German Bombers 2nd World War

BriH

BriH

Well-known member
Just watched a programme on the early stages of WW2 - they bombed pretty much all bridges and rail links in Poland - how close did the Tyne Bridge / and wear bridge come to getting wiped out by German Bombers

living in South Shields , i am aware that they Bombed us ,because of the docks and the fact we have a concrete "tyne bridge" over Market dock and the Bombers mistook this as the REAL Bridge (or thats what i was told anyway) - but dont know much about further up the river


Cheers

BriH
 
Tried a bit of googling for you Bri (as you may well have yourself lad) but got bored after 1.5 seconds. I'm sure someone will have the info you request. They had a good old crack at some of the city's in the midlands (fair play) but we seemed to get off lightly. Sunderland was probably not hit that hard as the SS knew most Mackem men, women and children from the age of about 6 - 127 were involved in commando raids abroad.

I apologise if this post seems disrespectful.

Bri a post on a veterans forum will get you loads of info I bet. Library local history sections are excellent as well for information on local history located in libraries.
 
tyne bridge did get bombed, but jerry missed. flattened the multiplex cinema at manors, part of a masterplan to provide aryan student accomodation in the post war years, prior to invading (via Brussels) by stealth in the early 21st century, led by Group Kommander öber liuetenant führer mandelson and his crack squad, the first airborne elite mincing brigade


they did actually bomb an empty warehouse at manors and me granda's chippy in shieldfield though
 
My Grandma and Grandad were living in Brum when it all went went kahki. (They ended up back in Birtley when hostilities ceased as they were both Catholics)

My Grandad said little about the war - I thought it was because he was reluctant to bring back the horror, but realised it was because he sat around in India sweating his nuts off for yonks and the Japs didn't even have the courtsey to turn up for a cup of tea. My Grandma did get strafed by a Heinkel while she was coming back form the shops.

Nanna and Grandad had a slightly diferrent war - middle of the N. Yorks Dales, Grandad signalman on the Settle to Carlisle railway (reserved occupation) so joined home guard, my Nanna didn't think his tin hat was thick enough to stop a bomb so whacked him over the heed with the poker and knocked him sparko. The dented hat is in someone's loft. Me Grandad and his Farmer pals spent most of their war locating downed Gerry planes to gather vital intelligence (Steal the bullets to nick the powder for their shotgun cartridges)

I think my family conducted themselves with dignity throughout the whole schmozzle
 
My Great Uncle Joe got his leg blown off leading donkeys to safety in the WW1 thing, honest.

He died before I even had a shred of understanding of what those entirely normal but incredibly brave young men went through

If we're not careful some other knobber will cause another super ruck
 
been badgering me dad to write his war down for the kids before is too late, there's a few marbles rolling aroud already so maybe its too late. done a bit of research already based on the bits he has told and its not nice, rear guard in the royal engineers at dunkirk blowing people up, 5 years as a pow in some not nice places, some nasty SS attrocities for escaping a few times, the long march with stalin, how the man (and thousands of others like him) didn't go nuts afterwards beats me, mustt of carried some serious **** sized guilt around all these years over some of it.

he's 90 now and starting to loose it a bit, but If I'm half the man he is at that age it'll be an achievment
 
Falklands

Falklands

We're right in the middle of that anniversary.

Utmost respect to anyone touched by that little bit of history.

Young lads in the freezing cold with little guns
 
its funny though. He'll ahrdly ever talks about it, but every now and then, something sparks something off and a little snippet comes out, a small story until he gets to a point then goes quiet for a moment, then snaps back to normality as if the conversation never happened, try to press him on it and he makes joke about it has a laugh thats it.

some of these little snippets have cut me to the core, whether its watching a bridge full of soldiers from both side go up in smoke as he detonates it on the retreat at dunkirk or the punishment handed out to an entire village by the SS for harbouring them when they escaped. or his treatment at the hands of the russians by whom he was 'liberated'

the most curious thing of all is his opinion of the germans through it all. he has an odd respect for the german military, but mention the russians and he goes very cold and you can feel the hatred coming off him. and that the one part of his story, apart form the long march I know nothing about and can find little information on

Our generation don't know we're born, and the generation of adolescant swine that is growing up in this country may have a nasty shock coming to them in the next few decades
 
My dad was a landboy in WWII, moved around a bit but I know he was at Embleton and Near Hexham. On mum's side her dad had lost a leg in WWI so they were one of the families who had their own shelter at home in Heaton, has said before about collecting parachutes and seeing a bomber coming in to drop it's payload... can't imagine owt like it in our day can you?
 
my missus has a book of bomb damage to shields in WWII, one of the most interesting ones shows the lifeboat monument by the marine park blown to bits and a big crater in the road!!
 
have been told a couple of stories, 1st the german bombers trying to bomb cambois railway depot and the lads running to hide under the loco's as they were the stongest and best place to hide for cover, and just out of intrest one of the old lads i worked with at cambois was one of the not many surviving belly gunners of the wellington bombers, he was one of the nervous people i have ever met.

my home town of morpeth was quite lucky not to be bombed. i have been told that on a couple of ocasions when the germans were flying over on they have mistook morpeth for a great big lake as the mist was shrouding the valley.



cheers
mark
 
Getting back onto stories...one of the most moving things I have read was after my granddad passed away and we started cleaning out his things, I found a war journal.

He was in the Royal Artillery and thought at Monty Casino and in the African core, as well as a few other countries.

Just to give you a quick idea of some of the things he wrote I (n front of me now)

"Christmas day, spent it behind a hay stack with Baz playing cards, had a drink for friends past"

"Is it ever going to stop raining, nothing works"

"New day new CO, see how long this one last"

"God bless wagga and Baz died today from artillery, I hope we don’t get some green to replace them" I think green meant fresh faced young soldiers as he states it allot.

"What a sight, sky full of plans, go get them lads"

And the last thing that really moved me was....

"From today until I pass it will be for you Colin f**k them,f**k them all"

Colin was his older brother killed transporting supplies to the front in Holland

Never more than a few lines per page but all very moving and to the point, also found a photo of his company, black circle around all the ones that never made it and the date they died.

I woud say just under half have a circle around them :(
 
the guilt that they must of carried around with them all the these years must be huge - the guilt from having survived when all their pals didn't

my dad has only been back to his village once since 1945. when he was called up, he and all the lads from the village were drafted into the fusiliers. he discoverd you got 2 shilling extra per week in the Royal Engineers so transfered. got home eventually after the war to discover every single one of his pals that he'd grown up with and be called up with, 21 one of them in total, were slaughtered at Anzio. He was the only lad of his generation to survive from the village. He's never been back since

The guilt he must of carried around all these years must be unfathomable. maybe one of the reasons why he will never talk about his childhood/teens and growing up in rural northumberland
 
No where was safe during WW2. There was an aerodrome at Boulmer and my mother, who was a baby during the outbreak of the war was in her pram outside and a german aircraft strafing the airfield missed her pram by inches as they lived literally yards from the airfield.
Lisle Stanton (unfortunately no longer with us)was a fisherman in the village and I was best mates with his son Andrew as we grew up. One Sunday we were at his having tea and Lisle told us a bout the time a Stukka buzzed the village and began strafing the cobles, within minutes, from the skies came a hurricane which promptly shot down the german aircraft which now lies somewhere offshore. Not many people left now to tell the tales during the war, but I love hearing how people got thru it!
 
another story i have been told is a german bomber being shot down of the N E coast and srash landing in the blue bell wood near where st georges hospital is, i know the pilot survived but dont know about the rest of the crew but have been told that the local bobby was the first up there and he kicked his arse all the way back to morpeth police station :)



cheers
mark:)
 
WAR TRIVIA: When I was a kid my next door neighbour was old then (lots of years ago) and he use to tell me that the gun pits which are now all covered over on the Leas at S/Shields were where the real big guns were but they also placed teleghraph poles every so often right along the cliff tops with camoflage netting over the top so they looked like big guns sticking out.
 

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