UXO risk in Sheffield

Why was Sheffield targeted and bombed in WWII?

The outbreak of WWII placed Sheffield as a valuable target for the Luftwaffe as a military industrial hub of northern England. Sheffield’s industrial works were primarily centred on Steel and Armaments, which was immensely important to the UK’s war effort.

The Hadfield Steel works was, at the outbreak of the war, the only place within the UK capable of producing 18-inch armour piercing shells¹. The city’s English Steel Corporation Vickers churned out Rolls Royce Merlin engines used to power Spitfire aircraft, and throughout the war – Sheffield’s steel works produced 872 Matilda Tanks, 515 Churchill tanks and over 116,000 tank components².

Home Office Bombing Statistics for Sheffield

Home Office bombing statistics indicate that 1,146 items of ordnance were recorded to have been dropped on the County Borough of Sheffield over the course of the war. This included an estimated 1,121 High explosives bombs and 25 parachute mines, resulting in a bomb density of almost 28.9 items of ordnance per 1,000 acres.

Major bombing raids in Sheffield

Following a Royal Air Force (RAF) raid on Berlin on 25th August 1940, Hitler personally influenced a change in Luftwaffe bombing tactics. The Luftwaffe moved away from bombing RAF Stations, Military Camps and Naval Bases, and instead sought reprisal with the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas to affect the UK’s morale.

Sheffield was bombed in 16 separate raids, the most significant of these was on the nights of 12th / 13th and 15th / 16th December 1940, which together were codenamed Operation Crucible.

At 7pm on the 12th December, the air sirens began and across 9 hours – approximately 300 German bombers raided the city and an estimated 350 tons of high explosive bombs were dropped on the city.

While key factories and railway lines were identified as key target areas, in fact – the city centre and residential suburbs suffered the worst of the bombing³.

The Marples Hotel in Fitzalan Square received a direct hit and in total 70 civilians were killed, the District Gas Company sustained a massive explosion after one bomb pierced a holding tank and reportedly every building on Angel Street was either destroyed, damaged or burnt⁴.

Raging fires took hold of the city centre and shopping districts while high explosive bombs fell indiscriminately across the whole city, in industrial areas and residential suburbs.

Additionally, areas such as the Moor, King Street, Broomhill and Neepsend were also left devastated by the bombing raids⁵.

The Luftwaffe bombers returned on 15th December, once again targeting Sheffield’s industrial north-east with incendiary bombs and flairs. Many heavy steel factories, such as Hadfield’s, Brown and Baileys sustained direct hits, but none were severe enough to significantly hamper production⁶.

Throughout this raid, the Attercliffe area suffered the worst of the bombing and subsequent fires and damage. Throughout these raids, it is reported almost 700 civilians were killed, approximately 82,000 houses out of 150,000 were damaged and numerous landmarks were badly damaged or destroyed. While Sheffield was bombed on many more occasions, none would prove as destructive as the raids in December 1940⁷.