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This article could use some copyediting. I'll get to it if I find the chance... Yayro 05:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps this article should mention the story of the Enigma machine and how the allies knew the city was about to be bombed. If the German planes were intercepted, it would spoil plans made to attack crucial German U-boats, etc. I can't remember the rest of the details but it's an interesting point which puts the Coventry Blitz into context. Bobbyfletch85 14:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I believe that Churchill knew. Two good references I can think of are
"Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown published in 1975 by Harper & Row; and
"The Ultra Secret" by
Frederick W. Winterbotham published in 1974 by Harper & Row.
Both have extensive references & footnotes. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Mlopez93 (
talk •
contribs)
02:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I read an account online explaining a sensational new twist to reveal the truth about the blitz. Apparently, we DID find about the incoming attack and DID try to stop it. An attempt was made by sending a signal to scramble the communications and radar of the German attack. However, the individual responsible made a mistake and sent the signal in the wrong direction. Fascinating yes? As soon as I re-find the source I'll put it up. Bobbyfletch85 ( talk) 01:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The Codebreakers is a seminal book on cryptology history but it says almost nothing about Ultra. It was originally published in 1967, years before the Ultra story came out, so it didn't mention Ultra at all. The reprint edition later added a page or two at the end, briefly mentioning Ultra and other developments. I don't have a copy handy but I doubt very much that it mentions the Coventry intercepts. Battle of Wits by Stephen Budiansky discusses the incident briefly and confirms that the Churchill story is a myth. Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret is also a historically important publication because it was one of the earliest disclosures in English of the Ultra programme, but it is inaccurate in many regards. Remember that Winterbotham's role was to manage the distribution of decrypted intercepts from Bletchley to field units, but he was not involved in cryptanalysis himself. There was a lot going on that he simply didn't know. Among other things he credited the entire cryptanalysis of Enigma to British cryptographers, since he was unaware of the contributions of the Poles, which came out later. I'm sure I've seen other stuff written about the matter, all of it in agreement with Budiansky. Winterbotham wrote what he believed to be true, but it was later superseded by more reliable information.
This article (McIver, Peter J. 'Leading Churchill myths : (3) "Churchill let Coventry burn to protect his secret intelligence"'. Finest Hour: Journal of the Churchill Center and Societies, 114 (2002), 40-41. Publisher: International Churchill Society. ISSN 0882-3715, cite per here) also discusses the subject.
This article might be what Bobbyfletch85 is referring to. It cites a book by Nigel West describing an unsuccessful attempt by the RAF to jam the Knickebein radio-navigation system that guided German bombers towards Coventry. This is already mentioned in the article (citing Jones), but if someone has access to the West book, it might have some more info worth incorporating. 69.228.171.150 ( talk) 23:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
"In one night, more than 4,000 homes in Coventry were destroyed, along with around three quarters of the city's factories."
Then a couple of paragraphs later is:
"The raid destroyed or damaged about 60,000 buildings..."
60,000 seems very high. Even if you take the number of homes destroyed up to 5,000 then that still leaves 55,000 buildings that weren't homes. What were they?
Is the 60,000 supposed to be 6,000? Or is the 4,000 is supposed to be 40,000?
Perhaps it would be better to say 'half the homes were destroyed'. It's not a figure, but it's the way it's quantified in the BBC Documentary "Blitz: The Bombing of Coventry". It also says that one third of the factories were destroyed, which would make the part of this article which currently "...around three quarters of the city's factories" wrong. The same BBC documentary does say that three quarters of the buildings in the city centre were destroyed, but that's not at all the same as three quarters of the factories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.66.20 ( talk) 18:25, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a distinct difference between 'destroyed' and 'damaged'. A figure of 60000 buildings damaged sounds entirely plausible, not just because of the distinction between homes and the more general buildings, but because a building might get a direct hit and be destroyed, but the shock, shrapnel, and fires might easily damage 10 more. The entry on 'The Blitz' itself mentioned a raid on the port of Clydesbank which left all but 7 of the 12000 houses damaged. 121.200.4.108 ( talk) 05:04, 24 September 2021 (UTC) thosdot
How many died during each bombing raid? Nunamiut ( talk) 02:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
The article's title is currently " Coventry Blitz". The lead sentence refers to "Coventry blitz" with a lower-case B. They should agree one way or the other. -- 69.159.9.219 ( talk) 05:30, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
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This article states "The RAF began bombing Germany in March 1940". This starement needs qualifying and expanding on; there were RAF raids on Wilhelmshaven in September and December 1939. Cloptonson ( talk) 21:41, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Arminden ( talk) 04:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Coventry Blitz article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on November 14, 2006, November 14, 2007, November 14, 2008, November 14, 2009, November 14, 2010, November 14, 2011, November 14, 2013, November 14, 2015, and November 14, 2018. |
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This article could use some copyediting. I'll get to it if I find the chance... Yayro 05:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps this article should mention the story of the Enigma machine and how the allies knew the city was about to be bombed. If the German planes were intercepted, it would spoil plans made to attack crucial German U-boats, etc. I can't remember the rest of the details but it's an interesting point which puts the Coventry Blitz into context. Bobbyfletch85 14:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I believe that Churchill knew. Two good references I can think of are
"Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown published in 1975 by Harper & Row; and
"The Ultra Secret" by
Frederick W. Winterbotham published in 1974 by Harper & Row.
Both have extensive references & footnotes. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Mlopez93 (
talk •
contribs)
02:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I read an account online explaining a sensational new twist to reveal the truth about the blitz. Apparently, we DID find about the incoming attack and DID try to stop it. An attempt was made by sending a signal to scramble the communications and radar of the German attack. However, the individual responsible made a mistake and sent the signal in the wrong direction. Fascinating yes? As soon as I re-find the source I'll put it up. Bobbyfletch85 ( talk) 01:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The Codebreakers is a seminal book on cryptology history but it says almost nothing about Ultra. It was originally published in 1967, years before the Ultra story came out, so it didn't mention Ultra at all. The reprint edition later added a page or two at the end, briefly mentioning Ultra and other developments. I don't have a copy handy but I doubt very much that it mentions the Coventry intercepts. Battle of Wits by Stephen Budiansky discusses the incident briefly and confirms that the Churchill story is a myth. Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret is also a historically important publication because it was one of the earliest disclosures in English of the Ultra programme, but it is inaccurate in many regards. Remember that Winterbotham's role was to manage the distribution of decrypted intercepts from Bletchley to field units, but he was not involved in cryptanalysis himself. There was a lot going on that he simply didn't know. Among other things he credited the entire cryptanalysis of Enigma to British cryptographers, since he was unaware of the contributions of the Poles, which came out later. I'm sure I've seen other stuff written about the matter, all of it in agreement with Budiansky. Winterbotham wrote what he believed to be true, but it was later superseded by more reliable information.
This article (McIver, Peter J. 'Leading Churchill myths : (3) "Churchill let Coventry burn to protect his secret intelligence"'. Finest Hour: Journal of the Churchill Center and Societies, 114 (2002), 40-41. Publisher: International Churchill Society. ISSN 0882-3715, cite per here) also discusses the subject.
This article might be what Bobbyfletch85 is referring to. It cites a book by Nigel West describing an unsuccessful attempt by the RAF to jam the Knickebein radio-navigation system that guided German bombers towards Coventry. This is already mentioned in the article (citing Jones), but if someone has access to the West book, it might have some more info worth incorporating. 69.228.171.150 ( talk) 23:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
"In one night, more than 4,000 homes in Coventry were destroyed, along with around three quarters of the city's factories."
Then a couple of paragraphs later is:
"The raid destroyed or damaged about 60,000 buildings..."
60,000 seems very high. Even if you take the number of homes destroyed up to 5,000 then that still leaves 55,000 buildings that weren't homes. What were they?
Is the 60,000 supposed to be 6,000? Or is the 4,000 is supposed to be 40,000?
Perhaps it would be better to say 'half the homes were destroyed'. It's not a figure, but it's the way it's quantified in the BBC Documentary "Blitz: The Bombing of Coventry". It also says that one third of the factories were destroyed, which would make the part of this article which currently "...around three quarters of the city's factories" wrong. The same BBC documentary does say that three quarters of the buildings in the city centre were destroyed, but that's not at all the same as three quarters of the factories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.66.20 ( talk) 18:25, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a distinct difference between 'destroyed' and 'damaged'. A figure of 60000 buildings damaged sounds entirely plausible, not just because of the distinction between homes and the more general buildings, but because a building might get a direct hit and be destroyed, but the shock, shrapnel, and fires might easily damage 10 more. The entry on 'The Blitz' itself mentioned a raid on the port of Clydesbank which left all but 7 of the 12000 houses damaged. 121.200.4.108 ( talk) 05:04, 24 September 2021 (UTC) thosdot
How many died during each bombing raid? Nunamiut ( talk) 02:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
The article's title is currently " Coventry Blitz". The lead sentence refers to "Coventry blitz" with a lower-case B. They should agree one way or the other. -- 69.159.9.219 ( talk) 05:30, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Coventry Blitz. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
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(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 22:13, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
This article states "The RAF began bombing Germany in March 1940". This starement needs qualifying and expanding on; there were RAF raids on Wilhelmshaven in September and December 1939. Cloptonson ( talk) 21:41, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Arminden ( talk) 04:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)