionaly the curtain would part a little and I got to see the sky glowing red, largely from Levicks shop on the corner of Fox St and School Board Hill,which had taken a couple of incendiarys It was only about 50 yards away and another couple of houses across the street were burning too.

It seemed the sky was on fire, full of sparks which I thought were bullets or something.

My Grandad went down to the house and fetched my Aunt's budgie, it had been forgotten when we all went to the shelter. My Aunt was having hysterics, I dont suppose she was on her own either.

Even now, the smell of a burning candle takes me back to that night.

[Janner 10]

I was 7yrs old when the war started, my younger brother was born in 1939.I can remember coming home after a summer holiday, probably Blackpool. In the front garden was a pile of corrugated iron sheets, some curved some straight, a heap of angle irons, a big sack of nuts,bolts and washers. The Anderson shelters were meant to be half below ground level, the excavated earth was piled on top of the shelter after it had been erected. I seem to remember the neighbours all helped each other with the graft involved. Near Hull there is a place called Eden camp ( I might not have the correct name) it was a POW camp. There is an Anderson air raid shelter there, its well worth a visit, no , I don't have shares in the place.

[Bayern Blade 10]

Next week I will be visiting a Herr Pürsch who was a Luftwaffe bomber pilot in the last war,flying Ju 88's.

I will ask him if he flew on any raids over Sheffield.

If it is any consolation he was shot down later in the war by an RAF night fighter over France and had to bale out!

[Texas 10]

Hey BB, if he says yes, tell him he missed.

I got to thinking about the amount of bomb damage,in what was my immediate vicinity back in those days. The majority seems to have been from incendiarys. There was a proper bomb on what was the 'Old Gardens', immediatly behind some houses at the top of Schoolboard Hill. It wrecked the houses and put out all the windows of Pye Bank school.

Then the only other proper bomb was in Rock Street, almost opposite the Rock Tavern. That was a big one, it flattened about four large houses. At the time people said it was a land mine, or something like a 1,000 pounder, but it did a great deal of damage and people were killed. I cant think of any other high explosives in the area, certainly can't remember any craters. We were situated in the middle, about 150 yards from each of them, not as bad as a lot of people in other parts of Sheffield, or in other parts of the country.

[Tooeg 10]

there used to be a hole in the ground next to the river rivelyn up river from the paddling pool on the right at the bottom of the commercial garden on roscoe bank.

We were always told it was a bomb crater.

The last time I was down there, about 20 ago it was filled in

[Siren 10]

Texas

There were other bombs that fell in that area. If you walked down Rock St from the bomb opposite the The Rock, about halfway down opposite Stone St one fell there and killed several people. You may remember the wall built in front of the site where the bus stop was. I think it was 95 Rock St

Keep going down Rock St there used to be a big space opposite Railway St. That was the site of the Vicarage that was completely destroyed by a bomb some said it was an air mine.

 

The other one I know about was one where an entire family were killed, a young mother and 4 children under 10yrs old. as well as the mothers,father.They lived at 119 Rock St but the place of death is recorded as the Fox St shelter. I think that shelter was at the junction of Fox St and Gray St built on the edge of what was "the old gardens" I'm sure you remember them. Three other people are listed as killed at 119 Rock St which I havent been able to workout what happened because I remember the house and it wasnt damaged. I can only guess they were in the shelter with the young family survived the explosion but died later at that address. Love to know what really happened. High explosives also fell on Pitsmoor Rd and Grove St resulting in deaths. Like you I only remember one crater the one opposite Pye Bank School, the others must have been filled in.

 

Siren

[Texas 10]

You really got me trawling through the memory Siren, and I faintly recollect the bomb site you mention further down Rock Street. But as far as sites on Pitsmoor Road and Grove Street, non whatsoever. Saying that, there was a site down the Bank at the junction of Grove St. Could that've been one of those you meant? I always thought it was the result of incendiarys.

Another one I now remember was almost at the bottom of Nottingham Street, on the right going down. I remember about '44 a gang of American military turning up to level it out and put the ashes on. There were kids from all over the place, on the cadge for gum and candy, more kids than soldiers.

I dont remember the shelter at the junction of Fox and Grey streets, that's disapeared in the mists of time also.

[Siren 10]

Texas

I remember the Nottingham St site it backed onto the houses on Thistle St and it seemed a large site to me.

I was born 2 yrs after the war ended so I dont have your first hand knowledge, but all the sites were still there not built on when I was a kid.

As for the shelter at Fox St Gray St Im not certain it was there, there were other bomb site at the junction of Fox St and Andover St (School Board Hill)

I'm still trying to establish exactly where the shelter was.

Did you know where the American soldiers were based that levelled Nottingham St?

[Texas 10]

Well the site at the junction of Fox and Andover was Levicks shop, he was a pal of my Uncle. It was due to incendiarys. Some of the houses across the road on Fox St too, and blast damage via the Rock St bomb.

No idea about the Americanos, they were a pioneer type unit, all ***** except for the goon in charge.

[Floridablade 11]

It was amazing how quickly the bomb sites were turned into used car lots and other activities.