Southampton From Blitz to D-Day

Southampton was the seventh heaviest bombed city in Britain. It was considered an obvious target; it was Britain's Number One Military Port, and the home of Spitfire production. Pre-war preparations were intensive. The first blackout exercise in England was staged in Southampton in June 1937, and the town was well provided with shelters. The historic Bargate, and many of the town's 600 year old underground vaults were utilized as bomb shelters.

Southampton was raided 57 times, and three raids were classified as major attacks. The first bombs fell on 20 June 1940 after which a pattern emerged of strategic daylight raids on aircraft factories, shipyards, docks, and railway lines, with occasional small-scale attacks on populated areas and sometimes machine gun strafing of streets.

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