The Moonlight Sonata Raid: The Destruction of Coventry

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Moonlight Sonata Raid

I am going to write this about Coventry and the events that preceded the Moonlight Sonata Raid so that you can understand the importance and the relevance of the raid . I 'm also going to tell you about the raid itself , which happened on November 14 , 1940 . It 's an important date , that 's why I mention it here . It had an impact on me and on the world and it changed my life . There were so many things that

went into this , the forces and weapons that were used against the city the destruction of the city and the cathedral , the efforts of the fire watching crew . And it had controversy - there were things that the British Intelligence knew , and there was an issue over the code , and the decoded message . This is a story that needs to be told . So let 's go back to the days of Coventry , and the events that led to the raid

It would seem that the attack on Coventry was a reprisal act because of a prior attack by Britain - the German High Command issued a communiquy describing the attack on Coventry as a reprisal for the British attack on Munich - the birthplace of the Nazi party (On this Day , 2005 . Of course , it wasn 't by mistake that they chose Coventry - it was important to the war effort because there were numerous engine works and aero accessory factories (On This Day , 2005 . I know . My father worked in one . There were also targets of military importance there

The attack itself took place on November 14 1940 . The air raid actually led to the destruction of the artistic heritage of Coventry 's great medieval Church , Coventry Cathedral , and although it was probably unintentional , irony lies in the fact that it had an artistic code name (About Moonlight Sonata , 2004 . Being a Christian and a fan of heritage myself , I however , could not fail to notice it

Less art and more shocking , desensitizing gore lies in the fact that the Lutwaffe used hundreds of bombers , thousands of high explosives , and tens of thousands of incendiary bombs to attack Coventry (Greenwood Publishing Group , 1995 . The official death toll for the evening was 554 but the real figure could be somewhat higher if you take into account all the after effects (Heritage Open Days Fact , 2000 . It was the single most concentrated attack on a British city during the entire war and sparked a new German phrase , Coventrieren , meaning to raze a city to the ground . It lasted nearly 11 hours and by midday of the next day , in Coventry it was as warm as a spring day and nearly dark because of the after effects of the bombing . There is an upshot of all this . By 1956 Coventry had adopted two German cities , Kiel and Dresden , and the ruined Cathedral is now an international symbol of peace and reconciliation

A drop in the ocean in the full horror of the war , you might say , but poignant the less

There has been major controversy over this raid . There were some brainy people working for British Intelligence , among them Professor RV Jones who was investigating the German radio beam system , with a view to discovering how to counteract it . I had the fortunate position of working as a junior underneath him and I remember many conversations during this time . Also in this time , other Britishers had been able to break the code the Germans employed , the Enigma Code . The method that was used to do this was highly secret and a technological marvel for the day . It was named Ultra but the British referred to it as The Bomb so effective was it in cracking the code that the Germans thought was uncrackable

So , via this radio beam transmitter , Jones received a decoded message on Sunday 10 November 1940 . It gave detail of three British targets which the British worked out to be Wolverhampton , Birmingham and Coventry . I had the task of informing three other top British Intelligence guys about this . The following day another message was received which contained s for what was evidently to be very major operations under the code name "Moonlight Sonata . However , they still did not receive details of when and where , and when no bombing raids were made on 11-13th November 1940 , everybody was braced for a major attack on the 14th . It was never certain which of the targets were to be attacked first . And then the raid came , with devastating effect (WW2 Peoples War , 2005

So the question has to be asked , why if the British knew about it wasn 't something done ? We can theorize about this greatly , I knew I was confused about why we weren 't doing anything . Professor Jones tried to rationalize it to me with the following theory that he held : Under no circumstances could Britain give away the fact that they had cracked Enigma . Defense of Coventry would give this away (Writing .com . Giving this information to Germany would mean that they would immediately create another code and the work , achievements and expense of years would be lost

In a nutshell the decision that would have had to be made by Winston Churchill is whether the loss involved in the attack of an undefended Coventry would be greater than the loss involved should Germany find out that their code had been cracked

This story has all the elements of a classic drama - truth , tragedy pain , twists in the tale and warm-heartedness in the fact that the cathedral is now a symbol of peace - you can see why I , who was there needed to tell it now

Works Cited

About Moonlight Sonata , 2004 , retrieved 30 March 2006 from the

Website HYPERLINK "http /www2 .warwick .ac .uk /fac /soc /wie /NEOTHEMI /PavilionLinks /MoonlightS onata http /www2 .warwick .ac .uk /fac /soc /wie /NEOTHEMI /PavilionLinks /MoonlightSo nata

Greenwood Publishing Group , 2005 , retrieved 30 March 2006 from

The website http /doi .contentdirections .com /mr /greenwood .jsp ?doi 10 .1336

On This Day , 2005 , retrieved 30 March 2006 from the website http /news .bbc .co .uk /onthisday /hi /dates /stories /november /15 /newsid_3522 000 /3522785 .stm

WW2 People 's War , 2005 , retrieved 30 March 2006 from the website http /www .bbc .co .uk /dna /ww2 /A3714563

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