I am going to be discussing the Baedeker raids that occurred over York in the early morning on April 29 1942. These raids caused catastrophic damage across all of Britain, with York being one of the most affected places within the UK. The Baedeker raids were predicted and expected by the army and government of the UK after the British air force had bombed several landmarks across Nazi Germany, this caused the Nazi party to retaliate and bomb all landmarks across the UK that have a three star rating to try and lower the moral within Britain. They used the Baedeker visitor book that was published with lists of landmarks in Great Britain to target the most popular and inspirational buildings.
Several days before Germany attacked and bombed York they attacked two cathedrals in Bath and Norwich. This caused a ripple across the country of sadness and discouragement due to the collapse and loss of these two British landmarks. In the early hours in the morning of the York raids the Luftwaffe flew over the city where they split off into squadrons to target the most important buildings that will affect the country the most. I was talking to Laura Yeoman who is a curator in the York archives who informed me that they dropped “two types of bombs, the incendiary and the shrapnel bomb.” Many of these bombs were left unexploded and were removed shortly after the war ended. There was a large amount of bombs that were dropped first hitting residential houses and streets, this forced a lot of families that survived were forced to move to local church halls and schools that had enough housing space to provide to the community.
One of the Luftwaffe squadrons was tasked with bombing and demolishing the York minster in the centre of York town. As they flew over the minster they dropped five bombs in total with all them missing the minster by as few as several meters. This resulted in the bombing of several buildings around the minster which caused large amounts of damage to nearby buildings. One bomb that hit its target destroyed a church which was located just under 100 feet from the minster.
With the minster still standing, the building stood as a message of hope to Britain and their troops fighting in Germany that the country shouldn’t give up and that with the minster still standing showing that anything is possible and that we can win the war as long as we all stand together and supporting one another.