Between 1939 and 1945
Pre-War Map of Lowestoft, 1928
Full Size Version here. This is a very large version and will take a couple of minutes to download. The DPI is very high and so you should be able to examine it down to the street level. Use your Command and + or - key to increase or decrease the size.
Post-War Map of Lowestoft, 1947
Full Size Version here. This is a very large version and will take a couple of minutes to download. The DPI is very high and so you should be able to examine it down to the street level. Use your Command and + or - key to increase or decrease the size.
Director General of the Ordance Survey Office, Southhamptom, 1928 Version
Edited by Alice Taylor, 2016
Special thanks to Bob Collis for his invaluable help and guidance.
There are no complete bomb censuses of bomb damage in Lowestoft and so I am trying to create one. My goal is to have a complete and accurate census of day, time, damage report and exact loction of each impact. At the moment, information comes from scattered sources of bombing reports, some from police reports, some from military reports and some from memories, which are unfortunately rapidly fading.
Major damage is easily documented because it was so devastating. There were deaths, which are, of course recorded first, but if a minor impact happened the same day and there was minimal or no damage, it wasn't high on the list of concerns and so was easily forgotten. A bomb coming down in an allotment simply wasn't as important to the police or the War Office as one causing a death or hitting a rail line. However, to a military historian even minor impacts can help determine the true number of enemy planes, direction of travel, accuracy of the raid, etc. so, before it's all forgotten, I'm going to try to make an accurate map.
This map is a very rough beginning. Local aviation historian Bob Collis kindly gave me a a very fuzzy xerox of an old hand-notated map from local historian Jack Rose, so my first attempt is third-hand, at best. As I find primary sources, I'll update this version and I'll notate each site.
Jack Rose's map version was post-war and so he was marking on a map with new roads and where buildings ceased to exist. Since map-makers had other things on their minds during the 40's- like the war- there were no official local maps drawn or updated at that time. What I'm going to do is use two maps, on from 1928 and the other from 1946 and put an overlay of the bomb sites and you can use either one. Yes, there will be some places on the 1928 map that don't exist any more in 1946 and yes, on the 1946 map there will be houses and roads that didn't exist when the bombs dropped. I hope that between the two we can figure out an accurate representation of what Lowestoft looked like between 1939 and 1945.
If you find any inaccuracies (ie- this dot needs to be moved over one block or this place was never bombed, etc.) please, please contact me. The more information the better.
I especially need help with any damage at Oulton Broad and Pakefield. The Jack Rose map didn't extend that far.
