While discussing the HGIS project in labs “the Bombsight” it really caught my attention. It was very interesting to know where the bombings were yet difficult to differentiate them. The Project is the mapping of London world war two bomb census between 7/10/1940 to 06/06/1941. The project scanned the locations of all the falling bombs recorded on the map. Personally, I always liked learning about where the bombings were located in WW2 and learning about how many were there in the region that affected civilians and homes. The Bomb sight was created by a collaboration between of individuals (Doctors, University of Portsmouth stepping, web developers etc). This indicates that this is a good source since the website was created by individuals that were knowledgeable about this topic.
What is interesting is that there is information about the location of different defences built to prevent a German Invasion. There were also memories from the BBC WW2 achieve( people’s stories to the area), and Images from the Imperial war Museum collections. There is also variety of data such as Raster maps of aggregate night time bomb census, raster maps of weekly bomb census, 24 hours of blitz, present day street map titles and present day aerial imagery, etc. This help viewers to see the impact of the war and realize how devastating it is. Also it gives an accurate visual of the event with all this data provided on this site. There is also mobile app that features on this website, making it easier for users to navigate on the go. In addition, The Bomb sight has statistics about the London Btlitz which indicates the total number of high explosive bombs dropped from 7th October 1940 to 6th June 1941 in a specific location and a weekly bomb census which is interesting. Also another thing is that map is very interactive as when you press the “Explore” option on the Bomb Sight you are able to see different areas of London that have been affected by the bombing such as “Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley etc. It is very helpful/useful to access the different locations. Overall, this is a great source as a lot of data and research existed on this site.
There were things that were difficult about this source. One being it was hard to navigate through the map as it was hard to zoom enough to see the bombs separate. It was hard to locate a very specific location on the map as the bombings were all clustered together. Secondly, I personally believe that they should’ve differentiated between high explosive bombings and non- high explosive bombings to give an effect to the viewers. It is just overwhelming to see all the bombs clustered in one area all at once. Thirdly, there should’ve been information about the intensities of the bombing as they could’ve added a layer saying which bombings were detrimental to the area.
HIST2P26 