WW II bomb craters visible on satellite images?

[Georg Schwarz]

Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

[sctvguy1]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

I would think that WWI craters, being more numerous, would show up.

[Musicman59]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Aren't the craters at Normandy still very visible?

Craig

[Michele]

Post by Musicman59

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Aren't the craters at Normandy still very visible?

Sure, Pointe du Hoc. It doesn't depend on how impressive the craters were,
however; it depends on nobody touching them afterwards.

[dumbstruck]

I popped into google earth and could easily see craters at Fosse
Ardeatine south of Rome where the SS tried to hide the scene of their
civilian massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine_massacre#Massacre
. But they used too much explosives and parts of the roof of the cave
collapsed, which you can now see in person at it's memorial or in
google. I could tell that almost nobody takes the trail on top of the
cave, evidenced by the weeds. So that is a special case where erosion
enhances rather than melts away evidence.

I couldn't see craters from the Pearl Harbor attack that should be
easily visible, because google is apparently fuzzing out details of
the military bases there. They are preserved in the old bits of
pavement that haven't been replaced (some still with metal shards) as
well as plenty of strafing remains. The machine gun trails skip a
bullet every handful of impacts, which somebody said was for cooling,
but I think it was for guns synchronized thru the propeller (skipping
for each blade).

[Dave Smith]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Take a look at Pennemunde on Google Maps. There are clusters of what
look like craters around the air strip.

In the 65 plus years since the WWII bombing campaigns, most European
cities have rebuilt. A lot of bombs missed the intended cities and ended
up blowing up in farm land or forests. Having been worked regularly
every year, the soil has been plowed up disked, tilled and harrowed to
the point where all traces are likely to have disappeared years ago.
Forests have regrown, and there may be craters on the floor of the
forest but the trees hide the craters.


FWIW, I visited the battlefields at Verdun a number of years ago. It is
an eerie sight with all those craters. There were about 4 million rounds
of artillery used in the the long battle there. Almost every square foot
of the battle filed is cratered. There are craters inside craters and
craters on the edge of craters.Everywhere you look you see craters. Yet,
looking at the satellite image, you cannot see them. What was bare earth
90 years ago is now lush forest.

[Rhino]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Take a look at Pennemunde on Google Maps. There are clusters of what look
like craters around the air strip.

Actually, that's "Peenemunde", not "Pennemunde". I don't say that to
criticize anyone's typing or spelling but just to make it easier for the OP
to find it in reference materials....

In the 65 plus years since the WWII bombing campaigns, most European
cities have rebuilt. A lot of bombs missed the intended cities and ended
up blowing up in farm land or forests. Having been worked regularly every
year, the soil has been plowed up disked, tilled and harrowed to the point
where all traces are likely to have disappeared years ago. Forests have
regrown, and there may be craters on the floor of the forest but the trees
hide the craters.
FWIW, I visited the battlefields at Verdun a number of years ago. It is an
eerie sight with all those craters. There were about 4 million rounds of
artillery used in the the long battle there. Almost every square foot of
the battle filed is cratered. There are craters inside craters and craters
on the edge of craters.Everywhere you look you see craters. Yet, looking
at the satellite image, you cannot see them. What was bare earth 90 years
ago is now lush forest.

It really is amazing how so much of the damage from all the violence of war
disappears over time. I still remember my first visit to Berlin in 1983. I'd
seen plenty of photographs and film footage of the destruction and expected
to still see substantial visible destruction but there was almost nothing. I
saw a few bullet grazes on a building in East Berlin and, of course, the
Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was deliberately maintained in a ruined state as
a reminder of the cost of war. But all of the bombed out buildings and bomb
craters were repaired or torn down.

Of course, a pre-War Berliner would surely have seen much more evidence of
the war when he looked at other changes. Hitler's Chancery was, of course,
gone and the Berlin Wall was there, dividing his city.

--
Rhino

[Michele]

Post by Rhino
It really is amazing how so much of the damage from all the violence of
war disappears over time. I still remember my first visit to Berlin in
1983. I'd seen plenty of photographs and film footage of the destruction
and expected to still see substantial visible destruction but there was
almost nothing. I saw a few bullet grazes on a building in East Berlin
and, of course, the Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was deliberately
maintained in a ruined state as a reminder of the cost of war. But all of
the bombed out buildings and bomb craters were repaired or torn down.

I saw several old buildings with pockmarked facades, actually, and I went
there later than 1983.

This:
http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/mahnmal/bolti.html
was created in 1990, after your first visit.

And then, of course, there is the Teufelsberg, and other rubble-made
hillocks.

[Bob Martin]

Post by Michele

Post by Rhino
It really is amazing how so much of the damage from all the violence of
war disappears over time. I still remember my first visit to Berlin in
1983. I'd seen plenty of photographs and film footage of the destruction
and expected to still see substantial visible destruction but there was
almost nothing. I saw a few bullet grazes on a building in East Berlin
and, of course, the Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was deliberately
maintained in a ruined state as a reminder of the cost of war. But all of
the bombed out buildings and bomb craters were repaired or torn down.

I saw several old buildings with pockmarked facades, actually, and I went
there later than 1983.
http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/mahnmal/bolti.html
was created in 1990, after your first visit.
And then, of course, there is the Teufelsberg, and other rubble-made
hillocks.

I used to walk to the top of the Birkenkopf, just to the south of Stuttgart.
Built with the rubble from the city centre.

[ThePro]

Post by Michele
And then, of course, there is the Teufelsberg, and other rubble-made
hillocks.

It is my understanding that some pieces of the famous "flak
towers" (Flakturm) are still visible.

Pierrot Robert

[Georg Schwarz]

Post by ThePro
It is my understanding that some pieces of the famous "flak
towers" (Flakturm) are still visible.

true, but just one of the orginally three locations. There are numerous
WW II bunkers still standing in Berlin as well as all over Germany and
in many other European countries. They are typically just too solid to
be removed.

[Georg Schwarz]

Post by Michele
I saw several old buildings with pockmarked facades, actually, and I went
there later than 1983.

you can still do so today.

[Bay Man]

Post by Georg Schwarz

Post by Michele
I saw several old buildings with pockmarked
facades, actually, and I went there later than 1983.

you can still do so today.

As a kid in Liverpool I would play in bombed out buildings. They were
everywhere, specially near the docks - railways goods terminals and the
likes. The shells were left for decades after the war. I spent a week in
hospital falling through the floor of one. Am I a victim of WW2? :-)

There are still some vacant lots in Liverpool city centre that were never
built on after the buildings were bombed - they are temporary surface car
parking, and have been for 70 years.

Here is the record for the bombing on Liverpool - I'm sure not that
comprehensive. Lone plane raids were recorded.The last raid in 1942 was on
Alois Hitler's house in Stanhope St - Hitler's brother. This is only on
Liverpool and not the abutting towns or Birkenhead on the opposite bank of
the river.
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?22218-Liverpool-Blitz&p=241646&viewfull=1#post241646

Loading Image...

[Georg Schwarz]

Post by Rhino
It really is amazing how so much of the damage from all the violence of war
disappears over time. I still remember my first visit to Berlin in 1983. I'd
seen plenty of photographs and film footage of the destruction and expected
to still see substantial visible destruction but there was almost nothing. I
saw a few bullet grazes on a building in East Berlin and, of course, the
Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was deliberately maintained in a ruined state as
a reminder of the cost of war. But all of the bombed out buildings and bomb
craters were repaired or torn down.

there were still a few bombed out buildings left in Berlin Mitte (Center
District) even in the 1990s. The Humboldt University had a building half
of which was in ruins whereas the other half was housing a lecture room
in use. Also, the "News Museum" was only very recently rennovated. Until
a few years ago, it had still been a partially bombed-out ruin.
See e.g. on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_Museum

[Bay Man]

Post by Rhino
It really is amazing how so much of the damage from all the violence of
war disappears over time. I still remember my first visit to Berlin in
1983. I'd seen plenty of photographs and film footage of the destruction
and expected to still see substantial visible destruction but there was
almost nothing.

The older classical buildings in Munich are spattered with small shrapnel
holes.

[Georg Schwarz]

Post by Bay Man
The older classical buildings in Munich are spattered with small shrapnel
holes.

which makes me wonder where they come from? Bombing? AFAIK there was no
steet fighting in Munich when it was taken by US forces in April 1945
(unlike e.g. Berlin).

[Bay Man]

Post by Georg Schwarz

Post by Bay Man
The older classical buildings in Munich are spattered with small shrapnel
holes.

which makes me wonder where they come from? Bombing? AFAIK there was no
steet fighting in Munich when it was taken by US forces in April 1945
(unlike e.g. Berlin).

Intensive bombing.

[E.F.Schelby]

Post by Bay Man

Post by Georg Schwarz

Post by Bay Man
The older classical buildings in Munich are spattered with small shrapnel
holes.

which makes me wonder where they come from? Bombing? AFAIK there was no
steet fighting in Munich when it was taken by US forces in April 1945
(unlike e.g. Berlin).

Intensive bombing.

Best description/account: the author, severely wounded on the
Russian front, lived in Munich during the bombing/s.

Gert Ledig _Vergeltung_ Suhrkamp 2001, (Originally published in
1956).

English translation 2003 - title _Payback_. (Available from Amazon).


ES

[Disproportionate Rabbit]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Google Earth - craters from the tallboy sinking of the Tirpitz.

69 38'48.54"N 18 48'21.46"E

[Don Phillipson]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

A likely candidate is Fauld, Staffordshire, England where an underground
bomb dump (in a mine) exploded late in WW2, the biggest explosion on
British soil, probably the biggest in European history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauld_Explosion says "The resulting crater was
120 metres (400 ft) deep and 1,200 metres (0.75 miles) across and is still
clearly visible just south of the village of Fauld." But this seems to
mean
the crater is noticed by visitors on the site. A link to Google Maps is
provided
but no crater is now visible. Vegetation and the normal boundaries of
small English fields seem to disguise the site nowadays.

[Disproportionate Rabbit]

Post by Don Phillipson
the crater is noticed by visitors on the site. A link to Google Maps is
provided
but no crater is now visible. Vegetation and the normal boundaries of
small English fields seem to disguise the site nowadays.

It is still visible on Google Maps - if you pull the image back a bit
you'll see a group of trees in the shape of a Y. The right hand arm of
the Y points along the crater depression to the epicentre in the bottom
part of the wood, marked by a circular patch right at the lower edge
where the fields end. It is about 500' wide and judging by the height of
the trees inside, several hundred feet deep at the centre. If you follow
the fence lines and shadows you can see the size of the original
depression that has been turned back into fields again, sloping deeply
toward the circular inner crater.

Dave.

[Carey]

Post by Disproportionate Rabbit

Post by Don Phillipson
the crater is noticed by visitors on the site. A link to Google Maps is
provided
but no crater is now visible. Vegetation and the normal boundaries of
small English fields seem to disguise the site nowadays.

It is still visible on Google Maps - if you pull the image back a bit
you'll see a group of trees in the shape of a Y. The right hand arm of
the Y points along the crater depression to the epicentre in the bottom
part of the wood, marked by a circular patch right at the lower edge
where the fields end. It is about 500' wide and judging by the height of
the trees inside, several hundred feet deep at the centre.

It is 30 meters deep. The blast occurred in a mine gallery 35 m below
the surface, and it basically blew off the entire overburden, with the
fall-back filling in the crater excavated below gallery level.

At the top of the crater there is a spout-like extension that makes the
crater longer than 300 m if you include it. It is the mine entrance
tunnel which was excavated by the blast. The mine was originally a
horizontal shaft driven due south into the side of plateau.

Some 2000 tons of unexploded bombs remain buried under the plateau. No
doubt there are strict prohibitions about digging.

Here is an interesting report about the geology of the site and the mine:
http://www.emgs.org.uk/files/local_geology/15(2)_fauld_crater.pdf

An aerial picture of the crater shortly after the blast (see bottom of
page):
http://www.century20war.co.uk/page3.html

A picture of the crater in the early 1950s before the trees grew in:
http://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=11770

A UK Ordnance survey map of the site:
http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm?mapAction=gaz&gazName=g&gazString=SK1814127805

[Carey]

Post by Don Phillipson

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

A likely candidate is Fauld, Staffordshire, England where an underground
bomb dump (in a mine) exploded late in WW2, the biggest explosion on
British soil, probably the biggest in European history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauld_Explosion says "The resulting crater was
120 metres (400 ft) deep and 1,200 metres (0.75 miles) across and is still
clearly visible just south of the village of Fauld." But this seems to
mean
the crater is noticed by visitors on the site. A link to Google Maps is
provided
but no crater is now visible. Vegetation and the normal boundaries of
small English fields seem to disguise the site nowadays.

Largest in British history but not European history. The Heligoland
Island blast on April 18, 1947, designed to destroy the U Boat
facilities there was twice as large. Since this blast was staged by the
UK it is ironically called "the British Bang".

And the crater is clearly visible in the Google Maps image, despite
being covered with wood. It is the ovoid shape with a path around the
rim. It is not as large as reported, only 300 meters on the long axis
(and 250 m wide) likely because the original "crater size" was likely
the blast-cleared zone which was mostly superficial in terms of turning
soil.

Look at the pictures here to see images that make this quite clear:

http://www.tutburyhistory.co.uk/fauld.html

[Dave]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

Pointe du Hoc, France using Google Earth.

Lots of uploaded snapshots from ground level too.

[Roger Basford]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

There's a V2 crater on the outskirts of my village in Norfolk. Co-ords
from Google Earth are 52°30'46.77"N 1°34'40.06"E. It shows as a rather
uninteresting crop mark on Google but at other times of the year a clear
depression can be seen from the B1136 to the north of the site. Damage
was caused to the houses close to the site and to the Hall to the east
of the site.

Roger Basford

[Mario]

Post by Roger Basford

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern
satellite images?

There's a V2 crater on the outskirts of my village in Norfolk.
Co-ords
from Google Earth are 52°30'46.77"N 1°34'40.06"E. It shows as
a rather uninteresting crop mark on Google but at other times
of the year a clear depression can be seen from the B1136 to
the north of the site. Damage was caused to the houses close
to the site and to the Hall to the east of the site.

Wandering around using Google Maps I found a round hole near the
sea at these coordinates:
51.582052,0.859063

Could it be a V2 explosion point?

There is some kind of a structure around it.

[Roger Basford]

Post by Mario
Wandering around using Google Maps I found a round hole near the
51.582052,0.859063
Could it be a V2 explosion point?
There is some kind of a structure around it.

That's a distinct possibility, as there were apparently several V2
impacts on Foulness Island during the V2 campaign .

Search on:- http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/timeline.html

[John Strong]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?

I first saw these flying along the river in a helicopter.

53deg 13' 01.88" N
8deg 30' 07.25" E

--

[i***@optusnet.com.au]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/

Take a look in fields around Oberlodla and Rositz on Google Earth. Operation Thunderclap carpet bombed this area in 1945 with bombs 500 to 4,000 pounds.

[s***@googlemail.com]

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/

Lincolnshire Wolds look pretty pock marked still -
the chalk terrain still shows up the craters through
the thin soil cover. Have a look around the
Great Tows area. German bombers just unloading
I guess befre they returned home not having found
their targets?

[john Szalay]

Post by s***@googlemail.com

Post by Georg Schwarz
Are there still any WW II bomb craters visible on modern satellite
images?
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/

Lincolnshire Wolds look pretty pock marked still -
the chalk terrain still shows up the craters through
the thin soil cover. Have a look around the
Great Tows area. German bombers just unloading
I guess befre they returned home not having found
their targets?

probably aiming for the chain home tower at Lincolnshire Wolds

&

RAF Ludford Magna was less then a mile from Great Tows.
(Lancaster base)



look around Pointe du Hoc
its pitted..


look at almost any point on the french coast where there were
defense sites.

Heligoland.



Grand slam test bomb crater
50°55'33.58"N 1°43'2.84"W

target building
50°55'34.60"N 1°42'58.78"W