An Oldham Blitz Story

“In 1944 the Nazis’ rocket-bomb attacks on London suddenly escalated. Over 2000 V-1 flying bombs fell on the city, killing more 5000 people and wounding many more. Somehow, the Germans consistently missed their targets. Bombs that were intended for Tower Bridge, or Piccadilly, would fall well short of the city, landing in less populated suburbs. This was because, in fixing their targets, the Germans relied on secret agents they had planted in England. They did not know that these agents had been discovered, and that in their place, English-controlled agents were feeding them subtly-deceptive information.”

-The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene

Today marks 80 years since the end of The Blitz, the German bombing campaign over the UK. After 8 months, 40,000 civilians killed and 2 million houses damaged or destroyed, Hitler switched his efforts to the east and attacked the USSR instead. Luftwaffe High Command recorded the loss of 2,265 aircraft over the British Isles, a quarter of them fighters and one third bombers.

Back in about 1991, when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, I remember my teacher Mrs Barrass recounting her war stories in class. She’d grown up local. Oldham has always been a poor mill town (despite it having more millionaires per square mile that anywhere in the world at the turn of the 20^th century- usually mill owners). Many of the houses were terraced, usually built to accommodate all the mill workers and their families.

During the Blitz, there were numerous night raids on Oldham. We had a huge output for war resources, including a heavy rollout of Lancaster Bombers, so we were a prime target for the Luftwaffe. The bombs frequently missed their marks, though, and there were many civilian casualties in Oldham.

Mrs Barrass told us that when the Blitz was at its deepest, she was about our age. Her house, like her whole street, had blackout on the windows. One night, early on before they’d gone to bed, an ordinance landed in her street, wrecking the road and sending cobbles into the air. One such cobble- solid brick-shaped stones that made up the surface of the road- was flung with such force that it plunged straight through the roof of her house, through the ceiling, and onto her brother’s bed, landing with a bounce. If he’d have been in bed, it’d have killed him.

4 years later, Britain won the war, thanks in part to another Oldhamer (his first constituency at least)- Prime Minister Winston Churchill.