New Map Shows Every London Bomb Of The Blitz

M@
By M@ Last edited 135 months ago
New Map Shows Every London Bomb Of The Blitz
A close up view of Charing Cross and Whitehall.
A close up view of Charing Cross and Whitehall.
All this, just on the first night of the Blitz.
All this, just on the first night of the Blitz.
A blanket of devastation across the city in this view of the whole Blitz.
A blanket of devastation across the city in this view of the whole Blitz.
Zoomed out, the aggregate of hits completely cover London.
Zoomed out, the aggregate of hits completely cover London.

Wow. Simply, wow. Someone's only gone and mapped every known bomb of the Blitz. Bombsight.org contains thousands and thousands of datapoints and shows, on even the most glancing inspection, just what a pummeling our city took all those years ago.

The map is based on archive research, drawing together official bomb censuses for the period between September 1940 and June 1941. It therefore lacks later bombing raids and attacks by flying bombs and rockets later in the war. What is there, however, is an invaluable resource for researchers and anyone with a curiosity about the history of our city.

The map is supplemented with eyewitness testimony drawn from the BBC's archives, as well as photographs of war damage and activity close to each site. Different views allow you to see the entire bomb census of the Blitz, or drill down to see the devastation on just the first night of attacks. Android users can even download an app that lets you view the data via augmented reality on top of a camera image.

The project was put together by this talented team, with help from University of Portsmouth, JISC and the National Archives.

Deeply impressive, sobering stuff.

See also
Our map of all the V2 rockets to hit London and the South East.

Last Updated 06 December 2012