bombs in Brixton WW2

[ViolentPanda]

Someone told me once you can still see evidence of bomb damage still on loads of terraced roofs in London where you get distinct sweeps of different tiles where they fell and didn't to too much damage other than to that specific part of the roof. Not sure whether that is true mind

You can also still see an awful lot of pre-war housing in bombed area with pinning to offset the wall bulging that nearby bomb detonations caused. If you walk down the York Road end of Battersea High St, for example, most of the flats above the shops have had their walls pinned.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That is true, although less so now than in the '50s and 60s. That type of damage was typically caused by incendiary bombs lodging in the rafters and burning large parts of the roofs of adjacent houses. They were just over a foot long and weighed about a kilo.

In some places you can also see large chunks that were taken out of buildings by the shrapnel from high explosive bombs.

There was a place across the road from where I lived in the late '70s, in Clapham Junction, where a corner of the upper storey of the house was red brick, while the rest were London stocks, which was apparently due to shrapnel taking out part of the roof, and the walls underneath.

 

[RoyReed]

 

[pesh]

Well, it shows most of the high-explosive bombs (and a few other types) that fell between 7th October 1940 and 6th June 1941, so it misses out the entire first month of the blitz which started on the 7th September 1940 - that's 30 of the 71 nights that London was bombed. And it doesn't even begin to list the hundreds of thousands of incendiary bombs that were dropped.

ahh right, i thought it seemed a bit light... from what my grandmother told me Clapham Common was getting hit every night, at least at one period... she was living opposite the common which had a load of anti aircraft guns dug in which were obviously being targeted. she said more often than not they would ride out the air raids and just hope for the best instead of going to the deep level shelters on the high street. sometimes they'd sit under a table if it got a bit on top.