Hit zoomable London map shows exactly where German bombs fell

A new interactive map shows off the horrifying scale of the German aerial assault on London during World War II.

The Bomb Sight project is a zoomable map which zooms down to street level, showing where individual bombs fell during one of the most intense periods of the Blitz.

Many London streets were hit several times during the period, when the Luftwaffe bombed London for 57 consecutive nights, dropping tonnes of bombs.

A Bomb Sight app lets users look ‘through’ their phone’s camera to see where bombs fell on a ‘live’ version of London – superimposing devastating German attacks over today’s rebuilt London.

The map uses information from a ‘bomb census’ between 1/10/1940 and 06/06/1941 – and mixes information on bombs, with text and photographs from the period.

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Locations for individual bombs are mapped along with photographs from the Imperial War Museum and text from the BBC ‘People’s War’ archive.

The information was previously only available in the National Archives.

“Previously available only by viewing in the Reading Room at The National Archives, Bomb Sight is making the maps available to citizen researchers, academics and students wanting to explore where the bombs fell and to discover memories and photographs from the period,” the academics behind the project say.

The map works in any web browser and is accessible here. There is also an Android app in development which allows users to look 'through' their phone cameras to see the locations of bombs.

“The augmented reality view shows you markers hovering over where bombs fell, scaled to show closer locations with larger markers and smaller ones for those further away,” say its creators.

“We add a label with the name of the street it fell on. If you click on the marker, you’ll get a bit more information about the bomb and how far away from your location it fell.”