UPDATED JUNE 15, 2015
Photo: The Star
Inferno at King's Head Hotel, Dec. 12, 1940
Photo: The Star
Taxi turned auxiliary fire engine, High Street, Dec. 12 1940
It was a savage aerial attack.
German raiders hit Sheffield, England, on the nights of Dec. 12 and Dec. 15, 1940, killing 693 people, destroying 3,000 homes - and leaving a tenth of the population homeless.
Fire Officer Christopher Eyre, quoted on the fire brigade's website, said: "If a man who went through it all tells you he wasn't afraid that night you can take it he's lying."
Eyre also said: "We were ringed in by flame, and yet I seemed to be in a vacuum."
In The Star newspaper, Blitz Fireman Doug Lightning recalled in a 2014 interview: "There wasn't enough men or enough hose to deal with all the fires and it was no good putting a drop of water on this one and a drop of water on that one so we had to choose out battles carefully."
According to Sheffield City Council, the industrial eastern section of the city was largely "defended" by fog the first night and the Luftwaffe struck elsewhere, wiping out much of Angel Street.
When the bombers returned two nights later, they hit Hadfield’s Hecla and East Hecla Works (the U.K.'s lone manufacturer of 18-inch armor piercing bullets), Brown Bayleys steelworks, Arthur Lee and other industrial estates near the River Don.
It was a savage aerial attack.
German raiders hit Sheffield, England, on the nights of Dec. 12 and Dec. 15, 1940, killing 693 people, destroying 3,000 homes - and leaving a tenth of the population homeless.
Fire Officer Christopher Eyre, quoted on the fire brigade's website, said: "If a man who went through it all tells you he wasn't afraid that night you can take it he's lying."
Eyre also said: "We were ringed in by flame, and yet I seemed to be in a vacuum."
In The Star newspaper, Blitz Fireman Doug Lightning recalled in a 2014 interview: "There wasn't enough men or enough hose to deal with all the fires and it was no good putting a drop of water on this one and a drop of water on that one so we had to choose out battles carefully."
According to Sheffield City Council, the industrial eastern section of the city was largely "defended" by fog the first night and the Luftwaffe struck elsewhere, wiping out much of Angel Street.
When the bombers returned two nights later, they hit Hadfield’s Hecla and East Hecla Works (the U.K.'s lone manufacturer of 18-inch armor piercing bullets), Brown Bayleys steelworks, Arthur Lee and other industrial estates near the River Don.
