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Doodle Bugs over Sheffield?


Guest tsavo

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Can't remember reports of Doodle Bugs over Sheffield, but this report says that there were.

From The Star 27.12.2008: http://www.thestar.co.uk/letters/I-saw-doo...-fly.4821818.jp

There was a discussion about this in the other place.One passed over the city and came down on the moors above Ringinglow. They were launched from specially adapted Heinkel bombers over the North Sea because the range was too short to fire them from France and reach the industrial centres in the North. I think it was as round Christmas or New Year 1944.

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There was a discussion about this in the other place.One passed over the city and came down on the moors above Ringinglow. They were launched from specially adapted Heinkel bombers over the North Sea because the range was too short to fire them from France and reach the industrial centres in the North. I think it was as round Christmas or New Year 1944.

The range of the V1 flying bomb (doodle bug) with its fairly primitive pulse jet engine was fairly limited. Launched from specially built launch sites in Northern France they could hit the prestige target of the Capital, London, but not much further. After D-Day when Northern France was liberated from German occupation the V1 was hardly a threat even to London.

Even the more powerful V2 rocket did not have a great range, but had the advantages of falling silently from a great height, at great speed and with a much larger explosive payload.

I had heard stories before og V1's over Sheffield from eyewitness elder neighbours but because of range issues I thought them to be mistaken at the time. Then from somewhere I gleaned 3 pieces of information which made me think again mainly about how advanced 1940's technology really was, these were -

1) During the Sheffield Blitz the Luftwaffe flew along radio beams to navigate them accurately to their target, the beams even controlling functions like opening bomb doors at a given distance from target. Amazingly British inteligence knew of this and with a secret transmitter "somewhere in England" could effectively interfere with the beam putting the bombers off target.

2) The British developed a system called, ironically, "windows" which consisted of dropping strips of aluminium foil cut to half wavelength of German RADAR devices. This would scatter the radio waves so that aircraft could fly through RADAR undetected. Unknown to the British at the time the Germans had independently developed an identical system called, I think, "Staffel". Neither side ever used this system because they realised that once their enemy found those strips of foil littering their coutryside it would be immediately obvious to them how it worked and would be "copied" with equal effect.

3) Many German raids later in the war were still able to target Northern industrial Cities by using launches of missiles from over the North Sea. Normally this part of Britain would be at the range limit of German bombers, but to fly short of target and launch a powered missile such as a V1 was a viable option. Given the weight of a V1, its size and shape along with that volatile and tempramental jet engine and its long trailing exhaust flame I don't think these launches would have been easy or carried out routinely but the evidence is there that they certainly were attempted with some degree of success.

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I remember my aunty Edna mentioning these to me and she always said that ..

"While ever you can hear them youre safe,

It's 'If' the noise stops you worry"

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During the War my Mother and I spent time in her home town of Wombwell. We did however live in Bramley, Leeds. One of my earliest memories is being taken to the Anderson shelter because the air raid siren had sounded. My memory was that this was an unusual raid as it involved doodle bugs (V1’s) dropping on Sheffield.

I may have thought this was a wrong memory but for the fact that I have corroboration from a friend who like me now lives in rural Northumberland. We are both nearly the same age born in 1940. He comes from Barnsley and we share not only similar interests but shared experiences. One of these is the doodle bug raid on Sheffield. He had been shown the resulting fires by his uncle from his bedroom.

There must be many others who shared this memory closer at hand.

Any takers?

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It wasn't so much a raid on Sheffield, as the Chris Hobbs' website indicates (See  ceegee's response above). The target was Manchester and two hits,at Oldham and  Tottington, resulted in 49 fatalities. 

 In Sheffield 5, I remember the windows rattling as one of the V1's flew over in a westerly direction early in the morning. Our blitz damage was four years earlier!

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One of my earliest memories is being taken into, what I learned later, was an air raid shelter. My Mum told me years later when I questioned her that it was when a V1 was overhead on its way, they later learned, to. Manchester

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They were launched from Heinkel 111's over the North Sea and, my mother informed me, were said to have been aimed at Manchester. That said, I remember seeing, as a young lad,a large hole in ESC's Sports Club ceiling on Shiregreen Lane...which I was told had been caused by a V1 which failed to explode!

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As a youngster during all the war years I used to go to the ESC Sports Club where my father played Cricket. As the V1's came over on, I believe, Christmas Eve 1944  this is the first time  the claim that one failed to explode at Shiregreen Lane has appeared. Someone was clearly in a jocular (or inebriated?) mood to claim this; such an event would certainly have been recorded in one of Bryan Woodriff's books about Shiregreen. Maybe Father Christmas parachuted into the childrens' Christmas Party that year (if there was one);-)

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Interesting that you feel Bryan W would have recorded the incident.....Did he actually record the V1s flying over Shiregreen?  I have read a few of his works and do not recall that he recorded the incident in any that I read. I distinctly remember seeing the large hole and was told by my parents that it was caused by the V1. On reflection, I wonder if the hole was caused by shrapnel from the local anti-aircraft batteries firing at the missile? On the other hand,perhaps, as a 5 year old, I had  become inebriated?🙄

 

 

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The Beighton V1 was seen in Fulwood heading presumably to Beighton. Christmas Eve 1944. But the witness was 4 and a half . Looking out of the window with a mate. Looking for Father Christmas.?  A lady who survived the Oldham V1 was many years  later killed by Dr Shipham. Tragic.

 

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Hi Digger,     As the V1's would have been on a  North-Westerly heading having crossed the Lincolnshire coast near to Skegness the Beighton V1  could not have been sighted in Fulwood first, it would have been one of the others flying towards Lancashire which the Santa seeking youngster remembers.;-) 

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The Beighton V1 was seen in Fulwood heading presumably to Beighton. Christmas Eve 1944. But the witness was 4 and a half . Looking out of the window with a mate. Looking for Father Christmas.?  A lady who survived the Oldham V1 was many years  later killed by Dr Shipham. Tragic.

Yes,I thought about that about that but too lazy to pick up a map and work that out myself. So thanks. Still wondering where the gyro found in a field at Ringinglow came from. 'Peak crashes' book could not pin point the weapon it came from.

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