Today is the day we remember the fallen not only in the two world wars but in all the conflicts of the world because even today young people are dying alone and frightened in some foreign land or return home broken in mind and body to a people who care but a country that doesn't while politicians are sending the world to hell in a hand cart all around us. Whatever your views on war these young people who lay shattered in the dirt were the sons and daughters,sweethearts or parents of people who will carry the sorrow of their loss to their graves .
The number of deaths in the major conflicts is difficult to grasp sometimes but a glimpse closer to home will for most Brits give us a sense of the horror. The little town of my birth on the far north west coast of England may have seemed to far away to attract the attention of the Luftwaffe but for a few nights in 1941 they attacked the town. While not on the scale some cities suffered my mother used to tell me of the fear and dread when the drone of enemy aircraft was heard.She was only 15 years or 16 old, the time of life when everything should be bright and the future hold dreams,instead she huddled in a shelter with the rest listening to the bombs fall,hoping her father working long hours to keep the steel mills rolling was safe.
Below is not my work just general observations from Wiki, all links can be found there.
Many Barrowvians believe the first sign of German interest of the town was in May 1936, when the Hindenburg Zeppelin flew very low and slowly over Barrow, which locals and government officials alike believed was spying on the shipyard, although it claimed to be simply carrying passengers on a luxury trip. The town, had a much larger population than today of around 75,000 in 1941 and was targeted by the Luftwaffe mainly for its shipbuilding industry which was one of the most sophisticated in the world and built many submarines and ships for the Royal Navy.
Artillery and Defences
During the Second World War, Walney Island was home to two of the country's many coastal artillery installations (Hilpsord Fort and Fort Walney), numerous pillboxes can to this day be found littered across the Walney coastline. They were used as lookouts and contained rifles and light machine guns that could be used to defend Barrow against the Luftwaffe. A large unit of the Royal Air Force was based at Barrow/Walney Island Airport which was expanded during the war in an effort to aid Britain's air defences.
1941 raids
The difficulty of solely targeting Barrow's shipyard meant that many residential neighbourhoods were bombed instead. 83 civilians were killed, 330 injured, and over 10,000 houses were damaged or destroyed during the Blitz, about 25 percent of the town's housing stock.Surrounding towns and villages were often mistaken for Barrow and were attacked instead, while many streets in Barrow were severely damaged. Hawcoat Lane is a street that is most noted for taking a direct destructive hit in early May 1941. Barrow has been described as somewhat unprepared for the Blitz, as there were only enough public shelters for 5 percent of the town's population; some people who lived in the town centre were even forced to seek refuge in hedgerows on the outskirts of Barrow. This shortage of shelters was believed to have led to excessively high casualties. Two fire watchers were killed in May 1941 when the hammer head crane they were stationed in at Vickers Shipyard was bombed by the Luftwaffe.
The headquarters of Barrow's anti-aircraft defences was in the Furness Abbey Hotel (now 'The Abbey Tavern'). A sandstone building next to the former railway station by the ruins of the abbey, in a valley screened by trees, it would seem to have been an unlikely target. In May 1941 it was attacked and badly damaged by the Luftwaffe. Barrow Central Station was heavily damaged on 7 May 1941; a First World War memorial located within it still bears the holes and gashes caused by the World War II bombings.See photo
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