The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Posted: **Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:34 am**

HollowHorn wrote:View showing the Blitz site at Cathcart Street, where the foundations are being laid for new shops, offices and dwelling houses. In the background is the Victoria steeple and on the right, is the general post office 1959

The Post Office is now another one of those "lovely" Wetherspoon's pubs called the James Watt.

Local Inverclyde schoolchildren have been working with older people to collect stories for The People's War site http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/

There's several entries for Inverclyde, Glasgow and Clydebank. Hope it helps.

Posted: **Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:21 pm**

I remember reading of a flak battery site in Drumchapel, does anyone know the exact location ?

Posted: **Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:26 am**

This may be relevant to germistonboy and the various Petershill/Springburn observations, but the accepted scuttlebutt round Provanmill/Blackhill in the 50's when I was growing up was that bombs fell on Greenside St, which is by Riddrie Cemetery, destroying at least one house.

Posted: **Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:22 pm**

Another location for you. Govan Road in Linthouse. Tenement block consisting Govan Road in the north and Peninver Drive in the south. Moss Road and Burghead drive were in the east/west sides. The Govan Road side (about 400m of it) hit during the Clydebank Blitz. A garage has been on this site since at least the 1960s.

Posted: **Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:56 pm**

Home Front 1939-1945

A small exhibition depicting what life was like for people living in Glasgow during World War II. Photographs and documents, including a Lufftwaffe map marking the position of Clydebank docks and shipyards. Based on sources held in Archives and Special Collections at The Mitchell, especially the archives of the Civil Defence Department of Glasgow Corporation.

Level 5
The Mitchell
until 21 January 2006

Posted: **Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:43 am**

NELSON STREET, GLASGOW

The above horrific images were taken in Nelson Street, Glasgow 1940 - Bomb Damage following almost direct hit on Tram and also direct hits on various buildings on Nelson Street with HE Bombs.

Not surprisingly, the above image was censored for a number of years.

Various sources state that 110 people were killed in Nelson Street during the war (Possibly 2no. separate raids).

Posted: **Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:56 am**

SCOTSTOUN - TENEMENT BLAST

Rescuers searching through the rubble of a tenement in Scotstoun following a direct hit by an HE bomb.

The above image was also taken following an Air Raid in October 1940.

Posted: **Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:02 am**

FFS, Socceroo, is that a wee boy in his jammies on the first floor? Tell me it's not. :cry:

Posted: **Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:13 am**

No it is not HH. I had a good look when i was looking at the photo in a larger format, i think it is a piece of material caught on a bit of wood.

The silhouette looks a wee bit like a child but i doubt it, as the rescuers would not be ignoring him.

Maybe a ghost?

Above is a poster from Lanark from November 1940 advertising a Fund Raiser for Spitfires by paying to see a Junkers 88 Luftwaffe Bomber.

There is link between the last three posts that i have made. I am looking into or i should say trying to look into, in a bit more detail, at the Air Raids which took place in 1940 in and around Glasgow.

These raids are not as well documented as the later raids which took place from 1941 onwards. The 1940 raids were heavily censored in so much as some of them were barely acknowledged in the media, or indeed recorded in any great detail in the official records.

This is understandable i suppose given the fear in 1940 that Britain, was for the larger part of that year, expecting to be invaded by the Nazi's.

Apparently there were some pretty daring daylight raids over Glasgow in 1940. You can only begin to imagine the fear that these would have caused.

Posted: **Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:46 pm**

GLASGOW PREPARES FOR WAR

Up to 85O people were employed in Glasgow's Kelvin Hall producing Barrage Balloons and Dinghies for the war effort. Kelvin Hall was one of the main Barrage Balloon factories in the UK during the war.

Below is the raising of Glasgow's first Barrage Balloon during the war in 1939.

Air Raid Precautions worker on Edinburgh Road, Glasgow. He is painting the kerb stones with a white reflective paint which will reflect as cars use their side lights during the black outs.

I wonder how many miles of kerbs he painted and how many lamp posts he put rings around?

Part of Weir's of Cathcart with it's Camouflage in place. Weirs was known to be on the Luftwaffe's target list.

Here is one of Glasgow's war time precautions which i came across but was not previously aware of. The picture below shows the Bomb damage precautions which were put in place of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Photograph's below were taken at the Firhill Basin.

To the left is essentially a sheet pile Dam to narrow the width of the Canal to be closed in an emergency. Between the Concrete blocks an emergency Lock gate could be placed to dam the Canal if it was bombed where it sits higher than areas of the city and could cause substantial flooding if bombed.

These Emergency Lock gate positions / Canal narrowings were, as you can see from the picture below (circa late 1960's), in place for some time after the war.

I do not know if there is remnants of these fixtures still in place at Firhill Basin and at Speirs Wharf which were two of the locations, or if they were removed during the Canal refurbishment around the millenium.

Posted: **Sat Dec 31, 2005 9:53 pm**

hey aint that last picture escotregen

Posted: **Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:31 pm**

Socceroo wrote:NELSON STREET, GLASGOW

The above horrific images were taken in Nelson Street, Glasgow 1940 - Bomb Damage following almost direct hit on Tram and also direct hits on various buildings on Nelson Street with HE Bombs.

Not surprisingly, the above image was censored for a number of years.

Various sources state that 110 people were killed in Nelson Street during the war (Possibly 2no. separate raids).

13th March 1941 the tenement building at 101 Nelson Street received a direct hit. My mother's uncle survived but his wife, his 4 children aged 12, 9, 7 and 3 and his father were all killed. Uncle survived because he was at work at the docks, the irony being that the target was the docks.

Posted: **Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:51 pm**

Thanks for that Margaret.

It does not matter how many books or websites you look at, it is only when you get pieces of information from first hand sources such as the posting you gave above, that the true connection with what must have been a fearful time in Glasgow's history is truly brought home.

As the originator of this thread i would (and i am sure Sharon and the moderators on Hidden Glasgow will not mind me doing this) like to dedicate it to the memory of all the many Glaswegians and visitors to the city who lost their lives during the air raids over Glasgow during the Second World War.

Posted: **Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:21 am**

Socceroo wrote:Thanks for that Margaret.

It does not matter how many books or websites you look at, it is only when you get pieces of information from first hand sources such as the posting you gave above, that the true connection with what must have been a fearful time in Glasgow's history is truly brought home.

As the originator of this thread i would (and i am sure Sharon and the moderators on Hidden Glasgow will not mind me doing this) like to dedicate it to the memory of all the many Glaswegians and visitors to the city who lost their lives during the air raids over Glasgow during the Second World War.

I concur!

I really need to spend some time scanning that map i did of clydebank, in the to do list.

Posted: **Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:42 am**

Interior of No. 404 Anti Aircraft Gun Operations Room (8th Anti Aircraft Group), Aitkenhead House, King's Park, Glasgow. 13th March 1945.

Police and Army Bomb Disposal Officers with a defused german 1000Kg "Luftmine" (Parachute Mine) in Glasgow. 18th March 1941.

Note proximity of Air Raid Shelter on right. Anyone got any ideas as to which particular part of Glasgow that the photo was taken?

A postcard view of Bankhead Primary School in Broadlie Drive, Knightswood, Glasgow. (1933)

On the evening of 13th -14th March 1941, Bankhead School, which was being used as a First Aid Post, Fire Station and ARP centre, was hit by a German landmine dropped by parachute onto the school’s playground. 39 people were killed.

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Bombs over Glasgow in WW2

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