What happened in your town/city during WWII?

[Dowly]

I´ve been meaning to make this thread for ages, finally I got myself to it.

Like the title says, I´d like to know what happened where you live during the heat of battle of the WWII. It doesnt have to be combat related, but something that is related to the fighting, e.g. ammunition factory etc.

Ok, let´s start then, shall we?

I live in a small, ~26,000 people town in eastern Finland called Varkaus. The town is ~150Km from the Russian border.

During the WWII, Varkaus didnt see much of action, it was bombed a few times because it was an industrial town (as it is still, there´s close to 30 industrial workshops in here, atleast 22 of them are metal industry.). And because of that same reason it was used to repair salvaged soviet tanks during the Winter and Continuation wars.

That´s it, not much but still something.

[Konovalov]

I suspect that this thread will have more posts from people in Europe and Asia than from my country Australia or others such as the U.S.A. Good topic though.

[Dowly]

Yea, I know that. But like I said, it doesnt have to be combat related. The work done in the homefront is just as important as is the one that is done in the frontlines.

Oh and small request, if you live in city like London, DO NOT copy&paste a list of ALL the bombings against it. 'It was heavily bombed through out the war' is good enough.

[Oberon]

We got bombed a few times during WWII, the post office got hit and three people killed. Just down the coast there was a suspected German invasion that was repelled using the 'burning sea' weapon. Google up "Shingle Street invasion"

[Kapitan]

My town i live inbetween southend and basildon, when the germans flew over they would use the thames as a navigational aid into london and i live at the mouth of the estury, the bombs they didnt drop over london though they ditched into the thames.

Off the coast of Southend lies a shipwreck the ship is called the Richard Montgomery i believe its a liberty ship, but it broke its back and sank with over 2,000 tonnes of ammunition authoities have stated that only about 190 tonnes has been recoverd over the last 50 years and that every year they leave it it becomes more and more dangerous.

Other than that they made the mulberry harbours in london and towed them down the thames, one sank off thorpe bay and is still there today.

[Linton]

This is a link to a map of v1 crash sites in kent:http://www.edenbridgetown.com/maps/v1.shtml

[Captain Nemo]

I have lived in Dagenham (East London) most of my life. Industry in Dagenham contributed to the war effort by having the Sterling Engineering Company where both the Lanchester and the Patchett were developed. Sterling also manufactured silenced DeLisle carbines for clandestine British Commando units. The other big contributor was Ford Motor Company which produced 360,000 military vehicles and 34,000 Merlin aero engines. Of course this made the area a target for the Luftwaffe and many civilians lost their lives.

Also, on the corner of Whalebone Lane and the Eastern Avenue, diagonally opposite the Moby Dick pub, is the site of a Saxon moot hall. The adjoining fields were used as a POW camp for Germans during WWII.

My dad was a young boy during WWII and he lived in Ford Road in Dagenham and he told me once that he saw three low flying ME 109s flying towards Romford where they attacked the Gas Works there.

Nemo

[Gizzmoe]

Düsseldorf, in the Rhineland area with a population of 535000 in 1939, was an important target with major steel, arms and chemical industry. The city was bombed 243 times (9 major attacks) from May 1942 to 1945 by a total of 5641 aircraft, 18000 tons of bombs were dropped. It also was under artillery attack for seven weeks.

By the end of the war more than 90% of all buildings and industry were either damaged or destroyed. 5858 people were killed during the attacks, the population at the end of the war was 185000.

[CCIP]

I was born in Leningrad. I think I don't need to indicate what it means.

(Over a million civilians have died as a result of shelling, bombing - but of mostly starvation in the 900-day siege of the city. Among the latter was my great-great-grandfather)

[aaken]

I was born in Naples, Italy. Being a big commercial harbor, and since many convoys going to Libya departed from Naples, it was bombed many times by americans and english. When ,in september 1943, the Allies landed an army in Salerno (40 km south of Naples) and Italy signed the armistice with the Allies, the germans took control of the city and started vexing the civilian population. Tired of 3 years of war, hungry, with the menace of typhus, with the news of the Allies advancing towards the city, the people started an uprising. It lasted 4 days. The germans were forced to leave the city. It was the first major italian city to free itself from the Nazi occupation after the surrender.

[Polak]

Ustka, Poland. Before the war and during the war the town belonged to the Germans and was called Stolpmünde. The town saw some combat during the German retreat, a small tank battle on the outskirts of the town and some small arms fire.
I also know that American POW's worked in the town. The town was frequently visited by uboots.

[Bertgang]

Rome, Italy.

My town saw the rise and fall of Mussolini, as minister of the king, and countless fascist meetings under his famous balcony in Venice square.

It was bombed by allied several times, mainly because of railway connections; lot of civilians lost their lives, or at least their home, that way.

The town was under german rule since september 1943 to the arrival of allied troops. It was the worst period for jews (even if oppressed by fascism since years before). Some engagement between royal army, later partisans, and german troops, several casualties without relevant militar outcome; a memorial remembers that.

During wartime civilians were allowed to work public parks as vegetable gardens.

[Dan D]

Bochum, Germany.

Bochum as part of the Ruhrgebiet, once called the "weaponery of the Reich", was hit hard by air raids. The historic townscape does no longer exist. If you want to see some of the old stuff, you have to go underground. Some of the old housing facades, stones and putti have been built into the modern underground stations to give an idea what Bochum once looked like, a new town center built on the ruins of the old one.

The attempts to defend the Ruhrgebiet against advancing Allied forces at the end of the war were desperate. A story told by the Bochum author Frank Goosens exemplifies this. His uncle Heinz as a soldier at the Eastern front had suffered such a heavy injury to the head that he was completely "beyond good and evil" (insane). Nevertheless, in an effort to defend the Ruhrgebiet, a gun was handed out even to him. With his rifle he caused some casualties: he killed a German Shepherd dog and shot the block warden in the leg.
During his captivity as an American POW in Bavaria he somehow got used to the phrase: "Strike, Bossa Nova, Strike" which he as the village idiot and target of mockery by neighbour kids constantly repeated on every occasion until the day he died, as Goosens reports.

[lesrae]

Bath, Somerset. England.

Bath was bombed by the Luftwaffe over 3 days (25 - 27 April 1942) which has become known locally as the 'Bath Blitz'. Some 19,000 buildings were damaged and over 400 people killed.

It's commonly said that these bombings were in retaliation for the Allied bombings of Lübeck and Rostock which were both beautiful Heritage cities - Canterbury, Exeter, Norwich & York were also bombed in a series of raids nicknamed the 'Baedecker Raids' after a tourist guide by Karl Baedecker.

I've never read much about this, just heard vague stories (I moved to the Bath area 15 years ago) however nosing around for some detail I found this site: http://www.bathblitz.org/ - which is now bookmarked.

[Happy Times]

I was born and lived in Helsinki half my life so i chose it. Helsinki is the capital of Finland so it was heavily bombed during the war, it was also the most heavily defended target by Finnish AA-units. It had important industry, military and goverment buildings to protect. From the first day of Winter War, Nov 30 1939 to the end of Continunation War, September 19, 1944, Helsinki was bombed over 50 times. In February 1944 Soviet bomber command got an order to destroy Helsinki. In three days over 700 planes dropped some 20.000 bombs, scale comparable to Dresden. Do to the effective AA tactics, only 799 bombs hit populated areas of the city. Casualties during the whole war were "only" 350 dead and 1000 wounded. Some 500 buildings were destroyed or damaged.