Came across this recently:

http://bombsight.org/#12/51.4771/-0.0271

Even knowing something of the history, it's still a bit of a shock to see, illustrated in this fashion, just how heavily the Capital was bombed during 'the Blitz', from the end of the Battle of Britain until June 1941. Numbers on many markers indicate you need to zoom in to see individual strikes. Not the only place treated thus, of course, but brings it home, especially if some of the locations are familiar from only a visit (or from the virtual air playing BoB2). I remember from my childhood the many 'bomb sites' in my home city, gaps where houses or other buildings, or even whole blocks, had stood, until the fly-boys arrived, and we took a fraction of what London got.

I was just looking at that last night or the night before. Absolutley incredible the amount of punishment the UK people took during that time, I did a screen shot that I am going to use in a new WOTR AAR / DMR of a night mission in October which I flew a month ago and have been sitting on the pictures of since. I have like 71 pictures that are laid out in order and uploaded to Imgur and just waiting for me to write the story in DMR style. 33lima, did the RAF fighter squads do any night intercepts or was that mainly the Beaus that did the night stuff? I cannot really find any info on early RAF night intercepts.

S!Blade<><

Hi Blade

I believe it was only during the Blitz that the concept of dedicated night fighter squadrons developed in the RAF. Up to that time, regular fighter squadrons were deployed to intercept night raiders, the pilots having had some night flying training as part of the curriculum. I'm presently reading Tom Neil's 'Gun Button to Fire' - he flew mainly Hurricanes, with 249 Squadron, and he gives a couple accounts of patrolling (on his own) in an effort to make a night interception under radar control from the ground. Richard Hillary's 'The Last Enemy' has similar accounts of unsuccessful night ops in Spits.

Defiants and Blenheims (the fighter variant with the gun-pack) were later switched to do the night fighting. There was even a Turbinlite Boston (A-20) with a searchlight in the nose, early airborne interception radar and no guns, which was supposed to find and illuminate targets at night for radar-less fighters, until they got a set they could put in a plane suited to be a proper night fighter (the Beau).

PS looking forward to reading your AAR!

Hi 33lima

Thanks for the info and references I will have to check them out. It may be a little while until I get the story written to go with the AAR as I have been very busy in WOTR as of late. I am hoping to start writing tomorrow and hopefully on Monday also. I was wondering if you might consider previewing it for me when it is ready to make sure I didn't inject any glaring American idiocy or ignorance. You seem quite knowledgeable on the BOB plus you are a Real UKer. I am hoping maybe 2 weeks. Let me know if you are interested.

S!Blade<><

Sure thing - oops, I'm doing the Americanisms now! I do think it helps to try to invest an AAR with a little bit of contemporary (if not politically correct) terminology, without going OTT. Like the Germans calling the British 'tommies' or 'Englanders' and the British using 'Jerry' or 'Hun', which were not offensive terms. Apparently 8th Army was known to refer to Rommel as 'Harry', as in 'Harry Rommel', indicating easy familiarity if nothing else. Wolf Heckmann in his excellent and balanced 'Rommel's War in Africa' describes a British army officer newly arrived in the Western Desert c.1941 being advised gently by an experienced SNCO 'I wouldn't go too far that way, Sir, Harry might get you.'

Alternatively, there's nothing worse than modernisms - the R/T chatter in Cliffs of Dover, while they did make an effort, is full of it (in both literal and figurative senses of the expression). Even OBD are not immune, like 'Intel', or 'listen up' which are both from your side of the pond. And don't start me on 'targeting enemy' or 'engaging enemy target'!

Up to you entirely, but my own preference is for mission reports which do not resort to the writer's imagination to the extent of adding things seen or heard that did not happen in the mission. It's a perfectly acceptable literary device but it then becomes unclear whether they are a feature of the sim, or an indulgence of the writer's imagination. Either way, looking forward to hearing if you had any better luck prowling the night skies in your Hurricane than the people who really tried it generally had.

Now if you can reword all of that so that some "Englander" won't be thinking, "Stupid American", I would appreciate it "Mucker". I started writing last night, finding my way through 3 pics. If it is alright I will PM you with little portions, say 10 images with story, to have a read of and critique. I am especially interested in having Englander dialect and period correct wording / slang so I don't ignorantly assume Americanisms where they aren't welcome. I want to write what the Englander boys would have said to each other. Thanks for your interest. I will be in touch.

Cheerios Mate! blimey mate, I already did it.

S!Blade<><

Well, if you're scooting about not only spotting but knocking down Heinkels willy-nilly in the dark in a Hurricane, you could always claim your pilot subsisted on carrots as a child. IIRC Beau night fighter ace 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham attributed his ability to do that to eating carrots for the vitamin A, a cover story to hide the existence of AI radar

I will figure something out as I don't really care for carrots so that idea is out. Maybe something along the lines of each Flight having hired a psychic to guide the boys to their targets through mental telepathy. The only other thing I am coming up with is that maybe the French resistance sneaked on the Aerodromes and glued small mirrors to each of the bombers bottom sides so the searchlights would see them easier. Then the fighter boys would just fly to the big disco balls and it would be a turkey shoot. Does either sound feasible for the time? Anyway, back to writing Sir.

S!Blade<><

So many pilots kept dogs as pets, methinks that was most likely just another cover story like those carrots, for another secret weapon. So developing that theme for a moment, I would go with your Hurricane being equipped with a Bloodhound in the back (like a re-purposed Trunk Monkey) which has been secretly trained to sniff out Huns from miles away, and then communicate their relative range, height and bearing in some suitable doggy way. 'One bark for UP, two barks for DOWN.' That sort of thing

That was my next thought after I made my last post Sir. You beat me to it. I am thinking one restriction is in order though, no German Shepherds for the obvious reason that they may be double agents. This could work, a bag of doggy treats to capture the attention span and WWII is possibly over mid 42.

Back to OT. October 9th was hell night in old London Town. 686 bombs fell that night. I imagine the nerves were rattled and the Londoners wondered if it was the beginning of the end. The more I look into the BOB the more I come to know that I understand very little of what the UK stood up to and forced their way through. Amazing.

S!Blade<><

That sort of treatment too many people in too many towns and cities in too many countries had to endure, if only because they could do little else.

I recently finished reading Richard Hillary's 'The Last Enemy' for the first time - published in 1942, it's a window into a somewhat different world with no pretensions about the sensitivities of modern readers. The most poignant part for me was in the section covering the period after his Spitfire was shot down during the Battle and he was terribly burned. While still receiving intermittent sessions of plastic surgery from the famous Archibald McIndoe, he was in a cab driving through London during the Blitz. The sirens sounded and he and the driver pulled off the road and sheltered in a pub. The windows came in around them when a house in the street was hit and Hillary joined others asked by the Air Raid Precautions people to help recover victims. They dug out a woman lying on a bed clutching a dead child, who before she too died, squeezed Hillary's hand, looked into his eyes and said, sadly, 'I see they got you too.' Two years later, Hillary was also dead, killed in a crash after managing somehow to get on flying duties again.