When Ipswich was the target of enemy bombers

Ipswich Maritime Trust's new Window Museum display at Ipswich Waterfront (Image: Archant)

Ipswich Maritime Trust’s new historical window display features Ipswich Waterfront in Wartime.

Trust director Stuart Grimwade said: “The Ipswich docks and engineering firms were important targets for German bombers in World War 2 and were also a target in the 1914-18 War.

“We are putting together our next Waterfront Museum Window looking at Ipswich docks in wartime.”

I met up with Stuart and Des Pawson of the Ipswich Maritime Trust at BMS Imaging off Wherstead Road, where Roger Barcham has produced giant copies of Second World War bombing photographs and German maps which included important targets

The Riverside Industrial Estate is on the site of the former Cocksedges engineering works where the workers made Bofors guns which were then mounted on converted trawlers operating out of HMS Bunting on Cliff Quay.

This latest display has been put together with the help of the Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service.

The new display, which will stay for six months, will include copies of maps, posters and various period artifacts about Ipwwich in wartime.

The include copes of German Bombing Maps of Ipswich which were discovered after the 1939-45 War.

The ‘Stadtplan von Ipswich’, dated 1941 shows German Luftwaffe bombing targets in Ipswich and was produced as part of ‘Operation Sealion’ invasion plans.

The original of this map is on display in Ipswich Museum.

The Dock area map, dated 1939, and marked ‘secret’ gives detailed information to Luftwaffe pilots of their grain mill, malting, and tank farm targets lettered in red A - D around the Wet Dock.

Many Ipswich firms were involved in vital war work.

Both in World War I and II, Ipswich engineering firms loated around the dock made major contributions to the war effort, so becoming key targets for German bombers.

One of their advantages was the facility for sending their products away by sea and by rail, not to mention a skilled and highly versatile workforce capable of transforming production from peacetime to wartime requirements.

Government contracts were spread over many locations to reduce serious knockout by a single air raid.

Women at RS&J cut the precision gear wheel teeth for Spitfire fighter planes, but the workers often did not know what a particular component was for, which was better for security.

Photograhs in the display show the aftermath of a raid on the Paul’s silo at Ipswich Docks and the damage caused by bombs dropped on Bishop’s Hill, by Fockewolf 190 in 1943 and bounced downhill before exploding. Houses in Myrtle Road were destroyed and seven people died.

The German bomber crashed and the engine ended up on the Ransome and Rapier site on the other side of the docks.

The propeller was later recoved.

Des Pawson added: “The tragedy of war was also demonstated by the fact that pilot died. He was only 20 and he was somebody’s son as well.”