1940 - Hitler claims Bristol has been completely destroyed following a night of intensive bombing on November 2 in which 5.000 incendiary and 10.000 high explosive bombs are dropped on the centre of the old city. On November 24, the entire area that is now Castle Park is destroyed in a bombing raid. During World War Two 1,299 people in Bristol are killed by German bombing. About 3,000 buildings are destroyed and 90,000 are damaged. 1941- The infamous Good Friday air raids on Bristol see more destruction in the centre ofthe city plus major damage to Knowle, Hotwells and Filton.The last air raid on Bristol is on April 25, 1941, when Brislington, Bedminster and Knowle are badly hit. Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits the devastated city on April 12,1941 and is booed by crowds amid rumours that the city’s air defences are not being properly managed. timeline Bristol Blitzed The Second World War involved the entire nation. For the first time war with another state brought the civilian population into direct contact with the enemy on the Home Front, and people found themselves participating in the defence of their city. Bristol’s civil defence involved the creation of volunteer forces of air raid wardens, street fire guards and, in case of a land invasion by the Germans, local platoons of an auxiliary force — at first known as the Local Defence Volunteers; it soon became better known as the Home Guard. Voluntary medical services such as St John’s Ambulance Brigade and the British Red Cross Society also played a major role in attending to the wounded. Civilians, therefore, found themselves working alongside the armed forces, the police and full-time fire brigade in the defence of the city. But everyone in Bristol — as in other large cities — was a target as the Germans attempted to destroy civilian morale by night-time bombing of English cities during the bleak winter of 1940/1. The announcement by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, on 3 September 1939 that a state of war existed between Britain and Germany at first made little difference to most Bristolians. Street lighting was extinguished and motor cars forbidden to use their headlamps, which led to an increase in road accidents and of people falling into the docks, but there was no immediate German attack. This was the period of the ‘Phoney War’. Hitler had been taken unawares by his own success and had made no preparations for the invasion of England. Throughout the ensuing months the strengthening of air defences which had begun in 1937 continued: anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and barrage balloons were deployed around the city. The fear of a gas attack had resulted in the general issue of gas masks in late 1938; they had to be carried at all times and drills on their use were regularly carried out. Surface air-raid shelters were built and Anderson shelters — named after Sir John Anderson, the Home Secretary were issued free to those with an income below ?250 a year. Bristol’s civil defence was co-ordinated by the ARP based in Broadmead, and the backbone of the ARP was the wardens’ service , which was under the direct control of the Chief Constable. The first air raid in the Bristol area occurred on 25 June 1940 when the Luftwaffe bombed St Phillips, St Pauls, St James and Brislington although they were actually aiming to destroy the works of the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton. There was little major damage although five people lost their lives. Several other relatively minor attacks occurred through the summer of 1940, but a serious attack on the aircraft factories at Filton took place on the morning of 25 September. One Heinkel bomber was brought down by anti-aircraft guns at Portishead the first of only two enemy aircraft brought down by Bristol’s anti-aircraft guns during the war. The other raiders reached Filton and within forty-five seconds had wrought major damage to the plant: ninety-one employees of the Bristol Aeroplane Company were killed and the development of the Bristol Beaufighter, a new fighter plane, was delayed. With unsustainable losses being suffered during daylight attacks on Britain in mid-October 1940, the Luftwaffe turned to the night bombing of cities, and Bristol suffered its first major raid on 24 November, a Sunday evening. From about 7.00 pm until midnight 134 German aircraft dropped high explosive bombs and incendiaries on Bristol. Fire raged across the city, lighting up the sky and betraying the position of Bristol to enemy air crews from up to 50 miles away. Seventy-seven fire brigades were sent into the city to assist the Bristol force in fighting the fires. The next morning, shattered and dazed, Bristolians walked through the ruins of once-familiar streets filled with the acrid smell of burning, masses of broken glass and the melancholy drip of water. Only a skeleton structure of charred wood remained of the Dutch House; St Peter’s Hospital, the jewel in the crown of Brist

The shot fired by the Tibetan General, acted like a starting gun. Within seconds the Tibetans lining the far side of the wall swarmed across it and started hurling themselves at the nearest sepoys. Simultaneously the Gurkhas and Sikhs that Macdonald had placed on the flanks, started firing on the Tibetans that remained behind the wall. The senior British officers, including general Macdonald, as well as the Daily Mail correspondent with them, who had gone to demand the surrender of the Tibetan General, were caught right in the middle of the fighting and were lucky to escape with their lives, although several were severely wounded. Macdonald had to fight of assailants with a shotgun hurriedly given him by his orderly. Very quickly though, the imbalance between the sides became apparent. The Tibetan advantage in numbers counted for little against troops armed with modern weapons, drilled in Frontier warfare. What followed is often referred to as a massacre. While it can be argues that the word is technically correct, I am not comfortable with the word massacre, and not just because I was once a British army officer! The word massacre is too redolent of what the Germans did to unarmed Polish prisoners - and what the Russians did to unarmed German prisoners for that matter. The Battle of Guru only lasted 4 minutes, and with the senior officers caught up in the middle of it, it is perhaps remarkable that it was stopped as soon as it was. But in those four terrible minutes, nearly 700 Tibetans were killed. In the words of the author Peter Hopkirk "Instead of running, the Tibetans walked slowly off the battlefield with heads bent. It was a horrifying but moving sight, a mediaeval army disintegrating before the merciless fire-power of 20th century weapons."