Online map reveals locations of Second World War air raids
A new map showing the location of every air raid on the population of wartime Britain has been published online.
‘Bombing Britain: An Air Raid Map’ was developed by Dr Laura Blomvall of the University of York, and reveals the locations of more than 32,000 attacks.
Although aerial bombing is most often associated with large cities, the map shows that the first place in Britain to be bombed was actually the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The attack took place on 16 October 1939.
Dr Blomvall said: “This map offers an astonishing insight into the extent and scale of total war. Bombing Britain allows us to visualise how bomb strikes affected the entire country – not just London and the South-East – as bombs were dropped from the Orkney Islands to Coventry, from Liverpool to the Scilly Isles and from Dover to Swansea.
“This unique research project shows how war was ‘no longer confined to the battlefield’. The normalisation of aerial warfare turned mainland Britain into a violent battlefield, and the term ‘home front’ was no longer figurative.”
She compiled the data from 6,500 pages of brief, daily reports compiled by wartime intelligence officers for the Ministry of Home Security and senior officials, now held at The National Archives in Kew.
The academic publisher Routledge, Taylor and Francis has made the map available on its War, State and Society website ( warstateandsociety.com/Bombing-Britain).
At the time of writing, however, the map was unavailable owing to technical problems caused by high demand.
A spokesperson for War, State and Society said that developers were working to resolve the issues “as a priority”.
When the map is functional, website visitors will be able to view and download information on each air raid, including the date, location and number of casualties.
Dr George Hay, military historian at The National Archives, said: “This map will be a fantastic resource, not only for military and social historians, but for anyone interested in the impact of wartime air raids across the UK.”