General Chat

This would have been The Prudential Building on King Edward Street/Victoria Square.
Many people rushed into the basement at the sound of the sirens.
The building was hit by a parachute mine destroying the boiler house and gas mains in the basement causing a white-hot inferno which killed everyone instantly.
Not one person survived.

I can just recall visiting with my mother circa 1946 Hull and she and a friend discussing a pile of rubble opposite - it had been a bank or insurance co - the workers went into the basements and survived - but they could not be rescued and the hoses were directed into the basements..................

The horror never left me hearing that and as an adult I wondered how thick my mother and her friend were.

There was no naval shipping in Hull but the country still had to be fed and at that time Hull was the third largest port in the country and of course we still had to have our fish and chips. It was decided by the government at the time that if this news was released it would scare the rest of the nation so it was refered to as 'An east coast town' and the full facts were never given at that time.

Thank you.

So what would have been coming through the docks? There was no naval shipping there was there?

Fred was on a trawler as his first ship when he was called up. I don't know what it was being used for but I don't think he was fishing.

Hull was targeted because of the docks and ammunition factories.
It turned out that the safest place to be was in one of these factories as not one of them took a direct hit.

Why was Hull targeted?

On the nights of 7th/8th May 1941, German bombers converged on Hull and for the next six hours dropped hundreds of bombs and nearly 10000 incendiary bombs leaving 424 people dead and over 5000 factories and houses damaged or destroyed.
These were the worst nights of the war and by the time it ended 1241 people had been killed and 86722( 95%) of the buildings in Hull had been destroyed or damaged in over 90 raids.(The worst outside of London)
Today these people were remembered.