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Thursday 20 December

Manchester Took It Too

This weekend is the anniversary of the war time bombings that caused such devastation in Manchester. During December 1940 250 German planes dropped 470 tonnes of high explosive and more than 30,000 incendiary bombs, killing 654 people and injuring more than 2,000. Around 6,000 people were made homeless.

As part of Thursday Lates we are showing a ten-minute propaganda film that captures the bomb damage on December 22 and 23 1940 including the ruins of the Royal Exchange, the Victoria arcade and Piccadilly. Filmed for the Co-Operative Wholesale Society, it was intended to show that not only London was affected by the Blitz, but it had limited exposure as it was feared it might be bad for morale.

Courtesy of the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University

The film will be shown on a loop in The Atrium from 4.30pm to 8.45pm
It lasts about 10 minutes.

Browse maps showing the extent of the bomb damage on the University of Manchester's Map Collection pages.

Images: Still from Manchester Took It Too and detail from Record of location of aerial bombs on the City of Manchester from the UoM Map Collection.