Commemorative Vigil Marks 84th Anniversary of City’s Blitz

A candlelit vigil took place to observe the 84th anniversary of a city’s near destruction. Approximately 100 individuals gathered for a service on Thursday evening within the ruins of Coventry Cathedral to remember the more than 550 people who perished in an attack carried out by German bomber planes. The air raid, which occurred on the night of November 14, 1940, constituted the single most concentrated assault on a British city during World War Two. Kenneth Barber, who was only five years old at the time, recounted the sounds of bombs and guns during the 12 hours he spent in a shelter on Spon Street. “It started at half past five, quarter to six, the sirens went, and my mother said we’ve all got to go to the shelters, so we all went down Spon Street to the viaduct where the shelters was,” Mr Barber said. “Then we got in the shelters and then say from 6’oclock at night to six the following morning, all you could here was the… bombs and the guns blasting away merrily. And my mother said we can’t go home.” The remembrance service at the cathedral, led by Reverend John Witcombe, included prayers and performances by choirs. Phillip Budd, who attended the event, was born on the night of the blitz. He stated, “Well I was told that my father, who lived quite close to here, you could see the cathedral from our back bedroom window… He persuaded my mother to go to his sister’s in Loughborough.” He added, “My father spent a night under the stairs.” Updates from BBC Coventry & Warwickshire can be found on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X, and Instagram. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC holds no responsibility for the content of external sites. Information regarding our approach to external linking is available.