Kemp Town Cinema bombed in the war

[IKDRF]

... and four were known to NSC posters.

Either there were more than this number of deaths or by some coincidence all the deaths were relatives or friends of relatives of future NSC members (or some of these people are one and the same - Coventrygull's great-aunt could have been a friend of Laughing Gravy's mum for example).

My dad used to tell me about this and I got confused and thought that he'd been in the cinema when it was bombed. It was clearly something that had a shocking effect on the whole of Brighton though - it was a vivid memory for my dad right up until he died.

I have a list of the names of everyone who died in Brighton during the war (It was a subject I researched as while back after many conversations with relatives about the war) there were 4 children killed at the cinema that day as far as I can count. I think because 52 people die in the area raid there is often confusion. Nonetheless an awfull event

 

[D'Angelo Saxon]

he thinks this might've been the 1941 tip-and-run raid where FW190s bombed and strafed the place, and managed to bounce a bomb off the ground to hit the viaduct and explode.

Really?

 

[Brovion]

Really?

Apparently, yes. Well, not so much 'bounced', but it hit the ground and shot along the road, hit the viaduct support and exploded. It's not so strange when you think about it as a lot of bombs (and shells) had fuses so that their detonation was controlled by an elapsed amount of time rather than by impact.

 

[Dave the OAP]

A good friend of mine, who is also a huge ( in all senses of the word) Brighton fan was in the Falklands as an Engineering Officer on one of the support ships in San Carlos Water.

he relates a story, when the alarm went off and everyone hit the deck and a bomb dropped from a skyhawk landed next to him and "bounced" off into the sea....all he got was a load of splinters from the deck......

 

[Seagull's Return]

I've seen a photo of the Viaduct result - the track is intact, but there's brickwork blown away. Don't think the pilot was trying to bounce a bomb into a viaduct - I think the tip-and-run bombing was pretty basic, they just pointed the plane at their target and pressed the button. Well, and took potshots at passing children, obviously. Some old boy I used to know once told me that in the same raid a plane strafed Muesli Mountain as well - seems a bit mean, really. I guess we did the same (and worse) to German civilians later in the war.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

It used to be possible to make out the renewed brickwork under the viaduct. Apparently it was fixed and working again in a very short time (days?). I wonder how long such a task would take nowadays.

 

[JBD]

My uncle's wife was due to go that afternoon, but for some unknowen reason her mum suddenly changed her mind and would not let her go. The friend she was going with was killed. My aunt's father, Bob Hunt, worked at the Kemp Town Brewery was one of the first people on the scene.

 

[coventrygull]

My uncle's wife was due to go that afternoon, but for some unknowen reason her mum suddenly changed her mind and would not let her go. The friend she was going with was killed. My aunt's father, Bob Hunt, worked at the Kemp Town Brewery was one of the first people on the scene.

I wonder if the freind she was going with was my great aunt?

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

On the subject of the Kemptown Cinema tragedy, I was under the , maybe mistaken understanding, that the Albion were playing at home and that the German pilots were trying to bomb the Goldstone. It may seem as though this would have taken shooting accuracy of Georgie Samaras quality, but where I live in Glasgow is about 3 miles from Clydebank and a few houses near us were hit in the wartime shipyards blitz. The Germans were not very acurate.
Would like someone to advise if this story is true or apocryphal.

On a similar vein , my Grandmother recalled about being on Rottingdean promenade with a bout twenty other kids all waving to four planes as they sped inshore at about 50 ft altitude only to dive for cover when they realised they were Messerscmidts. They didn't shoot, I hope because they realised they were kiddies.

TNBA

TTF

 

[IKDRF]

On the subject of the Kemptown Cinema tragedy, I was under the , maybe mistaken understanding, that the Albion were playing at home and that the German pilots were trying to bomb the Goldstone. It may seem as though this would have taken shooting accuracy of Georgie Samaras quality, but where I live in Glasgow is about 3 miles from Clydebank and a few houses near us were hit in the wartime shipyards blitz. The Germans were not very acurate.
Would like someone to advise if this story is true or apocryphal.

On a similar vein , my Grandmother recalled about being on Rottingdean promenade with a bout twenty other kids all waving to four planes as they sped inshore at about 50 ft altitude only to dive for cover when they realised they were Messerscmidts. They didn't shoot, I hope because they realised they were kiddies.

TNBA



TTF

Must say that I spent a long time studying Brighton in the war and I havent come across this one. The German bomber itself was being chased and it appears to have become seperated from its squadron. This was common and Brighton was never a deliberate target just somewhere to drop your excess payload.
The path of the bombs gives an indicator that he was being chased from the Hove area which was customary because they tended to follow the line of King George V avenue-why im not sure. The funniest myth of all was the one that the Pavilion was never bombed as Hitler was going to live there after the war!
You will laugfh at this though. It is true that Lord Haw Haw once announced that 'Brighton Harbour had been bombed" in fact a few rowing boats had been taken out on Queens Park Pond! Its always good to look at official accounts although even they can be a bit exaggerated!!

 

[Alan Duffys sideburns]

On the subject of the Kemptown Cinema tragedy, I was under the , maybe mistaken understanding, that the Albion were playing at home and that the German pilots were trying to bomb the Goldstone.
TTF

Ive read the book by Mr Rowlands a good few years ago and an interesting read it certainly is...

You are right about the Albion, we were playing a match, I think against Southampton? Its the game that was abandoned after 3 minutes due to an air raid...the same air raid! The German Bomber was indeed being chased though I was sure it was going West towards Hove, so if correct, did its damage and then flew practically over the Goldstone just after. A stick of bombs from the bomber landed down the southern side of Edward Street as well killing a number of people.
On the Viaduct Bombing, the story on this one is quiet mind blowing.
The bomb first hit a garage roof then the kerb, bounced up and went straight through the casement window of a house in Argyle Road, shot along there living room floor, through the Kitchen and out through the back wall before hitting the viaduct behind it! Now thats what I call a trick shot! Only casualty was the family budgie... I actually did some research at the time of reading the book and you can clearly see where the casement bay has been rebuilt on the house....I bet the present occupiers have no clue what went on in their living room 70 years ago!

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

I worked in East Grinstead for a few years and was very shocked to learn of the wartime cinema attack that took place in 1943.

It has a lot of similarity to the Kemptown bombing and states here it was the biggest loss of life in Sussex during the war, I wonder if time has merged the two instances.

East Grinstead - Whitehall Cinema
BBC - WW2 People's War - Whitehall Cinema Bombing in East Grinstead

I live between Ditchling Road and Upper Lewes Road and my elderly neighbours talk about Lewes Road being bombed and people killed in the Fraklin Tavern.

 

[Alan Duffys sideburns]

Yeh my Nan and Grandad lived in Pevensey Road and that was their local.
They knew the landlord who died in the bombing. Very similar story to the Kemptown bombing with a lone bomber jettisoning bombs as it flew down Franklin Road, heading west. It took out the Tavern and the houses on the other side of Lewes Road, the sites became the Coop and the Petrol Station and the pub was rebuilt.

 

[cunning fergus]

When I lived in Italy in the early seventies, I was a regular visitor to a friend of mine who lived in a place called Pienza. The locals talked a lot about a bombing raid towards the end of the war that destroyed a few houses, a medieval city gate and killed a few local residents. More than a quarter of a century after the event, it was obvious that there was still a lot of anger about it - particularly since the target had no military significance whatsoever.

The interesting thing is that it was always described to me as an American attack. I found out only a few weeks ago that it was actually the British who bombed the place and the story had been "doctored" because the locals didn't want to upset their English friends.

Interesting story, did the locals offer any view on why the RAF were in Italy at the end of WW2? Weird.

 

[IKDRF]

Interesting story, did the locals offer any view on why the RAF were in Italy at the end of WW2? Weird.

sadly this was probably another example of the kind of "acts of terrorism" that churchill deplored but was overruled by harris. sometimes its the fact that there was no significance that makes it more effective. when I read about some of the events during that conflict i just find it hard to believe it was only 60 odd years ago

 

[IKDRF]

Interesting story, did the locals offer any view on why the RAF were in Italy at the end of WW2? Weird.

i found this post interesting because in my second world war studies i inderstood that apart from changing hands a few times between the germans and the americans (with a fair bit of gunfire damage to the medieval walls) the town was never actually bombed. really interested in your post.

 

[cunning fergus]

sadly this was probably another example of the kind of "acts of terrorism" that churchill deplored but was overruled by harris. sometimes its the fact that there was no significance that makes it more effective. when I read about some of the events during that conflict i just find it hard to believe it was only 60 odd years ago

Exeter, Bury St Edmonds, York, Bath, Norwich, Canterbury and other towns of no military importance whatsoever were targetted by the Germans in the Baedeker raids of WW2 solely because they were places with architectually significant buildings.

As the good burghers of those towns pulled their dead from the ruins in the aftermath of those raids, no doubt they were angry? Still, angry as they would have been they would have known who the enemy was and why they were being bombed.

I am trying to come to terms with whether those Italian residents angry that their town understood who their enemy was, was it the Allies or was it the Germans. Like I say weird.