Manchester had its own Blitz, which cost many lives and transformed the city’s skyline. Manchester was also a centre of the armaments industry, and wartime lessons would give the city a head start in the new field of computing.
Between July 1940 and June 1941, the Manchester area suffered repeated and widespread bombing: on one night in 1941, bombs fell on Charlton, Hulme, Stretford, Salford and Swinton. For security reasons, the media downplayed the Manchester raids: all damage to Trafford Park, a centre of war production, went unreported.
On the nights of 22 and 23 December 1940 hundreds of high explosive bombs and thousands of incendiaries fell on the area, killing nearly 700 people and leaving thousands homeless.
Liverpool, called a 'northern city' in the wartime press, became the hub of the longest campaign of World War Two - the Battle of the Atlantic. It was the place where the Yanks arrived in their thousands… and it was Hitler's number one target outside London.
During the infamous May Blitz of 1941, Liverpool faced the Luftwaffe for eight consecutive nights. Nearly 1,500 people were killed and over 1,000 were seriously injured. But within three days, on both sides of the river, the war's most strategic port was operating normally again.
On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced to the nation that, following Hitler’s increasingly aggressive stance in Europe, England had declared war on Germany.
The population of London was, at this time, 8,615,050 - defining it not only as the political and financial capital of the country, but also as the most densely populated area in the United Kingdom; 4 out of 5 bombs fell on London.
In the 18th century, Bristol had been the largest and wealthiest English town after London. By 1800 it had been overtaken by the new industrial centres of Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester and today, Bristol is viewed as the thriving administrative centre for the south west of England, one of the country's great historic cities, with long-standing maritime connections.
As the Phoney War ended in the spring of 1940, the use of Bristol's well-known pleasure steamers, the Brighton Queen, the Brighton Belle, the Devonia and the Glendower in the Dunkirk evacuation brought home the reality of this war. Only the damaged Glendower was to return. On 3 June 1940, Bristol's Temple Meads railway station witnessed the arrival of thousands of tired troops who had been evacuated from the French beaches. Many were temporarily accommodated in an emergency camp in Eastville Park.
In 1940, the Clyde, the Mersey and the Bristol Channel became the principal ocean gateways to Britain and therefore the elimination of the western ports was a key German objective. The facilities at the city docks had long been of minor significance compared to the port at Avonmouth, but it was the former that was to suffer most in the coming onslaught.
Bristol was the fifth most heavily bombed city, with bombs dropped on 78 separate occasions. More than 3,000 properties were totally destroyed and 89,000 damaged, but the real tragedy was the fact that 1,378 people were killed with a further 3,305 injured.
The Bristol Aeroplane Company's factory at Filton, north Bristol, was a key installation in the war effort. The Americans selected Bristol as their chief base for importing war materials, and the port at Avonmouth was a major component of the Allied war effort.
Birmingham is the second largest city in the United Kingdom and is renowned as the city of a 1,000 trades. Both its people and industry played a vital role in the British war effort, but that essential contribution is little known outside the city.
The array of war work in Birmingham was staggering. Bristol Hercules engines made at Rover; Lancaster wings, shell cases and bombs manufactured at Fisher and Ludlow's; Spitfire wing spans and light alloy tubing at Reynold's; and plastic components at the GEC; up to the Battle of Britain all the aero-carburettors for the RAF's Spitfires and Hurricanes were made at SU Carburettors - and if it had been destroyed the air force would have suffered a mortal blow. Serck produced all the radiators and air coolers for these planes.
In the city of Clydebank, the blitz was carried out on its’ major shipbuilding industry.