The Birmingham Blitz and the Evacuation of Children
Hiltler's impact on the urban landscape and the people of Birmingham can not be underestimated. During World War 2, Birmingham's industrial contribution to the war effort made it a prime target. Planes, tanks and army vehicles rolled off the production lines of the city's factories while smaller factories produced guns and ammunition. Around 1,852 tons of bombs were dropped on Birmingham. This made it the third most heavily bombed city in the United Kingdom in the Second World War, behind London and Liverpool, but it received the joint highest tonnage of bombs dropped on a British city, tied with Liverpool and at one-tenth that of London. The previous Peaky Blinder territory of Small Heath came under attack, with the Birmingham Small Arms plant as the Luftwaffe's target. They were the sole producer of service rifle barrels and main aircraft machine guns and were bombed on the first day of the Birmingham Blitz on August 9th 1940. Fifty-three people lost their lives in that single strike.
It was not only lives that were lost but also homes. The slum housing in the city centre took a severe hit, and homes spared in one raid could be hit in the next. As a result, children were evacuated from the city to the safety of the countryside and sent off to live with strangers with no more than a small suitcase, their gas mask and a label on their coats. Norma Steel, the grandmother of our owner and guide Edward, was one of these children, and she recalls her memories of being evacuated right at the start of the war.
"This story starts on the morning of Friday, September 1st 1939. I was six years old at the time and thought it was a big adventure when we all gathered at school with a label on our coats. I had my belongings in a little case and my gas mask in a cardboard box over my shoulder. We were marched off to the nearest station at the start of our mystery journey. We did not know where we were going and neither did our parents.
Our destination turned out to be a little village in Wales near Abergavenny. The village was surrounded by mountains, which I found awesome after the back streets of Birmingham from where we had been living. I was billeted with Mr and Mrs Faulkener, who seemed very nice and told me to call them Auntie and Uncle. They were quite good to me but more strict than my Mum and Dad, and they made me do housework and eat up all my food which I did not have to do at home. I loved living in the country but felt very homesick at times, especially as a boy at school had said that when I got home, I would find my Mum and Dad lying on the floor dead, having been killed by a bomb.
Two days after we arrived in Wales, on Sunday, September 3rd, when we were coming out of church, someone called to us to say that war had been declared, and we knew that life would never be the same again. For a year, I was reasonably happy. Uncle was a keen gardener and kept chickens, so every week, we got up early and took eggs, fruit, and vegetables to market in Abergavenny to sell. I was lucky that my father owned a car, which was unusual in those days, so Mum and Dad were able to visit me some Sundays. I was also able to go home during the school holidays. Unfortunately, when I went home, the bombing always seemed to get worse in Birmingham. As soon as the sirens went, Mum used to make a bed up under the stairs for my little brother and me. It was very frightening to hear the planes go over and then would come the whistle of the bomb coming down. We prayed it wouldn't hit us, and finally, a loud explosion. We then gave a sigh of relief to know that, this time it had missed us. If it was very near, we could hear the bricks falling as the buildings collapsed. The next morning we would go around the district to look at the fires and the bomb damage. If the raids got very bad, we would go into a neighbour's air raid shelter. That was a big hole dug in their backyard. We didn't like that at all. Once, Dad took me outside to see the searchlights and the gunfire and a piece of shrapnel just missed us.
I spent Christmas and my seventh birthday in Wales, and after about a year, things changed for the worse. Auntie received a telegram from London to say that her daughter, who worked there, had been killed in an air raid. I was immediately sent home for a month, and when it was time to go back to Wales, I really didn't want to go. Even though I cried and begged Mum to let me stay at home, she insisted that I must return. Auntie now had turned against me and became very unkind to me. Finally, my parents realised what was happening and came and took me home.
Sadly for me, the air raids became more severe, and once again, I was evacuated. This time my little brother was old enough to come with me, so I had to be very brave and not cry. We were sent to Offenham, near Evesham and were billeted with a wealthy farmer and stayed in a lovely big old farmhouse, all very different from Wales. We both had a rash, which turned out to be scabies, which we had picked up in the shelters, and so we were quickly shipped off in an ambulance to Kidderminster Hospital, where we stayed for three months! During this time, I also got Chickenpox and nearly died with Kidney trouble. I spent Christmas and my eighth birthday in there. My Mum used to visit us twice a week and always hoped she would get home before the raids started. We finally came out, and I was sent back to Offenham, but Darrel went home because he looked so ill. Once again, I loved living in the country but became even more homesick. I enjoyed exploring the fields, climbing trees and helping on the farm, mainly fruit picking. I didn't like the children at school as they seemed very rough and even swore. However, I had a fight with one of the girls and won, making it clear that I was not to be bullied. Mrs Bean, the farmer's wife, made it her mission in life to get rid of my Birmingham accent and turn me into a well-mannered young lady for which I have always been grateful. I spent another Christmas and birthday away from home, but finally, just after my ninth birthday, I came home for good.
Things had quietened down by then in Birmingham, but it was to be another three years before this terrible war ended."
Norma's father worked as a butcher but also, like much of the civilian population, did what they could to keep their city functioning, so also worked as a fireman butting out the fires following the air raids. One account of the locals' attempts to protect their city told how during one raid, Post Office staff on the roof of Telephone House on Newhall Street kicked off incendiary bombs as they landed on the roof. Hospitals were also hit. During a fierce raid on November 18th 1940, the Queen's Hospital was hit by incendiary bombs. Twenty-Six-year-old Leslie Raymond Phillips was working in the hospital's biochemical laboratory. When an incendiary bomb fell on the roof of the medical block, Phillips climbed on the roof with two firemen. He climbed down the sloping roof and, using buckets of sand passed to him by the firemen, he put out the fire and utilised a stirrup pump to dampen down roof timbers to stop the fire from spreading. In addition, Birmingham tried to protect its cultural treasures. A window made by William Morris was luckily taken down for safekeeping the day before World War 2 began because a bomb destroyed all the other original windows. Likewise, when the Art Gallery and Museum were hit during the blitz, most of the contents were saved, as staff had emptied the buildings some months before. The hardiness of Birmingham people that had been used in the previous decades to survive and the determined mentality to protect your territory that had led to the slogging gangs was now allowing the people of Birmingham to band together to defend their city against the German Luftwaffe.
A total of 2241 of these brave Brummies lost their lives, 3,010 were seriously injured, and 3,682 sustained lesser injuries. They are commemorated on the 'Tree of Life' memorial, which stands on Edgbaston Street. The massive bomb damage to the 19th-century slums in the inner city areas caused the loss of 12,391 houses and contributed to the development of many postwar large council estates across the city. Birmingham used prefabricated housing, also known as prefabs, as its initial emergency response.
These houses were only meant to last five years, but many were around for decades following the war. A total of 302 factories and 239 other buildings were also destroyed, with many more damaged.
Following the war, many people from other countries in the commonwealth headed to Birmingham to help rebuild the city and added to the multicultural feel of the city today. Birmingham's postwar, Brutalist architecture, including shopping centres, road intersections and public art, drew a mixed response. Some celebrated the city's creativity and believed Birmingham had become one of the leaders of architectural innovation. Others felt it was poorly planned, with new modern designs squeezed between the remaining old buildings, the different styles jarring together in a disorganised mess of bricks and concrete. On our historical walking tour, you will see many of these old and modern designs sitting side by side.
PLACES TO SEE IN BIRMINGHAM TO SEE THE IMPACT OF THE BIRMINGHAM BLITZ
St Martins in the Bullring
https://www.bullring.org/newhere/
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/birmingham-museum-and-art-gallery/
