Nice little Sheffield Blitz shrapnel collection

[LEI-13-HG]

Hello chaps,

Thought you might like to see this nice little grouping I picked up recently.
It relates to the Sheffield Blitz 1940 and is nice because it's pretty much an DIY instant shrapnel collection as it contains a nice range of Luftwaffe ordnance items.
It all came in a crude wartime box about the size of a civvy gas mask box. Nicely, on the outside was written: "Destruction of Sheffield 12th and 15th December 1940. Bomb shrapnel from Blitz. Bullets & cannon shell fragments fired at Mother and me from a bomber 1940. Aluminium from bomber hit by flak. It blew up. Bombs exploded inside aircraft. No crew found. August 1940.
The pieces in the photo are (left to right, top to bottom):

-piece of parachute mine cord with note 8 1941
-x3 small pieces of parachute mine casing (bubbled on one side due to the heat of the explosion!)

-large melted lump of aluminium bomber? 3x3
-melted lump of aluminium bomber? 1x1
-Piece of SC Bomb Shrapnel 5x2, jagged, with black paint on outside

-x2 exploded 13mm aircraft cannon shell heads
-exploded German 20mm cannon shell with black paint on outside
-x2 exploded German machine gun bullets
(all the above presumably fired at the boy and his mother?)

There is very little information with the items so I just wonder what the full stories are behind the items....

Austin

 

[Edwardc]

nice collection!

Local archives might hold more information about bombers shot down and in what area, look at ARP records perhaps?

 

[ogreve]

Funny, without the notes it would have looked like a mishmash of gathered junk, probably not even bringing in $10 at eBay, but with the notes it all of a sudden forms an interesting wartime timeline, with locations, dates and item classification, and it tells part of the experiences the boy and his mother lived through the war.
Nice.

Cheers,
Olafo

 

[smle2009]

Hi, on the exploded 20mm projectile is the drive band copper or steel? It does awfully look like a 20mm Hispano projectile to me

Cheers
Tony

 

[millsbomber]

I got this lot from a stall holder many years ago, it was from a house clearance where the owner had died, no other details known..... Dave

 

[celica]

That's an interesting find, would love to know the full story and what part of Sheffield it happened in, as that where i live.

 

[butterfly]

Hello chaps,

Thought you might like to see this nice little grouping I picked up recently.
It relates to the Sheffield Blitz 1940 and is nice because it's pretty much an DIY instant shrapnel collection as it contains a nice range of Luftwaffe ordnance items.
It all came in a crude wartime box about the size of a civvy gas mask box. Nicely, on the outside was written: "Destruction of Sheffield 12th and 15th December 1940. Bomb shrapnel from Blitz. Bullets & cannon shell fragments fired at Mother and me from a bomber 1940.’ ‘Aluminium from bomber hit by flak. It blew up. Bombs exploded inside aircraft. No crew found. August 1940.’
The pieces in the photo are (left to right, top to bottom):

-piece of parachute mine cord with note ‘8 1941’
-x3 small pieces of parachute mine casing (bubbled on one side due to the heat of the explosion!)

-large melted lump of aluminium bomber? 3”x3”
-melted lump of aluminium bomber? 1”x1”
-Piece of SC Bomb Shrapnel 5”x2”, jagged, with black paint on outside

-x2 exploded 13mm aircraft cannon shell heads
-exploded German 20mm cannon shell with black paint on outside
-x2 exploded German machine gun bullets
(all the above presumably fired at the boy and his mother?)

There is very little information with the items so I just wonder what the full stories are behind the items....

Austin

Nice group Austin.
Love bits like these, lots of room for further re-search. Great to find these little time capsules..........well Done!!

regards Kev

 

[butterfly]

That's an interesting find, would love to know the full story and what part of Sheffield it happened in, as that where i live.

My dad got 'bombed out' in Broomhill, Sheffield during the war.
I remember him telling me about the raid and the bombs falling in sticks, he said you would count them and then you would know if you were safe.
On this particular night he said they were sheltering in the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden and the bombs started falling. As usual they were counting the bombs as they fell, my Grandfather suddenly said ' the next ones got us!!' ....... it hit the end of the block of terraced houses, my dads house survived with damage, unfortunately and old lady in the end terraced house was killed, she had refused to go into shelter.
I can recall what my dad told me about the incident, but cannot begin to imagine the horror of it. Of course to my dad at the time it was all exciting stuff, I should imagine my Grandfather saw things very differently, especially that particualar night!!

......do you have a copy of 'Sheffield at War'? wartime publication, its very interesting and has a map where all the bombs fell on Sheffield.

kind regards Kev

 

[AMMOTECHXT]

It might be worth looking up copies of local newspapers from the time. When my maternal grandmother was alive she told me that there had been Zeppelin raids on Kings Lynn, Norfolk. Her parents had owned a shop there. She told me of a house that had been partially demolished and that she had seen on bedsheets the blood of a 15 year old boy who was killed. Years later in a book I found reference to a Zep raid there in 1915 and it showed the same house with the caption that a 15 year old boy had been killed there. The raids might be the reason why my grandma's parents and younger sisters all moved to Nottinghamshire, and by 1916 they were all munitions workers. The same story of the raid was in one of the local Kings Lynn newspapers.