More GAF UK Targets. Harbours 1-115

[Chris Going]

Hello Bombphoon

You have got me there, for the simple reason that I have not put together (by location) a full list of GAF UK Target documents.

OK. There are some 3,000 known allocated UK target numbers. We don’t know the identities of all of the targets (hence the ‘Unknowns’ in my various lists). Also, not all target sets survive, so one can end up having a known target, and knowing its number, but not have a document set. We can also have a likely target (a steelworks for example), and know it must be one of the ‘Unknowns’ in the category lists -see end of this note.

So who has holdings of target documents? Well, the IWM has a holding, and there is a holding at NARA (Archives 2, MD). But I think they are only about 75% duplicates of each other. There is also the so called Chiévres hoard in Mons Museum (some years ago, so the situation may be different now). Each has some unique target sets.

The biggest category is Airfields (Class 10), which is about 20% of all target numbers. Now, looking at the NARA list of UK Targets, for Leicester we have sets for targets 50/9, and 10/126 (the latter of course, is an airfield). Now, listed in the IWM list is Leicester Gaswerk (No 52/5). This is not in the NARA list as far as I know, but there is also a set in the so called Chiévres hoard (see above).

So, the best way to advance this mess is to go through the Dick Tracy catalogue of TM material (a tautology, I know) at NARA, talk nicely to IWM and get a list of theirs, and then Mons, for their list.
There are also loads of City street maps overprinted by the Germans with endless categories of breweries, waterworks, sewage works, industrial plant, hospitals, etc which are usually offered by auction houses who think these are bombing maps and thus ask for silly prices. They are not but the point is, if you can get one of Leicester, you will be able to pick off the gasworks, steelworks, dog tracks, etc which THEY have highlighted or otherwise identified, and you will have a list of targets for which, as like as not, target sets would have been in preparation, or printed up (but which are now unknowns).

Another way, is to get all of the target Stammkennzeichnen (which will be with the sets), as on these are often listed numbers of nearby targets. By this route, little by little, it should be possible to whittle down the number of ‘unknowns’.
I’m in the process of writing some of this up, so if you like, I will keep you posted on progress.

Best

ChrisG

[Bombphoon]

Originally Posted by Chris Going

Hello Bombphoon

You have got me there, for the simple reason that I have not put together (by location) a full list of GAF UK Target documents.

OK. There are some 3,000 known allocated UK target numbers. We don’t know the identities of all of the targets (hence the ‘Unknowns’ in my various lists). Also, not all target sets survive, so one can end up having a known target, and knowing its number, but not have a document set. We can also have a likely target (a steelworks for example), and know it must be one of the ‘Unknowns’ in the category lists -see end of this note.

So who has holdings of target documents? Well, the IWM has a holding, and there is a holding at NARA (Archives 2, MD). But I think they are only about 75% duplicates of each other. There is also the so called Chiévres hoard in Mons Museum (some years ago, so the situation may be different now). Each has some unique target sets.

The biggest category is Airfields (Class 10), which is about 20% of all target numbers. Now, looking at the NARA list of UK Targets, for Leicester we have sets for targets 50/9, and 10/126 (the latter of course, is an airfield). Now, listed in the IWM list is Leicester Gaswerk (No 52/5). This is not in the NARA list as far as I know, but there is also a set in the so called Chiévres hoard (see above).

So, the best way to advance this mess is to go through the Dick Tracy catalogue of TM material (a tautology, I know) at NARA, talk nicely to IWM and get a list of theirs, and then Mons, for their list.
There are also loads of City street maps overprinted by the Germans with endless categories of breweries, waterworks, sewage works, industrial plant, hospitals, etc which are usually offered by auction houses who think these are bombing maps and thus ask for silly prices. They are not but the point is, if you can get one of Leicester, you will be able to pick off the gasworks, steelworks, dog tracks, etc which THEY have highlighted or otherwise identified, and you will have a list of targets for which, as like as not, target sets would have been in preparation, or printed up (but which are now unknowns).

Another way, is to get all of the target Stammkennzeichnen (which will be with the sets), as on these are often listed numbers of nearby targets. By this route, little by little, it should be possible to whittle down the number of ‘unknowns’.
I’m in the process of writing some of this up, so if you like, I will keep you posted on progress.

Best

ChrisG

Chris - very interesting, many thanks - and yes, I would like to follow your progress, please. TBH, I'm just amazed none of these august organisations have sorted a full list in the last 77 years since 1945!

[Chris Going]

It might seem amazing that there isn’t a definitive list of UK targets -or captured target documents, but when one thinks about it further, one gets a bit more sanguine.

One of the things the Western Allies were keen to do in the early Cold war era was keep under wraps what they actually had secured in 1945-6: films, prints, target documents, the lot- so while there was quite a vast amount of cataloguing and evaluation of documents seized (the so called ‘Turban’ programme) this tended to be written up in reports and lists which got destroyed when they were ‘perished’ (in service terms). There’s a report commenced in 1949 which aimed to record the ‘prehistory of Turban’ before memories faded (the author of it noted that there had been a dislike of writing things down and a ‘preference for the telephone’ among Turban personnel), and there is a document by a slightly demob-happy guy in 1960 which is in the UK National Archives, which is a great read. These are rare survivals. Unless documents and lists were declared to be ‘Historic’, a process not everything went through, they were destroyed.

I’m not sure when the Chièvres hoard (got accent wrong last time) turned up -probably soon after the area was freed in late 1944 at a guess, but Dick Tracy was May-June 45, and the IWM stuff probably from 21 AG and a mix of this and that. They were once all catalogued, but precious little of that has come down to us after 77 years.

Best

ChrisG