Bournemouth At War / BOMBING Traditional Cache

Bournemouth has a great history. I have documented many famous people, major events and occurrences in previous geocaching series highlighting the history of Bournemouth. This series focuses on many of the key incidents and stories in the town when Bournemouth was at war. A complete list of all the caches in this series are bookmarked.

With the war getting deadlier, warnings of enemy bombing became more frequent in 1943. In January alone, 18 times the sirens sounded, but no bombs were dropped. It was not long however before that changed.



Bombs fell all over the town - Upper Terrace Road; Exeter Road (at the bus station where many windows were blown out); Lansdowne Road; Queens Park South Drive; Richmond Wood Road; Howard Road; Bethia Road; Drummond Road; Manor Road; Vale Road; Spring Road; Holdenhurst Road; Cleveland Road; Cotlands Road; Dean Park Road.

The Vale Road bomb damaged 38 Carlton Road which was being used as a children’s hostel. The Matron lost her life trying to save the evacuees. Unfortunately, one 4-year old boy also lost his life. The location of the bombing can be viewed from where the cache is placed.