WW2 Sheffield Bombings

Used to be a RFC landing ground at Broomhill in the 1st WW.

Anyone know any more about this ?

https://www.abct.org.uk/airfields/airfield-finder/broomhill-wombwell/

 

By 1944, the range of the V-1 was 250miles and about 10,500 were launched towards the UK from Holland. Sheffield is just outside the top range at ~260miles from Holland but it isn't impossible that it was tageted. Although by June 15th, Hitler ordered the missiles to target London only.

https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/the-v-revenge-weapons/the-v1/#:~:text=Originally, the V1 had a,and the rest by plane.

 

I'd not realised until I just read it that the V-1 wasn't invented/used until 1944. I'd always thought it was one of the weapons from the Blitz in 1940.

 

Plenty of V1 craters up in the Peak District with shrapnel all over.

 

Every days a school day, didn’t realise that they managed to increase the range.

 

They didn't they couldn't get over the Peaks

 

Thanks for this. The article says about 1700 V-1s were launched from modified German bombers so it’s conceivable that they flew over the North Sea and were launched at Northern cities from there.

 

I’ve not heard that either! And I thought I was quite knowledgable about WW2 aviation!
Just goes to show there’s always new things to learn

 

It's a good job we stopped the Nazi's when we did. They were developing things far worse well before the Russians and Yanks in the cold war.

 

We’re are lucky that they run out of materials to build V-2s and ME262s. An invasion without air superiority would have been doomed to failure.

 

My Dad, and my 3 of my now sadly late grandparents used to regale us with tales of this. My other grandad missed it all by being in the desert and then in a PoW camp. My Dad claims his deafness came from a bomb blast when he was a bairn in Parkgate (I think it was more likely to do with starting at the blast furnace when he was 15 though). My Nannan worked in Sheffield until my Mam was born in '44. We still have her medal for war service in the munitions factory. My other Grandad was a reserved occupation as a fireman on the locomotives, which was possibly as hazardous as many a military job at the time and he told tales of trains waiting inn tunnels during the Blitz and been strafed by the Luftwaffe.
Apologies if someone has already mentioned this, but the V1 raid on Manchester that saw some fly over and a few even land in South Yorkshire, was an air launched raid by Heinkel bombers dropping them off the East Yorkshire and North Lincs coast. Otherwise the V1 would not have had the range to reach South Yorkshire.

 

Always remember in my first year at De La Salle College Sheffield, I was picked to play for the schools
junior football team on a Saturday. It was circa 1955/56. I had to catch the No 77, which took me from the Waterdale bus
station in Donny to the Pond Street bus station in Sheffield.

Once in Sheffield, first thing that you noticed was the heaps of bricks and masonry where the buildings that had been bombed
once stood. Up to Fitzalan Square to catch the tram, which then rattled its way towards the Wicker arches and onwards to
Pitsmoor ,with even more and more bomb sites either side of the road.

Never forget that two team mates met me on the tram and we got off at Scott Road to walk to our College
when we literally stopped open mouthed as we saw for the first ever time, a man from the Caribbean walking
towards us. He had obviously migrated to help with the labour shortages caused by the casualties of the Second
World War.

The next year on our annual visit to visit our folks in Poole, at Waterloo station we saw for the first time
ever, a group of five people from China, which given the mix of ethnicities in our country now is absolutely amazing.

 

Thanks for clarifying that. Very interesting.

 

My Mum used to tell me that she hid me under the table in a laundry basket when the first ever " doodlebug"
went over our house. She told me later that it sounded as though it was actually rattling its way over the
roof tiles. They used to wait to hear the engine cut out and start counting until they heard a bang.
Thankfully the ones that came down in our locality missed the houses and the nearby RAF Lindholme
airfield and mercifully, no one lost their lives.

 

I was only talking to someone from Broomhill about this yesterday.
They thought the concrete roads were runways.
They wernt - they were built for coal lorries to stockpile coal on there during WW2 - as Wath Hump was close by.
But before it was a coal stocking area and before the pylons there was a airstrip on here.
Flying circus used to perform there.

 

No it's it's not an old wives tale....the Germans also air launched them from beneath bombers...Hull and Sheffield were both targets, although I think they were fairly isolated attacks, rather the campaign on London.

 

I went looking for it a few years ago, it was basically an emergency landing ground situated in the fields between Broomhill and Low Valley, there was nothing I could see remaining....I did find an article once that said it had wood or tented accommodation with a single brick building ....that I couldn't find anymore.

 

Not really a matter of luck...it was due to sustained bombing on industry and a concerted effort to cut supply lines and material off.

 

Was reading earlier that the big problem with the Blitz was that it didn't target British industry and was rather more scattershot than ours was against Germany later in the war.

 

I had the pleasure of working with Roy Blackman, a local poet and song writer. One of his songs is about a Sheffield cinema manager during the blitz. (It’s rather lively outside).
You might also like “the Bonny reds of Barnsley “

https://www.reverbnation.com/royblackman/playlist/-4