During WWII both sets of my grandparents lived in England. As one of the couples lived in the East End of London, I thought that they would have been more likely to have been affected when London was bombed. They actually lived next to St. Katherine's Dock and the docks were prime targets. My other grandparents lived in a far more suburban setting. It was somewhere that I pictured as being far away from the target zone in a place called Sanderstead which is in South Croydon.
When I checked on Bomb Sight, which shows where the bombs landed, I could see that those grandparents were also in the danger zone. The bombs might not have fallen so thickly in their area, but fall they did. I suppose that makes sense as Croydon was to the south of the Thames, an area that the bombers would have flown across before they got to the city proper.
A casual look at some of the books on my shelves about the blitz shows that, contrary to the usual coverage on the bombing of Britain, London was not the only target. Other English places were affected as well as some in Scotland and Ireland. Industrial and manufacturing centres were prime targets.
I have much more reading to do as I try to find out more from the many books at my disposal. There are also lots of accounts of the war on the website Bomb Sight that add a more personal perspective to the war years.
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