The skeletal ruins of Coventry’s medieval cathedral of St Michael’s are a stark reminder of the destruction of an old war. Paradoxically, it and the adjacent new cathedral of which it is a part, serve as emblems of reconciliation and the quest for peace. The appearance of both buildings was conceived in one night, Thursday 14/15 November 1940, when the German Luftwaffe undertook its most concentrated attack on any British city of the Second World War. The raid lasted 11 hours and involved nearly 500 bombers, which dropped 500 tons of high explosive, 30,000 incendiaries and 50 landmines on the place and its citizens. At least 568 people were killed in Coventry that night, 863 more seriously wounded (some of them fatally) and a further 393 injured. Thousands were made homeless. More than 43,000 homes, just over half the city’s housing stock, were damaged or destroyed. 71 factories were damaged. Essential services, such as the telephone network and water mains, were knocked out, having a massive impact on the city’s ability to protect itself and its population. In fact, the concentration of explosions and fires in the old city centre was so great as to create firestorms. The great medieval church of St Michael’s was not the only building to be destroyed; Coventry also lost its central library, market hall and hundreds of shops and public buildings. It is said that the German airmen, 6,000 feet above, could both smell and feel the heat from the burning city. The destruction was so thorough that Nazi propagandists coined a new verb, coventrieren – ‘to Coventrate’ – to raze a city to the ground.
Coventry is an ancient city located more or less in the centre of England. It developed around an 11th century Benedictine monastery founded by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godgifu – known to posterity as Godiva. Through the centuries, it became known for its cloth, silk ribbons and clock making. In the industrial age, it pioneered bicycles and then motor cars – particularly Daimler – which formed the backbone of its manufacturing industries. On the eve of war, brands with facilities in the city included Riley, Triumph, Rover, Morris, Courtaulds and General Electric, which owned arms manufacturer Coventry Ordnance Company. With the coming of war, much civilian production switched to armaments and munitions, including aircraft and aero engines. Coventry, with a modest population of about 238,000, was a prime target. It was also renowned for its many beautiful medieval buildings.
After knowledge of the secret work at Bletchley Park decoding German Enigma machines broke in the 1970s, a rumour circulated that the British Government knew Coventry was going to be hit, but did nothing for fear of warning the enemy that their codes were vulnerable. According to GCHQ, the heir of Bletchley, it seems that there was awareness of a planned air raid codenamed ‘Moonlight Sonata’. It was deduced this would take place at the next full moon on 15 November. A Luftwaffe prisoner of war revealed that the target could be Coventry or Birmingham, but other potential targets in the South East were also possible. Further Enigma intelligence hinted at Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry, but previous false alarms from the source led to this being discounted. The same prisoner of war, on being interrogated, confirmed there would be attacks on ‘the industrial district of England’. In the end, it was concluded that the likely target was London. However, by 1500hrs on 14 November the interception of German aircraft radio navigation beams confirmed the target for Moonlight Sonata would be Coventry, that night. Apparently, nobody informed anyone in the city of this – not that it would have made much difference.
The first German bombers crossed the English coast just after 6pm. The authorities in Coventry were eventually advised that a raid was approaching their city at 6.50pm. The sirens were sounded at 7.10pm as the first incendiaries fell, rapidly lighting up the target. By 8pm, 240 fires had already been reported across the city – including at the Cathedral. The night of 14 November 1940 was bright, moonlit and cloudless. There was actually no need for navigational aids, because the aircrew could see the City burning as their bombers crossed the Channel. The zenith of the raid was around midnight, but bombs continued to fall relentlessly on the hapless conurbation until past 5am on 15 November. The ‘raiders past’ signal was not received until 6.16am. Coventry’s anti-aircraft defences had been recently reinforced, but were utterly inadequate to the task and completely overwhelmed. Just one enemy bomber was brought down by gunfire. RAF night fighters were scrambled, but of those 500 enemy bombers, only 11 were spotted, merely two of which were engaged with just one of those being damaged.
Coventry had been bombed before and would be bombed again, but the impact of the November 14/15 raid was profound. Before the war, there had been widespread fear, including in government circles, of the likely devastation that could be caused by aerial bombardment. It was not only the matter of damage and death that bothered politicians, but also the question of civilian morale. German historian Dietmar Süss said: “The idea that masses in a state of terror ceased to behave humanely and became transformed into a violent mob verging on the bestial was a widespread assumption.” Much is made of Britain’s gallant ‘Blitz Spirit’ in the many cities that were bombed between 1939 and 1945, but in Coventry after the night of 14/15 November 1940, it came close to being broken.
People were traumatised by the concentration of fire and explosion, its consequences and their complete helplessness. As dawn broke, exhausted survivors, with ringing ears and blinking eyes, stumbled from rudimentary shelters under stairs, tables or back gardens. An alien, nightmare, landscape of rubble, wreckage and devastation greeted them. It was unrecognisable as the place they knew. People desperately burrowed into ruins in search of buried loved ones and neighbours. A pall of smoke hung over the city – and would do so for days. The air stank of burning flesh. Bodies, some mutilated beyond recognition, lay haphazardly in the streets. Many wandered the streets in a daze, utterly incapable of anything, not knowing where they were or where they were going. Some were hysterical. A 14-year old schoolgirl, Jean Taylor, described a fireman standing motionless watching buildings burn, powerless to intervene; lines of bodies stretched out on blankets and, horrifically, a dog running down the street with a child’s arm in its mouth. There was complete dislocation of the essential infrastructure of a functioning town – transport, gas, electricity, water, telephones, food – and, of course, shelter. The government became concerned that reports of the casualties, devastation and mood in Coventry would cause panic in other places. Amazingly, it never did.
It was decided to bury the dead in a mass grave. Some of the victims were not discovered for weeks; some were never accounted for.
67,100 civilians died in Britain’s cities, towns and villages during World War II, mostly by enemy bombing. The British and American response to the ‘Blitz’, was massive and incomparably more devastating. The Allied bombing campaign, intended to reduce Germany’s will and ability to continue the war, is still a controversial subject. Neither side had the general means to pick out specific targets with the accuracy claimed and, from 1939 to 1945, anything between 305,000 and 600,000 people, including POWs and slave labourers, died in Germany from Allied bombing. It is estimated that perhaps 45,000 alone perished in the raids on Hamburg in July 1943 and up to 25,000 in Dresden in February 1945. On both occasions, the concentration of high explosives was so great that it caused firestorms of such severity that they have been described as similar to the effects of an atomic bomb. Royal Air Force and US Army Air Force crew were christened, Terrorflieger, ‘terror flyers’, by the Germans.
King George VI is said to have wept as he stood in the ruins of Coventry’s burned out Cathedral, surveying the destruction of the city all around. The people of Coventry, however, rebuilt and many, inspired by the Provost of the Cathedral, Richard Thomas Howard (1884-1981), bravely adopted a generously forgiving and noble attitude to this. It is said that the decision to rebuild the Cathedral was taken the day following its destruction. In his Christmas address, just a few weeks after the raid, Provost Howard said:
“What we want to tell the world is this: that with Christ born again in our hearts today, we are trying, hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge; we are bracing ourselves to finish the tremendous job of saving the world from tyranny and cruelty; we are going to try to make a kinder, simpler — a more Christ-like sort of world in the days beyond this strife.”
The approach the architect, Basil Spence, took to rebuilding the Cathedral was to preserve the ruins of the old as an emblem of sacrifice and to build a new structure next to the old, at right angles to it. Queen Elizabeth II lay the foundation stone in 1956 and the finished Cathedral was consecrated on 25 May 1962. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, composed for the occasion, premiered there on 30 May. Visiting both spaces is an extraordinary experience. The old St Michael, originally a 12th century parish church, was the only British Cathedral to be lost in the Second World War and is an appropriate, and moving, memorial to its devastated city. I found myself imagining the smell of stale smoke and burnt timbers as well as sensing the destruction all around as I walked, in some awe, down the empty, exposed, nave. Half way down is the reconciliation statue – a symbol of bringing together people who have been divided by conflict. Copies of the statue are in Hiroshima, Berlin and Belfast. In the east end, mounted on an altar in the apse, is the charred cross. This was made by stonemason Jock Forbes, who, when clearing the debris of the destroyed church, wired together two badly burnt roof beams to form a cross. Later, the words “father forgive”, allegedly spoken by Jesus at his crucifixion, were inscribed behind the altar. The cross is now a replica – the preserved original can be found safely in the dry of the new building. Most of the treasures of the past were lost in the 1940 raid. Remarkably, the tower and spire of old St Michael’s, which dates from the 14th century, survived the war and can be climbed.
The new cathedral of St Michael’s took my breath away. I’m not a huge fan of 1950s and ‘60s concrete buildings, but the elegance, lightness and peace in this huge space is just wonderful. There are no columns, or screens, to interrupt your view. On the right as you walk in, John Piper’s massive baptistery window rises up, bestowing light and colour on everything below. As I walked in, someone was doing something to the organ and it was emitting the most amazing, steady, deep note; it was almost primeval, yet both curiously exciting and calming. Turning back to the entrance, the entire wall is glazed, with 66 figures of angels and saints etched into it, the ruins of the old church visible on the other side. At the focal end of the nave above the altar is an arresting centrepiece tapestry of Christ in Glory, designed by Graham Sutherland. On the outside of the building, an enormous, fearsome, sculpted bronze figure by Jacob Epstein depicts St Michael banishing Lucifer. The building is full of exquisite artwork, not least its stained glass, some modern, some not. It’s astonishing – and humbling.
Coventry as a city has also embraced reconciliation and peace by town twinning. The purpose of town twinning is to foster friendship and understanding between cultures – a decent aspiration, provided it works and is not merely an excuse for an annual junket on the part of council officials. Coventry began in 1944, even before the end of the war, by twinning with the scarred and devastated City of Stalingrad in what was then the Soviet Union. Kiel followed in 1947, Dresden in 1956 – all towns that had suffered grievously in the war. Others followed – Arnhem, Belgrade, Bologna, Caen, Sarajevo, Warsaw. Coventry is now twinned with 17 towns across Europe, 7 in North America and one each in China and Australia – 26 in all. Not everyone approves of twinning, viewing it quite simply as a pointless waste of money. The twinning with Stalingrad (renamed Volgograd in 1961), which survived half a century of Cold War, was suspended by Coventry Council in March 2022, in protest against the illegal, unwarranted, Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sadly, and surprisingly, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, so far appears to have ignored Coventry’s disapproval – if he has even heard about it.
Reconciliation
Does the fact that the world is such a dangerous place – possibly more so than at any time since the Cold War – mean that noble aspirations should be dismissed, that peace and reconciliation should not be pursued, that Coventry got it wrong? On the contrary, the objectives are clearly right; they just need more people to buy-in to them and make their voices heard. Meanwhile, a visit to the Cathedral Church of St Michael in Coventry, like other hallowed places around the globe, provides both an obvious reminder of, and education in, why we should never forget what the alternative to peace is.
I love places like this that still show the remains of such a beautiful building.
Totally agree – but, then, I visit a lot of ruins!
This is magnificent, Mike. I think most of us who have read about WWII know the basics of what happened to Coventry, but not with the detail and visuals you shared here. And like you, I’m not a fan of modern churches, but from the first photos you shared, I thought it was a strikingly beautiful church. When we were at Basildon Park, we saw Graham Sutherland’s preliminary sketches and paintings as he tried to work out designs for the tapestry. Seeing it in place was like a final chapter here. The work is beautiful and as always, you tell the story in such a compelling way. Bravo.
On another note (and I might have emailed you on this), thanks for your having posted about The Two Chairmen pub in London eons ago. Rick and I purposely went there on your recommendation and had a wonderful lunch, fine beer and a grand time. All you said and more!
Thanks, Jeanie. Of course, many cities in Britain endured bombing during the last war. I think what singled Coventry out was the intensity of that night and the reaction to it. I can’t imagine that anyone who went through it is interested in the fact that Germany’s experience was far worse – measured in terms of destruction and fatalities. It beggars belief that people are still doing this kind of thing, albeit in a different way, to their fellow beings today. It’s quite sick.
I’m glad you enjoyed the Two Chairmen! I should feature more pubs! I also need to catch up on your recent travels over here – I see you visited Wells, which is one of my all-time favourite cities.
A powerful and moving piece about Coventry. I am now inspired to visit the city which will be a first for me.
Thank you
Edward
Thank you, Edward. I had only visited Coventry previously on business, so it was good to wander around a little. There’s obviously more to it than I have shown in this one article!
What a tragic tale, Mike. So much destruction, not to mention the terror! I tried imagining being at home, or even not at home, but enduring the fear, the noise, the uncertainty. Hour after hour.
Thanks, Lisa. My dad served in the artillery during WW2, at home and overseas – including in combat. His one experience of a civilian air raid was when the Germans launched a huge attack on Portsmouth in 1941 and he told me, of all his experiences, that was the most frightening – largely because he felt completely helpless sitting in a shelter, unable to do anything as the bombs fell all around.
Wow.
I went to an event there some years ago. I really must visit again one day.
I must say I was impressed – could you tell? 🙂
What you said about the blitz spirit echoes what my mother said about the raids on Southampton, where she accompanied her friend to try to salvage what they could from her friend’s mother’s house in the immediate aftermath. Their uniforms got them through the wardens and they were into a world of fires, filth and rubble. People were stunned, exhausted, but carrying on in the search for those living…but she reckoned that only their exhaustion stopped them from demanding an end to a war which had, by that time, only brought disaster under pre war administrators and generals….not helped by posters proclaiming something on the lines of ‘your resolve will bring us victory.’
A great post about Coventry….sorry to go off piste.
Thanks for that. My mother lived through the blitz over at nearby rivals, Portsmouth and it wasn’t pretty. I’m sure there WAS a ‘blitz spirit’ but I have seen/heard plenty accounts of people understandably demonstrating their irritation in no uncertain terms!!
Just wow!!
Can’t argue with that!
What a brilliant piece. I knew Coventry had endured the worst of the war in that one night, but you brought the terrible event to life.
Thanks, Sue. Visiting the cathedral(s) and reading about it really brought it home.
I remember seeing the Frauenkirche, in Dresden when I was there, It was in the process of being rebuilt, took a few years but it is done now. I have never been to Coventry to see the Cathedral
Definitely worth the trip,Bill. I’ve never been to Dresden – that would be something. It’s easy for people here to forget that ordinary Germans ultimately suffered terribly for the evils of their Nazi politicians.
I fine analysis of the story, especially the opening paragraph
Thanks, Derrick – very kind!
Fascinating. Having lived just down the road from the site, I knew a lot of the history, it’s a fascinating city actually for its history.
Thanks, Han. Yes, I should go back and explore some more!
A few years ago I visited the few remaining medieval buildings in the centre of Coventry and I’m now amazed that any of them survived at all. The remains of the old cathedral are very moving. I’m quite glad that, despite your skill in painting the picture, my imagination still can’t get to grips with how terrible that night and the days afterwards must have been.
Yes, it’s astonishing what has survived. I love some of the churches in the City of London which have been left ruined, but turned into gardens. Christchurch Greyfriars and St Dunstan in the East spring to mind.
I grew up in Derby, and remember the stories told by my grandmother and mother, of how they stood in the street in Mickleover, able to see the burning of Coventry lighting up the sky, but not knowing at that stage where the fires were. In the 1960s my parents took me to see the new Coventry Cathedral, not because we are a religious family, but because they wanted me to see the fruits of recovery and resilience. In fact, I suppose, for all of the reasons you describe.
Good reasons to go. Most major towns had some experience of the Blitz. I used to live in Nottingham and I know that was hit – I guess Derby would have been, too – Rolls-Royce would have been a target.
Yep. There was a bomb crater opposite my Nan’s house!
Such a tragic story, but also a story of resilience and reconciliation. Thanks for sharing this!
Yes – both factors are impressive. That generation certainly had much to cope with!
Apparently the Germans failed to correctly estimate how hard it would be to break the spirit of the British
Yes – but I think we and the Americans made the same miscalculation when it came to the Germans.
I went on a school visit to Coventry Cathedral. I can’t remember the actual year, but it wasn’t long after it was completed.
Like you, I was deeply moved by the ruins of the old cathedral. The new one is fabulous.
But it’s tragic that the world has learned NOTHING.
Oh, you are so right!!
An excellent and thought provoking post Mike, I never knew that Coventry had been so badly damaged. The new cathedral looks fabulous, I love the stained glass, especially the Baptistry Window, and the Chapel of Gethsemane looks beautiful.
Thanks, Eunice. Yes, it’s stunning and so peaceful. So many cities were hit, beyond London – Glasgow/Clydebank, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Portsmouth all spring to mind.
A marvellous post Mike, and a sobering reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. I fear we will see much more in the future as we seem incapable of learning by past mistakes, and so many horrors go totally unpunished and are totally overlooked.
Sadly very true, Peter.
Thank you for this very informative and interesting piece, Mike. I visited when I was a child but didn’t remember much until your piece triggered my memories.
My visit was long-overdue – but I’m glad I finally went.
A thorough and informative post, Mike. I haven’t visited Coventry as of yet. Your words and photographs make me want to. I did visit the bombed out shell of a church in Liverpool and it is a sobering experience.
Thanks, Darlene. Yes, Liverpool got hit very badly.
What a damn good post with some awesome photos
Thanks, Joanne!
A timely post. My ninety one year old neighbour comes from Coventry and well remembers that night, though her family were far enough away to be safe. I have only visited Coventry once quite a few years back ( in what now seem peaceful times ) it is just as you say very moving. Your retelling reminds us of the pure horror for people at the heart of the death and destruction and for anybody who went through the blitz. And we can’t help but despair at the war against Ukraine and the obliteration going on in Gaza.
Ah – back in peaceful times; I know exactly what you mean. Despair and terror – it’s heartbreaking.
Excellent post Mike and brill photographs.
Thank you, Fraggle – much appreciated! 🙂