The Second World War began to affect Birmingham in August 1940 with the start of the Birmingham Blitz, a series of air raids that targeted key industrial areas of the city. The first major attack on the city centre took place on the night of 25-26 August 1940, which resulted in the destruction of the old market hall and caused significant civilian casualties.
These raids, which included attacks on aircraft factories such as Bromwich Castle and the BSA munitions factory, were part of a strategy to disrupt British industrial production and directly caused significant damage to the city. Read more about the start of the Second World War for Birmingham at birminghamyes.com.
An industrial city
As an important industrial centre and one of the largest cities in Britain, only the capital was bigger, Birmingham was an obvious target for German air raids. Despite the bombing during the war, aeroplanes, tanks, and army vehicles rolled off the assembly lines of the city’s factories. Many much smaller workshops produced less global, but no less necessary for the frontline ammunition boxes, grenades, or, for example, flamethrowers for home front defence.
Thus, the raids on Birmingham began immediately after the German Luftwaffe announced Operation Blitz. That is, from the end of the summer of 1940 until the middle of the summer of 1942, Birmingham was constantly bombed by German aircraft. Moreover, from August to December 1940, these raids were particularly severe.
The next series of fierce bombings took place in March, April, and May 1941. The last major raid on Birmingham took place in the summer of 1942. As a result, after the bombing raids ended, it turned out that Birmingham was one of the cities most affected by German aircraft, losing the top spot in this sad competition to London.
Due to the number and massiveness of the bombings, the city was too badly damaged. Buildings that seemed to have survived one raid could be destroyed by the next one, which took place within a month or even a week. No building was immune from destruction. Despite this, the civilian population did everything possible to keep their city functioning. There are many facts of Birmingham’s heroism on record.
Our own garden, chicken and eggs
According to local residents who survived the bombing attacks, Birmingham was transformed into a solid defensive structure. There were many large balloons in the sky that were tied down with wires. If a fire broke out somewhere after the bombing, the locals tried to put it out, or the fuse from the bomb, so that the fire would not attract the attention of other planes, which almost always dropped bombs on the light. Fuses were extinguished with sand carried in buckets.
The Germans preferred to bomb industrial plants, such as the Austin Motor Company’s Longbridge plant, so special attention was paid to their camouflage. To meet the needs of the war effort, for example, a factory was built underground to produce heavy truck and aircraft parts throughout the war. Despite the fact that it was a good target, covering several square miles, it was never bombed.
The people of Birmingham began to live under certain restrictions. This concerned, first of all, food. The rations were 60 ml of butter, 30 ml of tea and 60 ml of meat per person per week. Sometimes you could buy something tasty in local shops. To do this, you had to stand in line. During the war, bananas brought from the West Indies were among the delicacies, for example. However, more often we had to stand in line for more commonplace products, such as King Edward potatoes, onions, carrots, and parsnips.
Whenever possible, townspeople had small plots of vegetable gardens, for example, on Matchley Lane. This provided an additional source of food. Also, if possible, they kept chickens in the backyard in order to have fresh, their own eggs. In addition, the chickens could be slaughtered, and the meat could be used. Even if people did not have any experience in butchering chickens, they quickly learnt how to do it. The feathers were plucked after the dead bird had been poured with boiling water, so it was easier to pluck.
Blood for the wounded
In addition, Birmingham residents helped their wounded soldiers by donating blood. Barbara Earp, a resident of Birmingham, was 16 years old at the beginning of the war. She remembers getting a job as an accountant after leaving school. She says she liked to donate blood, even though her mother forbade her to do so, saying it would harm her health. She used to walk to St Elizabeth’s Hospital, which was built as recently as 1937.
It was located almost a mile away from her home, and despite the fact that there were 21 buses to get there, Barbara walked to the hospital. She donated blood more often than was allowed. Her motivation for doing so was quite simple – she knew that many soldiers had been mortally wounded after Dunkirk and later on after the Normandy landings, and they needed her blood. So Barbara did her bit to help the young men her own age who were defending her and Birmingham.
Barbara recalls that despite her youth, she clearly understood what they were going through and felt she had to do something for them. Despite the fact that after donating blood, she felt dizzy and lightheaded. She always had a cup of life-saving tea waiting for her at home.
In the meantime, steam trains were running through the city, loaded with tanks, trucks, bombs, ammunition, and troops. They travelled at 60 miles per hour, pulled by 100-tonne engines, emitting steam and smoke. This is how Birmingham delivered its deadly cargoes to the front, out of the city, or even the country, to repel the aggressor.
Lucky Frank Healy
In 1940, Frank Healy from Birmingham worked at a large munitions factory. Back then, there were several shifts, and the young man often had to work at night. The plant employed over a thousand workers. They were men and women. They made important parts for military vehicles.
Frank says that it was fun to work in the shop, and he could hear a radio in the shop, which played the melody of one of the latest dance songs of the time. Everyone understood that they were doing an important job, to protect the country, the city, and, importantly, to make a living.
On one of the working nights, while the machines were doing their part, a siren started to howl. This is a signal that enemy planes are already somewhere close, within range. The workers at the plant look at each other, some joking about it, some laughing, some taking it to heart and looking worried.
But in any case, hundreds of workers almost immediately head for the shelters. But some people, Frank said, are in no hurry to quit, hoping that the bombers will be neutralised or scared away. These people just keep on working. But the siren doesn’t stop. So Frank and the other brave souls go down to the local basement, because it’s too late to go to the air raid shelter.
At the same time, they hear the sounds of anti-aircraft guns, followed by a deafening explosion. The bomb did hit the plant’s workshop. The multi-tonne equipment fell on the people in the basement. Frank lost consciousness.35 When he came to, he noticed that his comrades were dead and that he was surprisingly not even injured. Later, the head of the company said that out of the eighty-three workers who were hiding in the basement, eighty-one were killed. One of the two who survived was Frank.
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