Bombsite

A bombsite is the wreckage that remains after a bomb has destroyed a building or other structure.

World War II bombsites

After World War II many European cities remained severely damaged from bombing. London and other British cities which had suffered the Blitz were pock-marked with bombsites, vacant lots covered in the rubble of destroyed buildings. Many postwar children in urban areas shared a common memory of playing their games and riding their bicycles across these desolate environments. There were often abandoned bombshelters of the 'Anderson' type nearby.

In London, Liverpool, Bristol, etc., across the channel in Berlin and other places these sites were constant reminders of the death and destruction of the war. This was a contributory factor to the European psycho-sociological outlook of the 1950s and 1960s. The German city of Dresden suffered a previously unprecedented level of destruction.

Bombsites in Literature and Media

The rubble of Viennese bombsites and the remnants of the city's battered infrastructure serve as a backdrop to much of the action in the movie The Third Man, written by Graham Greene, an author who would return to this bombsite motif again. Also, author Graham Greene references to bombsites in his 1954 short story "The Destructors".

See also

• Aerial bombing of cities
• Urban renewal
• Air-raid shelter

External links

• Photograph: Bristol's last Bomb Site
• London Discovery Tours offers walks around the London bomb sites
• Photograph: Open spaces in Portsmouth where bombs had fallen
• Photographs: World War 2 Bomb Sites
• On Google Maps: V2 sites in Walthamstow
• Summary of 'The Destructors' by Graham Greene (from litsum.com)
• Summary of 'The Destructors' by Graham Greene (from enotes.com)
• Other essays analysing Graham Greene's 'The Destructors'
• Images of London bomb damage and related material
• The Psychological effects of war and violence on children By Lewis A. Leavitt, Nathan A. Fox on Google Books