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Bullet Holes On Ecclesall Road


Guest You boy

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Guest You boy

Hi,

Can anyone help? I have been told that the holes, which exist on the Ecclesall Road side, of the wall, at Sheffield Hallam's Collegiate Crescent site, are from a German fighter-bomber that shot at a limousine which was driving along Ecclesall Road during WW2. Is this true and can anyone provide any evidence, or additional facts?

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Got to be a tall story. Got any pictures of the holes?

Mike,

a German fighter plane shooting at a car could well be a far fetched story,

but the shell holes could well have been made by a German plane in the blitz.

There were shell marks in a red brick wall (now gone) at the back of Midland station,

Heeley Bank school had some in it's brick work (since been built over)

and St Mary's church, near Bramall Lane has shell holes in the tower.

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I've seen the story of the bullet holes in print several times, though without the car. Eyewitness accounts do tell of machinegun fire being directed at the barrage balloons, and I guess the bullets come to earth eventually!

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Mike,

a German fighter plane shooting at a car could well be a far fetched story,

It has to be, as in order to hit the college the plane would have had to be flying from the south where any vehicle would have been hidden by the buildings on the south side of the road. That's why I was interested to see the holes, as any plane targeting a vehicle would have to do so at a steep angle. When it eventually pulled up it could well have continued shooting but would have left a distinctive patern as it did.
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A couple of possibilities, and that is just what they are. possibilities. The following are two instances of Lufwaffe action in the Ecclesall Road area

1. On 9th May 1941 bombs fell on Little London (Stokes Works); Hastings Road; Cemetery Road, Sheffield killing 2, seriously injuring 11 with another 25 civilians suffering minor injuries. When I checked on the index West Yorkshire Index of the Civilian War Dead to confirm the details I found that they were indeed two fatalities who are listed below.

Bird Thomas 64 yrs 9 May 1941 Cemetery/Washington Rd (Air Raid Warden)

Theaker Sam 52 yrs 9 May 1941 Summerfield Street.

Collegiate Crescent is just down the road from there

2. The next action wasjust over 5 months later on 20th October 1941when two fatalities occurred,

20 Oct 1941 Macbeth, George 37 yrs 7 Endcliffe Terr Rd, Sheffield, WRY Home Guard

20 Oct 1941 William, Trevor 23 yrs 41 Clarkhouse Rd, Sheffield, WRY

I seem to recall that one if not both of these casualities were caused by failing AA shells from a nearby AA gun battery. If so were the guns firing at the bomber in Ecclesall Road area at the time?.

I agree that that the targetting of a specific car is far fetched, but a lone bomber ditching its load of bombs and ammunition, maybe not

Guess we'll never know!

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Hi,

Can anyone help? I have been told that the holes, which exist on the Ecclesall Road side, of the wall, at Sheffield Hallam's Collegiate Crescent site, are from a German fighter-bomber that shot at a limousine which was driving along Ecclesall Road during WW2. Is this true and can anyone provide any evidence, or additional facts?

Could the holes have been made by shrapnel from a nearby high explosive bomb blast ?

The map on another part of this forum that shows approximate positions of bombs, indicates that a bomb fell nearby.

I understand that the pock marks on the columns of the City Hall were the result of a bomb in Barkers Pool.

HD

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Guest You boy

Thank you all for your help. Sorry but I don't have any pictures of the holes. They are there and they are very visible - they are on the Ecclesall Road side of the large stone wall in front of the college. They look more like large bullet holes then shrapnel holes though. The person who told me also recounted the tale of a bomb landing at the very bottom of Greystones Rd. He said this is why the hairdresser's has two 'very out of place looking' concrete buttresses to strengthen its stone walls and also it is why there seem to be several terraced houses missing - like the ones that should be where Le Bistrot Pierre and the new flats opposite are. Does anyone know if this is true?

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Thank you all for your help. Sorry but I don't have any pictures of the holes. They are there and they are very visible - they are on the Ecclesall Road side of the large stone wall in front of the college. They look more like large bullet holes then shrapnel holes though. The person who told me also recounted the tale of a bomb landing at the very bottom of Greystones Rd. He said this is why the hairdresser's has two 'very out of place looking' concrete buttresses to strengthen its stone walls and also it is why there seem to be several terraced houses missing - like the ones that should be where Le Bistrot Pierre and the new flats opposite are. Does anyone know if this is true?

Image courtesy of Google.

This 1952 map may help determine if any buildings are missing.

Link to OS map #192

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Guest You boy

Thanks SteveHB, it appears that the two buildings on the opposite side of Greystones Rd are missing - This area used to be a carpark for Franklin's Beds and has recently been made into new stone-built flats and a bar.

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Have a look at this picture pre-war from Picture Sheffield. The quarry and brickworks at centre is where Finnegans and the Co-op/ Somerfields stands. You can see there was a break in the houses, where the new row of shops etc stands opposite the bottom of Greystones Rd. Between being the front of the quarry and now it was a car sales, a petrol Station, then empty for many years before the present building was erected.

The two houses hit by a bomb were as you say where Franklin's car park was. Given the proximity to the hairdressers I can imagine it took blast damage, and the buttresses would be a likely solution.

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Guest Unitedite

Thanks SteveHB, it appears that the two buildings on the opposite side of Greystones Rd are missing - This area used to be a carpark for Franklin's Beds and has recently been made into new stone-built flats and a bar.

As an "aside" comment, there is certainly evidence of shrapnel damage on the Wicker Arches, which first became apparent again, when the arches were sandblasted some years ago and I believe that there is still an occasional table at Chatsworth House, which still has a machine gun bullet embedded into its’ surface. The result of an opportunistic strafing attach by a lone Luftwaffe Bomber, which happened upon the estate sometime during 1940.

So, the possibility that there is still evidence of wartime damage elsewhere in the city is not without precedent.

N

:mellow:

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I've just found a different bomb map to the one that appears on our forum and this one shows two bombs fell directly opposite to the wall in question. It also shows a hit behind the wall. I don't suppose there was much difference between the hole made by a machine-gun/cannon round and that made by a piece of bomb casing that's just been accelerated by a quarter tonne of H.E. from about 30 feet away.

Having said, that apparently it was quite common for fighters/fighter-bombers to loose off at civilian vehicles but this was mainly nearer the south coast.

I suppose it's just as efficient a method of killing civilians as dropping bombs on them from 10,000 feet.

HD

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Sorry for somewhat late reply but I have only just found this topic having googled bullet holes Ecclesall Road. Having served 30 years in the Police in Sheffield I had ample time to ask comrades and older members of the public about the Last War and Sheffield ( a hoby of mine). They are indeed bullet holes on the wall just above Colliegate Crescent, they were made 3rd July 1942 by a belly gunner on one of two Junkers 88 bombers that carried out a long low level attack on aircraft factories around Manchester, not very successfully, they flew very low back across the Penines , bombing a quarry at Stony Middleton, also straffing Chatsworth House before flying across the southern edge of Sheffield and straffing Ecclesall Rd. before flying towards the east coast. they were caught by fighters from 303 squadron who shot both planes down, one crashed  no survivors the other belly crashed and all got out  then set fire to their plane. more info can be found via google. I was also shown the B17 crash site by an elderly Sgt and we found scraps of metal still on the surface, about 50 years ago! Hope this answers your queries.

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There’s a house on Collegiate Crescent that has a hole in its living room window, nothing to do with a rouge German gunner I’m afraid, the owner of the house told me it was a bullet hole when I was photographing her property, she invited me in to see it but I thought it looked like an air gun pellet had done the damage but I didn’t tell the lady as she seemed to be fond of it.

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A similar incident re bullets, was in an antique dealers shop on Abbeydale Rd when a young couple came in with some medals of their grandfather who was in the first war, together with a bullet that hit him in the rear and apparently saved his life as he was hospitalized and missed some big push which wiped out most of his pals, he secretly blessed the german who shot him.  I was shown the bullet by the antique dealer but said nothing until the couple had departed, it was a british bullet not german, easily recognized by the "Enfield" rifleing impressed upon it, german rifleing is only four groove and very different in appearance!! The dealer and I had a chuckle about him being shot by his own side, but he lived through it so all ok in the end.

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We lived on Archer Lane (off Bannerdale Rd) in the 80's. Our semi had bullet holes in wall under the rear upstairs windows. The old lady who lived next door and who had lived there during the war maintained that they were anti aircraft rounds. Bullets returning to earth are always a problem, many people were killed and injured by 'friendly' anti aircraft fire.

Wazzie Worrall

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Has anyone got a photo of these bullet holes?

Where exactly are they?

Are they in this section of Ecclesall Road in this video?

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image.thumb.png.b9110f70ba67e5469ae433ad74802860.pngCould these be the holes that are referred to on here and on SF on Ecclesall Rd, between Collegiate Cres and Broomgrove Rd? 

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I lived on Southgrove road next to Broomgrove road , born there in 1946. As kids we played in the area and will go and look at the bullet holes in the wall every so often, we always understood that they were bullet holes. My mother told me that one morning after an air raid she walked down Ecclesall Road early and saw a few dead bodies  a couple of which were in uniform. The glass in the windows in the botanical garden greenhouses were all blown out as well during a raid.

Looking at the photos of the wall i dont think the. holes you see were bullet holes!! from memory they were much smaller, but then again i last saw them about 65 years ago. 

 

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We’re the holes the only reminder of some kind of advertising board that stood there, perhaps a wooden frame for a to support the hoarding or more obviously water drain from the land at the rear of the wall.

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