The Newsreel Command Decision at Coventry 1940

The Coventry blitz (blitz: from the German word Blitzkrieg meaning "lightning war"About this sound listen (help·info)) was a series of bombing raids that took place on the English city of Coventry. The city was bombed many times during World War II by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe). The most devastating of these attacks occurred on the evening of 14 November 1940.There were seventeen small raids on Coventry during the Battle of Britain between August and October 1940 during which around 198 tons of bombs fell. Together, the raids killed 176 people and injured around 680.[3] The most notable damage was to the new Rex Cinema which had been opened only in February 1937 and had already been closed by an earlier bombing raid in September.
On 17 October 1940, Second Lieutenant Sandy Campbell of the Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Company was called upon to deal with an unexploded bomb that had fallen at the Triumph Engineering Company's works in Canley. War production in two factories had ceased on a temporary basis because of it, with a large number of people living nearby having to be evacuated. Campbell found that the bomb was fitted with a delayed action fuse that was impossible to remove, so he decided to transport it to a safe place. That was done by lorry, and he lay alongside the bomb so that he could hear if it started ticking and could warn the driver to stop and run for cover. Having taken it to a safe distance, he disposed of the bomb successfully but was killed whilst dealing with another bomb the next day. Campbell was posthumously awarded a George Cross for his actions on 17 October 1940.The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers, from Luftflotte 3 and from the pathfinders of Kampfgruppe 100. The attack, code-named Operation Mondscheinsonate (Moonlight Sonata), was intended to destroy Coventry's factories and industrial infrastructure, although it was clear that damage to the rest of the city, including monuments and residential areas, would be considerable. The initial wave of 13 specially modified Heinkel He 111 aircraft of Kampfgruppe 100, which were equipped with X-Gerät navigational devices, accurately dropped marker flares at 19:20.[6] The British and the Germans were fighting the Battle of the Beams and on this night the British failed to disrupt the X-Gerät signals.
The first wave of follow-up bombers dropped high explosive bombs, knocking out the utilities (the water supply, electricity network, telephones and gas mains) and cratering the roads, making it difficult for the fire engines to reach fires started by the later waves of bombers. These later waves dropped a combination of high explosive and incendiary bombs. There were two types of incendiary bomb: those made of magnesium and those made of petroleum. The high explosive bombs and the larger air-mines were not only designed to hamper the Coventry fire brigade, they were also intended to damage roofs, making it easier for the incendiary bombs to fall into buildings and ignite them.