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Bomb Sight – Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census

70 points by dmmalam 9y ago

jonplackett 9y ago
Unbelievable how many bombs dropped. Two within a few metres of my house!
- dvtv75 9y ago
  My partner's mother was a little girl during World War 2, and told me that she remembers being at school with her gas mask nearby at all times. She told me how a bomb fell near her house in Dorking blew out all the windows, while another destroyed the railway bridge, presumably the one on Pixham Lane in Dorking. She remembers the V1 bombs, the Doodlebugs, and explained that you were alright as long as you could hear the engine but if the noise stopped, you were in trouble. My history teacher at high school also lived through the Blitz, being just a little older. I remember him telling the class about the bomb that fell near his house, and when he ran out looking for his parents he accidentally kicked a helmet which, he discovered, contained a head. He still had nightmares about it 40 years later, understandably. I find personal histories fascinating, I wish I was able to hear them all, and visualize them to a degree. (Maybe not that last one.)
tones411 9y ago
Wow! I didn’t realize there were that many!
- hoppelhase 9y ago
  In Kassel, the allies dropped 2 bombs per m^2 on average in a couple hours. http://www.kassel.de/stadt/geschichte/zerstoerung/ http://www.kassel.de/stadt/geschichte/zerstoerung/
  - lttlrck 9y ago
    I lived in Stuttgart for 10 years (I’m British) and the post-bombing photos of the city filled me with sorrow. 21000 long tonnes dropped on that beautiful provincial city. Sadly reconstruction was not as kind as it was in Munich (less money presumably). I love that place and miss it dearly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stuttgart_in_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stuttgart_in_Worl...
RowanH 9y ago
That's a very graphic visualisation. You've got to wonder if every one saw and understood this whether there would be greater tolerance and understanding to avoid war...
- kennywinker 9y ago
  I don't think that's how humans work. We know that bombing is awful, but we also "know" that the people we are bombing are the enemy and deserve to be blown up. The thing to avoid is dehumanizing and vilifying groups of people.
  - mc32 9y ago
    I agree with that when it comes to starting a war as an aggressor --but not as a defensive war. I mean, if someone is coming to get you and they have vilified you or for whatever reason have decided to wage war against your group, it would be utter folly to say, well, it's wrong to dehumanize and vilify the enemy, unless you propose getting rolled over is an acceptable alternative.
    - shakna 9y ago
      That sort of thinking leads to "the ends justify the means". Because we're on the defense, then any captured POWs don't deserve human rights. Because we're on the defense, we can deploy nerve gas against them. If all you do is see the enemy as the villain... You become one.
      - mc32 9y ago
        There is that possibility --and we saw that in WWii with German prisoners of war captured by Soviet forces. On the other side US forces were much kinder to German PoWs, but that's perhaps because it wasn't as personal a war to us. Ethics and morality don't help win wars --but they are good PR post war, if you are the winner. There is no clean answer to this problem because your enemy will by all means take advantage of your self-imposed constraints. Osama even admitted fighting the Soviets was very, very hard fought --and fighting the Americans would be a much easier task in his view. Here is one place I might agree with his assessment.
lsc 9y ago
The shocking thing to me is that this is the side that won. This is what victory looks like, even when the other side doesn't have nukes.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  Yes, and that map shows the hits London took. Britain received something like 75,000 tons of German bombs. British and American bombers dropped something a bit short of 2 millions tons on Germany. It was on a whole different scale in Germany. This book covers is well. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/27/bombing-war-europe-richard-overy-review https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/201...
  - org3432 9y ago
    The part that always surprised me about the blitz is only 28k killed and 25k wounded. How is that even possible? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz > Civilian casualties on London throughout the Blitz amounted to 28,556 killed, and 25,578 wounded.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      That seems a lot of dead to me, but it is a lot less than later bombing caused and the lack of firestorms is the reason. The allies put a lot of effort into optimising conditions for causing them.
  - jackaroe78 9y ago
    War is hell
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    Thats a very good point - it seems the war is still being fought, ideologically - or else there'd be a balancing act and we'd be seeing the tragedy on the German side too.
    - 9y ago
bendbro 9y ago
It would be nice if you could make the dots transparent. There appears to be a pattern of right to left lines across the city, but it is not easily visible as is.
- jamessb 9y ago
  I was going to suggest changing the opacity attribute of the marker elements using your browser's developer tools, but the markers are provided as a layer of pre-generated image tiles (e.g. [1]), so while you can make these images more transparent (which lets you see place names on the underlying map) you can't make the individual markers more transparent. [1]: http://geoserver.bombsight.org/geoserver/gwc/service/tms/1.0.0/sit:prod_week_bomb@EPSG:900913@png/11/1023/1367.png http://geoserver.bombsight.org/geoserver/gwc/service/tms/1.0...
  - tomcooks 9y ago
    does this mean that the layers are merged into tiles and cached beforehand? is this better than having a separate layer for markers? edit: asking because this map is blazing fast, esp given the amount of points to map
    - jamessb 9y ago
      All of the markers are merged into tiles and cached, and it is more efficent for the browser to just load these than it would be to create a separate circle or image for each marker. At zoom level 15 and higher actual individual markers are drawn (each one as a separate png image). There are still two layers, but both just contain image tiles: one contains the base map, and the other contains red circles on a transparent background.
jackaroe78 9y ago
Startup Idea: Improve the unexploded ordinance detection & removal process
hoppelhase 9y ago
Are there any maps that show German cities? E.g. Kassel or Dresden.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  It wouldn’t be possible I don’t think. The number dropped was vastly greater and firestorms were the specific goal. Fires are large as those caused would obliterate a lot of the evidence. There were specific recipes made to cause major fires, with roofs opened up with explosives, incendiaries to follow into the roof spaces. All done in nice dry weather. The British spent a lot of effort on this.
ggm 9y ago
Solly Zuckerman's work (O/R I thing) on the efficacy of bombing, and how it was politically expedient to supress or white-ant it is worth reflecting on (its in his biography "From Apes to Warlords")

70 points by dmmalam 9y ago

jonplackett 9y ago

Unbelievable how many bombs dropped. Two within a few metres of my house!

dvtv75 9y ago
My partner's mother was a little girl during World War 2, and told me that she remembers being at school with her gas mask nearby at all times. She told me how a bomb fell near her house in Dorking blew out all the windows, while another destroyed the railway bridge, presumably the one on Pixham Lane in Dorking. She remembers the V1 bombs, the Doodlebugs, and explained that you were alright as long as you could hear the engine but if the noise stopped, you were in trouble. My history teacher at high school also lived through the Blitz, being just a little older. I remember him telling the class about the bomb that fell near his house, and when he ran out looking for his parents he accidentally kicked a helmet which, he discovered, contained a head. He still had nightmares about it 40 years later, understandably. I find personal histories fascinating, I wish I was able to hear them all, and visualize them to a degree. (Maybe not that last one.)

tones411 9y ago

Wow! I didn’t realize there were that many!

hoppelhase 9y ago
In Kassel, the allies dropped 2 bombs per m^2 on average in a couple hours. http://www.kassel.de/stadt/geschichte/zerstoerung/ http://www.kassel.de/stadt/geschichte/zerstoerung/
- lttlrck 9y ago
  I lived in Stuttgart for 10 years (I’m British) and the post-bombing photos of the city filled me with sorrow. 21000 long tonnes dropped on that beautiful provincial city. Sadly reconstruction was not as kind as it was in Munich (less money presumably). I love that place and miss it dearly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stuttgart_in_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stuttgart_in_Worl...

RowanH 9y ago

That's a very graphic visualisation. You've got to wonder if every one saw and understood this whether there would be greater tolerance and understanding to avoid war...

kennywinker 9y ago
I don't think that's how humans work. We know that bombing is awful, but we also "know" that the people we are bombing are the enemy and deserve to be blown up. The thing to avoid is dehumanizing and vilifying groups of people.
- mc32 9y ago
  I agree with that when it comes to starting a war as an aggressor --but not as a defensive war. I mean, if someone is coming to get you and they have vilified you or for whatever reason have decided to wage war against your group, it would be utter folly to say, well, it's wrong to dehumanize and vilify the enemy, unless you propose getting rolled over is an acceptable alternative.
  - shakna 9y ago
    That sort of thinking leads to "the ends justify the means". Because we're on the defense, then any captured POWs don't deserve human rights. Because we're on the defense, we can deploy nerve gas against them. If all you do is see the enemy as the villain... You become one.
    - mc32 9y ago
      There is that possibility --and we saw that in WWii with German prisoners of war captured by Soviet forces. On the other side US forces were much kinder to German PoWs, but that's perhaps because it wasn't as personal a war to us. Ethics and morality don't help win wars --but they are good PR post war, if you are the winner. There is no clean answer to this problem because your enemy will by all means take advantage of your self-imposed constraints. Osama even admitted fighting the Soviets was very, very hard fought --and fighting the Americans would be a much easier task in his view. Here is one place I might agree with his assessment.

lsc 9y ago

The shocking thing to me is that this is the side that won. This is what victory looks like, even when the other side doesn't have nukes.

lostlogin 9y ago
Yes, and that map shows the hits London took. Britain received something like 75,000 tons of German bombs. British and American bombers dropped something a bit short of 2 millions tons on Germany. It was on a whole different scale in Germany. This book covers is well. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/27/bombing-war-europe-richard-overy-review https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/201...
- org3432 9y ago
  The part that always surprised me about the blitz is only 28k killed and 25k wounded. How is that even possible? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz > Civilian casualties on London throughout the Blitz amounted to 28,556 killed, and 25,578 wounded.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    That seems a lot of dead to me, but it is a lot less than later bombing caused and the lack of firestorms is the reason. The allies put a lot of effort into optimising conditions for causing them.
- jackaroe78 9y ago
  War is hell
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Thats a very good point - it seems the war is still being fought, ideologically - or else there'd be a balancing act and we'd be seeing the tragedy on the German side too.
  - 9y ago

bendbro 9y ago

It would be nice if you could make the dots transparent. There appears to be a pattern of right to left lines across the city, but it is not easily visible as is.

jamessb 9y ago
I was going to suggest changing the opacity attribute of the marker elements using your browser's developer tools, but the markers are provided as a layer of pre-generated image tiles (e.g. [1]), so while you can make these images more transparent (which lets you see place names on the underlying map) you can't make the individual markers more transparent. [1]: http://geoserver.bombsight.org/geoserver/gwc/service/tms/1.0.0/sit:prod_week_bomb@EPSG:900913@png/11/1023/1367.png http://geoserver.bombsight.org/geoserver/gwc/service/tms/1.0...
- tomcooks 9y ago
  does this mean that the layers are merged into tiles and cached beforehand? is this better than having a separate layer for markers? edit: asking because this map is blazing fast, esp given the amount of points to map
  - jamessb 9y ago
    All of the markers are merged into tiles and cached, and it is more efficent for the browser to just load these than it would be to create a separate circle or image for each marker. At zoom level 15 and higher actual individual markers are drawn (each one as a separate png image). There are still two layers, but both just contain image tiles: one contains the base map, and the other contains red circles on a transparent background.

jackaroe78 9y ago

Startup Idea: Improve the unexploded ordinance detection & removal process

hoppelhase 9y ago

Are there any maps that show German cities? E.g. Kassel or Dresden.

lostlogin 9y ago
It wouldn’t be possible I don’t think. The number dropped was vastly greater and firestorms were the specific goal. Fires are large as those caused would obliterate a lot of the evidence. There were specific recipes made to cause major fires, with roofs opened up with explosives, incendiaries to follow into the roof spaces. All done in nice dry weather. The British spent a lot of effort on this.

ggm 9y ago

Solly Zuckerman's work (O/R I thing) on the efficacy of bombing, and how it was politically expedient to supress or white-ant it is worth reflecting on (its in his biography "From Apes to Warlords")