Truemors
this picture was taken in The Children's War, the second world war through the eyes of the children of Britain exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London which is open until 2010 and shows a small boy lost in the excitement of his game holding high a toy aeroplane.
In the churchyard of Our Lady and St Nicholas Chapel Street Liverpool another sculpture of this boy can be seen, this time standing at the top of a spiral staircase, shrinking as it rises, as his mum holding his baby brother or sister at the base of the stairs calls up to him to come down to a safer place The aeroplane a symbol of destruction or as a cross of remembrance of all those who died in the blitz
The citizens of Liverpool and Bootle who lost their lives in the blitz of 1940-42 memorial was sculptured in brass by Tom Murphy and unveiled by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh KG KT on the 7th July 2000
Source United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials
Air Raids
From September 1940 the German air force began to bomb cities throughout Britain at night. At the start of the Blitz, London was attacked on 57 successive nights and there were heavy raids on other cities and ports.
More than one in ten air raid victims was below the age of 16: 7,736 children were killed and 7,622 seriously wounded. A baby 11 hours old was the youngest victim. Many children were orphaned or lost brothers and sisters. In the worst single incident involving children, 38 were killed and 60 injured when a bomb hit a school in Catford in January 1943.
Children over 16, including Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, helped the ARP services during air raids by acting as messengers, fire watchers, or working with the voluntary services. The work could be highly dangerous and significant numbers were killed while on civil defence duty.
Bombing continued throughout the war, and in 1944 new weapons - the V1 flying bomb and the V2 rocket - caused more casualties and devastation.
Source The Children's War Imperial War Museum
Air Raid
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