Wednesday 9 January 2013

Sources for Courses: Bomb Sight



Bomb Sight is a website that transforms records previously only available in The National Archives into an interactive format, granting far greater accessibility to this important historical information. These WW2 bomb census maps from between 7/10/1940 and 06/06/1941 were previously available only in the Reading Room of The National Archives.

The website presents you with a map detailing the locations of specific bombs, and gives information regarding the bomb type and the location in which it fell.




Bomb Sight by University of Portsmouth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Bomb Sight links these bomb locations to maps, images and memories that explore the historical reality of London during the Blitz. The data can be organised by various different categories, allowing you to see the primary targets of the Luftwaffe by letting you specify which bombsites are displayed on the map. This facility lets you view only the bombs that fell on the first night of the blitz, or in the first week.

Zooming into the map, each bomb is numbered and information is given regarding its type and the exact time and location it fell.



The database draws from a vast array of archived information to present the findings as viewed on the website in a clear and interactive format.


For those local to London, the project has produced an Android Application that projects the location of London Bombsites onto their contemporary surroundings. The Bomb Sight App displays all the bombs that fell nearby to where you are and also allows you to see relevant images from the period.

An online research guide to the bomb census can be found here



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