history: the blitz

[silverdale5]

what was the blitz in ww2 and can you explain to me what the blitz did

[LazyGun]

The Blitz marked a change in tactics by Hitler and the Luftwaffe. Bombing targets up until then had been principally strategic military targets, such as airfields and the like. In late August 1940, a daylight bombing raid comprising around 900 or so bombers targeted London (and other major cities). This marked the start of the Blitz, a sustained and intensive bombing campaign aimed primarily at London..... 57 consecutive nights of bombing.The intent was to attempt to demoralise the British public, and through public opinion force Britain to sue for peace.

At the end, it was estimated that the Blitz caused an estimated 30,000 civilian deaths and 50,000 seriously injured.

However, it was very costly to the Luftwaffe, who lost a lot of assets, and in May 1941 the bombers were reassigned to the Eastern Front.

[shammydodger]

The blitz was the German bombing campaign, concentrated on London, during the last few months of 1940 and the first half of 1941. It began as a change in strategy of the Luftwaffe, after they failed to defeat the RAF in the air prior to the Germans launching an invasion of Britain across the English Channel. The purpose was to demoralise the British people and thereby encourage a change of government that would be more amenable to negotiating a settlement.

It achieved the opposite.

[silverdale5]

thanx but was the blitz lol

[dr john]

blitzkrieg = lightning war in German

[Ethel]

This is a good site for information:

http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/blitz.htm

[Sphinx_Svens]

Do your own homework

[Segilla]

For a youngster, aged 4 when WWII broke out, it was a game. Rockets in the sky. loud bags, shrapnel to collect in the morning from around the streets, Dad an ARP Warden with a smart uniform. And life in an Anderson shelter at night, in the garden, (Iater ours was dismantled an re-erected in the house after the ground floor floorboards had been removed. Seeing the huge amounts of damage caused by explosioives, broken glass, uprooted hedges, bombed houses.
A great game for kids but then although bomb fell all around where I lived in London, we`suffered no injuries or severe damage.

[Clanad]

I don't think it's overly pedantic to point out that, although the word Blitz is a shortening of the German word blitzkrieg, whose principal meaning is an employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense, as well as that mentioned by dr john, meaning "lightning war", it was not an example of blitzkrieg that befell England, and especially London during WWII. That terrible ordeal was early example of strategic bombing, targeting, as pointed out, not only military sites, but civilian centers. The literal translation of the German word "Blitzkrieg" was actually coined by a print journalist from the U.S. when referring to the attack on Poland in 1939.

[Tatty Rollox]

....... and at http://tinyurl.com/s5l2h is St Paul's during the Blitz, and at http://tinyurl.com/ejnc5 is a view on a morning after, and here at http://tinyurl.com/g8dpb is another view on another morning after ......

[Tatty Rollox]

..... there is an air raid shelter with many people in it under the building at http://tinyurl.com/h8j9k, and some people going about their business on a morning after at http://tinyurl.com/lhx4v, and another morning after at http://tinyurl.com/oqgsb .......

[shammydodger]

Clanad

Not overly pedantic at all. It's often an unattractive trait of us Brits to assign an event to "us" that actually didn't originate with us at all. All to often "we" forget how WWII began. Poland did indeed have the dubious distinction of being the first to experience "blitzkrieg." We ought to remember that it took a good 8 months for the British government to respond in any kind of force.

[david131154]

britain declared war on the 3rd of september, two days after the germans moved into poland. remember that germany had been building for a war since 1933, we had to adjust over night literally.