Thats the problem with taking a photo, it further reduces the quality. Prob better to scan something like that to keep the detail. Just post them through to me when you get time and i'll get to work on it.
Came across this one today,just to add to the collection. This is a pic of the railings around Birkenhead park being removed for the war effort.It did say on it by cricket pitch,so I`m thing poss Ashville Rd.
Hi Bert. I think I remember my mum telling me the last bombing raid over the Wirral was March 1941. Is that correct? Seems a fair bit too early I reckon.
In fact the more I think about it - the more I'm sure it has to be wrong. Bad memory!!
August 1940 9th: First bombs dropped on Merseyside at Prenton, Birkenhead. Liverpool’s first casualty of the 'Blitz'.
10th: First bombs dropped on Wallasey.
17th: First bombs dropped on Liverpool. Liverpool Overhead railway damaged.
19th: Walton Gaol bombed killing 22 prisoners.
September 1940 5th: Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral damaged by bomb blast.
6th: Children’s Convalescent Home bombed, Birkenhead.
26th: Heavy raid on docks and warehouses. Argyle Theatre, Birkenhead, seriously damaged.
October 1940 23rd: Merseyside suffers 200th air raid.
November 1940 28th: Heaviest air raids to date; 200 people killed in total as the first land mines dropped on Merseyside. 164 people killed when a shelter underneath the Junior Technical School, Durning Road, collapsed.
December 1940 3rd: 180 people killed in attack on a packed air raid shelter
12th: Merseyside suffers its 300th air raid.
20th: Start of the ‘The ‘Christmas Raids’ with 365 people killed over three nights. 42 people killed in a bomb attack on two air raid shelters; another 42 people killed when railway arches being used as unofficial shelters are hit; 1399 children evacuated out of Liverpool.
21st: 74 people killed in a direct hit on a large air raid shelter.
22nd: End of the ‘Christmas Raids’.
January 1941 Bad flying weather results in just three air raids in the whole month.
February 1941 7th: ‘Western Approaches Command Headquarters transferred to Liverpool from Plymouth.
Only two raids are carried out on Merseyside in February.
March 1941 12-13th: Heavy bombing resumes. Wallasey suffers its heaviest raids as 174 people are killed.
16th: Baby girl found alive under debris in Wallasey, after being trapped for three and a half days.
April 1941 25th: Winston Churchill visits Liverpool to see the city and port.
The Luftwaffe (German air force) limited the raids on Merseyside to just three this month, conserving their forces for the upcoming ‘May Blitz’.
May 1941 1st: Beginning of the ‘The ‘May Blitz’ 1741 people were killed and 114 people seriously injured by the end of the week.
3rd: Worst night of the ‘May Blitz’, including the explosion of the cargo ship Malakand in Huskisson Dock.
7th: Final night of the ‘May Blitz’;
13th: 550 ‘Unknown Warriors of the Battle of Britain’ are buried in a common grave at Anfield Cemetery.
June 1941 1st: Heavy raids on Liverpool docks; East Gladstone Dock is badly damaged.
July 1941 24th: Light air raid on Merseyside.
November 1941 1st: A light air raid is the final attack on Merseyside in 1941.
January 1942 10th: Merseyside’s final bombing raid of the Second World War sees houses in Upper Stanhope Street demolished.
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
i have just looked at the photographs of the bombings i was born in Birkenhead in may 1939 we lived in Salisbury st off Grange rd during one of the raids we had to go for cover we all went in the basement of the old ROXY cinema on Charing cross When the raid was over my mam left the shelter of the roxy with my brother and sisters and me to be greeted with the site of our house totaly demolished by a german bomb god only knows what went through my mams head when she saw it we had nowere to live so we were shipped out to Wales to live with relations till about 1944 Thank god i was to young to rember what happened i got all the details from me mam there made of strong stuff BIRKONEONS
My Mum has told us harrowing things about the bombings.She lived in Bidston with her parents. The 12th March 1941 was her 16th birthday. She told us that after the blitz she walked to a friends house,the destruction all around. One memory stuck in her mind,so awful that even after 50 years it would make her cry. She had seen a young woman standing by the remains of a house,two little babies lying dead on doors that were makeshift stretchers.The poor woman was screaming and screaming. I think my poor Mum just ran away.God knows how people got on with life,but they did. My Dad lived in Rock Ferry and he also had a memory that haunted him.He was coming home from the cinema in Bebington. He and a mate were walking home and an air raid started. They ran like the clappers and had got as far as Victoria Park when they saw a car get a direct hit. My Dad saw the man in the car on fire. There was nothing that he or his mate could do so they ran for their lives through the park. I think he was only about 16 himself, but just like my Mum the memory stayed with him .He didn't cry like my Mum did, but he got very upset about it.
My Dad lived in Livingstone Road Rock Ferry at that time- he told me about the day a Messerschmitt 110 strafed the street, which had kids playin in it- luckily no-one was hit, but the sandstone fence posts had large chunks blasted out of them. The same night, most of Well lane was flattened by a parachute mine
Thanks to Lynn and Blackadder for sharing these harrowing but amazing insights to the true reality of the scenes of devastation,destruction and personal loss that millions of people around the UK had to bare witness to during that terrible time.
My Dad and Grandfather told me about Well Lane. At the bottom of Well Lane on the opposite side to the Fairfield pub the houses are newer than the ones up towards the Police station. Dad said the houses got taken out by a landmine that caused major loss of life as one of the houses had a party going on. Dad said they found a bed in Victoria park with a headless body in it and remembers the fire brigade removing a body from the top of the telephone wires. He also told me that a German plane was brought down and crashed near Grove Road where the Rock Ferry library (circa 1970's)was. All the kids in the area got chased by the police as they tried to steal bits of it,they used to make rings from the windows of the plane. My friends Dad was an air raid warden down by lairds with his work mate.They stood at the bottom of St Pauls road on the night of the heavy bombing, his mate thought he saw a German parachute dropping from a crashing plane so ran in the direction of the now Rock retail park. My friends Dad said that about a minute later he could see his mate in the distance and a search light swept past the chute to reveal a landmine underneath with about 100 foot left to go. He threw himself on the floor and next thing the landmine went off. They never found anything of his mate.
I was told a story myself years back,a friend of my nan who was obv about the same age.She recalls a night of heavy bombing over Merseyside/Wirral (in general) and she told me of a German plane being shot down over Wirral and the pilot (crew member) landed on the gasometer that used to be at the side of the bus depot,wich was situated behind Laird St.He was arrested and no doubt served the rest of the war in a POW camp.Not as harrowing or unfortunate of the previouse events described but a more lighter hearted account never the less.
