Five minutes after the
sirens had died down, the drone of many planes was heard, and the heavy guns
began to roar and the lighter ones to bark with a volume and urgency which
startled many who had prided themselves on being indifferent to raid warnings.
(Lamb and Walton, 1980).
Thus
begins one recollection of the first night of the Sheffield Blitz during the
Second World War. Due to Sheffield’s industrial capabilities, an air raid on
the city had long been anticipated. However, given previous false alarms, when
the warning siren screamed into life most people failed to respond with any
urgency. As Lamb and Walton (1980) note:
Few people were disturbed by
the now familiar sound. As usual, not more than a score of persons left the
places of entertainment when it was announced that the alert had been given.
The
raids on Sheffield took place on Thursday 12th December and Sunday
15th December 1940, in each case lasting through to the early hours
of the following day. The first raid targeted the city centre, as well as areas
such as Abbeydale, Walkley, and Crookesmoore.
The second raid targeted the industrial east end, hitting Attercliffe ,
Grimesthorpe and Burngreave; Brown Bayleys steel works was hit in the process.
Almost
700 civilians and service men were killed, whilst 1,586 people were injured and
40,000 were made homeless. Sheffield was targeted due to its steel and munitions
manufacture, which played a vital role in Britain’s war effort, and it is
doubtful whether the Allies would have won the war if the steel works had been
completely destroyed.
Sheffield
Archives holds a most curious item: a German map with accompanying instructions
for an air raid on Sheffield during the Second World War. These documents were
obtained from offices in Germany by a soldier from Sheffield. In the top left
corner they are marked ‘Geheim!’ [Secret!], and are dated from October 1939,
showing that an attack by the Luftwaffe had been planned a year in advance to
the actual Blitz. On the map, the intended strike area of the steel works is
marked out by a red line. Translated, these documents reveal the sophistication
of German intelligence and reconnaissance:
Section 4:
Active and passive air raid
protection, local observation (watch): nearest anti aircraft garrisons: Rotherham
(5km to the NE) Chesterfield (18km in the S) Bomb proof air raid rooms
Section 5:
Orientation points for
target identification: railway bridge over River Don (south loop) in the middle
of Sheffield by Victoria Station. 1.7km in the SW River Don snakes itself in S
form through the works group (installation) in the middle a dam (75km long)
which has an offshoot for the mill dam canal.
I
found it extremely intriguing to see the Second World War presented in such a
manner, to see Sheffield reduced to a set of strategic targets in the eyes of
the enemy. I felt this intensely technical reading of the city offered an
arresting counterpoint to received narratives of the war, and to the more
personal oral histories through which the local community remembers the period.
Digging
deeper into the vast wealth of local material revealed further unexpected ways
of viewing the Blitz. Sheffield resident Joe Ashton recalls how the Foundry
Working Men’s Club offered free ale to anyone brave enough to stay out of the
shelters, rather than let the stock be destroyed and wasted - a move which
attracted no shortage of takers, and initiated a night of debauchery whilst the
bombs rained down:
I certainly do not recall
anybody saying any prayers. Or starting off singing ‘Abide with Me’, like they
did in the war pictures. Most of the street seemed determined to go right
through every single one of the seven deadly sins before the roof fell in.
Including some very respectable neighbours.
(License 2000: 1)
In
a later raid on 9th January 1941, Kay Mastin recalls the destruction
of her neighbours’, the Hartleys, bungalow:
The only person who was
injured was the maid. It [the bomb] dropped in the dining room and that was
near her kitchen, and it moved the fireplace right across the kitchen. And they
[the Hartleys] didn’t know what to do with this maid…they went to live with his
mother and father in Ecclesall Road South. So they asked me if I’d have this
maid, and she was here for six weeks…Everybody in Dore said she’d shown a light
because she was a foreigner. It wasn’t so.
The
Hartley’s maid was Hungarian, and there was much government propaganda disseminated
at the time advocating circumspection towards possible spies. It’s easy to
forget how suspicious people were towards foreigners at the time, but heart-warming
to see that Kay was quick to refute such xenophobic scaremongering.
Through
writing this piece I became very aware of how important the archiving of
material is for how we relate to the past. It offers the chance for people to
rediscover history in new and unexpected ways, showing how history is a dynamic
process of interpretation and re-inscription. Though the period of the Second
World War was one of great suffering and tumult in Sheffield, as for the rest
of the country, different perspectives on the past reveal a sense of solidarity
and community in the face of the destructive forces of war.
James Throup
University of Sheffield
References
‘Raiders
over Sheffield’ Mary Walton and J.P Lamb (Sheffield: Sheffield City Libraries,
1980) Local Studies Library: 940.5442 S
‘Second
World War German Map of Sheffield and Associated papers’ Sheffield Archives:
X196
‘Sheffield
Blitz: In words, pictures and memories’ Paul License (Sheffield: Sheffield
Newspapers 2000) Local Studies Library: 940.5442 SQ
‘The
Time of Our Lives – Dore at War: Memories from The Dore Oral History
Collection’ ed. by Helen Ross, Barbara Jackson & Maureen Cope (Oxford, Dore
Oral History Group, 2005) Local Studies Library: 940.5342 S
