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escotregen · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject: WW2 Glasgow

I picked this intersting bit out of the Glasgow University alumni magazine:

Do you have any stories to tell of University Life during World War Two or life in Glasgow during that time? Were you involved in sandbagging, evacuation to the country, rationing, gas masks, fire watching, aeroplane identification, war service or war work? The Hunterian Museum and University Archives together with local schools are carrying out a project to gather information and stories about life in the west end of Glasgow as part of the Scottish Museums Council's 'Their past your future' initiative. Information gathered will also inform the Glasgow University Story

They gave a link here but I cannot get it to work www.ugs.gla.ac.uk).

If you would be willing and able to assist in such a venture please contact Lesley Richmond on 0141 330 2089 or l.richmond@archives.gla.ac.uk
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Alex Glass · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:15 pm Post subject:

Sorry I loose out on two important counts here escot

1. Not old enough to remember the war

2. Don't come from the West End

With both my parents now dead I can't even rely on their recollections of what it was like during the war. Although I did manage to get some small snippets from them of life before, during and after the war, living in Cowcaddens.

Nevertheless this seams to be a very interesting project and I hope they manage to get lots of interest from those who will be able to assist.
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ALEX G @ flickr

escotregen · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject:

I heard a so-called news story on Scottish TV last night about unexploded World War 2 bombs under Glasgow/Clydebank Streets. I say so-called because I suspect that as part of the dumbing down of UK media, journalists just scan the web to see what's happening elsewhere and more or less re-run it in the UK.

In this case there has been quite a bit of coverage in the German press about the topic of unexploded WW2 bombs. There is an excellent article in Der Spiegel at:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,584091,00.html
Meantime a couple of trailers from the article:
Germany remains contaminated with unexploded bombs that are becoming increasingly unstable with age, warns one of the country's most experienced bomb defusers. He has just retired after a perilous career spent tackling the deadly legacy of World War II.
Hans-Jürgen Weise, one of Germany's most experienced bomb disposal experts, will never forget his hairiest moment.
It was in 1997 in the eastern town of Oranienburg and he was squatting in a hole in the ground trying to defuse a 250 kilogram American World War II aerial bomb that builders had found. Its detonator was so bent that he couldn't unscrew it to make the bomb safe.
And
The search for bombs intensified across Germany in the early 1990s after the British and Americans handed over air reconnaissance photos taken after the bombing raids. Holes in the ground amid the craters showed the likely locations of unexploded bombs, sometimes to an accuracy of less than two meters. But the photos can't pinpoint every dud. Bomb disposal teams spent the 1990s searching in high priority locations such as schools, hospital, residential areas and busy streets.
While the detonators are decaying underground, the TNT in the bombs isn’t. In 2006 a worker was killed when his bulldozer struck a bomb near a motorway in southern Germany. Eyewitnesses said the explosion tossed the bulldozer through the air like a toy.
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Fjord · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:03 pm Post subject:

Thanks for posting that and well worth reading.
Without a doubt there must be quite a few dotted around the well know bombsites of Glasgow and the Clyde that have yet to be discovered

Dresden

Hans-Jürgen Weise, one of Germany's most experienced bomb disposal experts

escotregen · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:09 pm Post subject:

Fjord, now them's big bombs! Thank goodness for the human beings near them that they did not go off when dropped. If you are interested in any of the Glasgow WW2 bombing experiences, there's material over at the Glasgow Story and Clydebank story websites:

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/im...=dd4d7a56987597940e82dacee06c2041
This is about one of my favourite episodes when battleship HMS Sussex received a direct hit during a Luftwaffe raid and almost blew up and sank. If that had happened the devastation in central Glasgow would have been significant.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA01500
This is some of the dockside damage caused during the HMS Sussex action.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00868
Luftwaffe wartime map of Glasgow

http://www.theclydebankstory.com/...mp;t=1&urltp=story_TCSB01.php
and of Clydebank
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We're no supposed to talk about that.