THE COVENTRY BLITZ

Today is Remembrance Sunday in the U.K., the annual ceremony that pays tribute to soldiers and civilians who have died in conflict. It always takes place on the Sunday closest to 11 November, the date of the armistice, which ended the First World War.

Today is also the 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz. During the summer and autumn of 1940, Nazi Germany launched huge bombing raids on London and other English towns, trying to knock out industrial capacity and hoping to sap the will to fight of the civilian population. Coventry was home to a number of car factories that could be adapted to produce military vehicles and armaments, and the raid on 14 November 1940 was one of the biggest of the whole war. Most of the mediæval city centre, including the famous cathedral, was destroyed, and over 1,200 people were killed.

I have to admit to an interest in this event. Both my parents grew up in Coventry, and my mother was a 14-year old schoolgirl at the time. During the air raid, she sheltered under the stairs with her parents and older sister. A cluster of bombs hit her street, and when she climbed out the next morning, the stairs were pretty well the only part of the house that was still standing. Her neighbours' houses had also been destroyed; but unlike her family, some of the inhabitants were dead.

When I last visited my mother, she showed me a documentary film that had been made about the Blitz. It incorporated personal reminiscences from people who had lived through it, either as children or young adults. For many of them, as indeed for my mother, it was as if it had happened yesterday.

The group of people who can personally remember the First World War is almost extinct. The number who can personally remember the Second World War is shrinking fast. Those remaining should help to ensure that their stories are told, if only to make it a tiny bit less likely that such things will happen again.

Walter Blotscher