Editing Bombsite

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{too few opinions|date=December 2010}}
[[File:Bomb Damage in London, England, April 1945 CH15118.jpg|thumb|Bomb damage to the [[City of London]] in 1945]]
A '''bombsite''' is the wreckage that remains after a bomb has destroyed a building or other structure.

==World War II bombsites==
After [[World War II]] many [[Europe]]an cities remained severely damaged from bombing. [[London]] and other British cities which had suffered the [[The Blitz|Blitz]] were pock-marked with bombsites, vacant lots covered in the rubble of destroyed buildings. Many postwar children in urban areas shared a common memory of playing their games and riding their bicycles across these desolate environments.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/33/a4029833.shtml
|title=Bombed Houses and Bomb Sites
|last=Clark
|first=Fred
|work=WW2 People's War: An archive of World War Two memories – written by the public, gathered by the BBC
|publisher=[[BBC]]
|date=8 May 2005
|accessdate=8 September 2010
|archive-date=12 October 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111012231756/http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/33/a4029833.shtml
|url-status=dead
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite news
|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/britainatwarreadersmemories/4697944/Britain-at-War-Bomb-sites-were-interesting.html
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090511095953/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/britainatwarreadersmemories/4697944/Britain-at-War-Bomb-sites-were-interesting.html
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=11 May 2009
|title=Britain at War: Bomb sites were interesting
|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|location=London
|author=Hill, Roy J.
|date=19 February 2009
|accessdate=8 September 2010}}</ref> There were often abandoned bombshelters of the '[[Air-raid shelter#Anderson shelter|Anderson]]' type nearby.

In London, [[Liverpool]], [[Bristol]], etc., across the channel in [[Berlin]] and other places these sites were constant reminders of the death and destruction of the war. This was a contributory factor to the European [[Social psychology|psycho-sociological]] outlook of the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>
{{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zOw3IojOJ7oC&dq=bomb+sites&pg=PA157
|title=Materiel Culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth-Century Conflict
|volume=44|series=One World Archaeology
|first1=John|last1=Schofield
|first2=William Gray|last2=Johnson
|first3=Colleen M.|last3=Beck
|publisher=Taylor and Francis
|year=2004
|isbn=978-0-203-16574-4}}</ref><ref>
{{cite journal
|title=Rebuilding Berlin
|first=Hans|last=Stephan
|journal=The Town Planning Review
|volume=29|number=4|date=January 1959|pages=207–226
|publisher=Liverpool University Press
|jstor=40102263|doi=10.3828/tpr.29.4.v855122271m87750}}</ref><ref>
{{cite journal
|journal=New Society
|volume=59
|publisher=New Society Ltd.
|year=1982
|pages=217–218}}</ref> The German city of [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|Dresden]] suffered a previously unprecedented level of destruction.<ref>
{{cite news
|url=http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-56824-3.html
|title=Photo Gallery: Dresden's Postwar Ambitions Divide Architects
|work=[[Der Spiegel]]}}</ref>

==In literature and media==
The rubble of [[Vienna|Viennese]] bombsites and the remnants of the city's battered infrastructure serve as a backdrop to much of the action in the movie ''[[The Third Man (film)|The Third Man]]'', written by [[Graham Greene]], an author who would return to this bombsite motif again in his 1954 short story "[[The Destructors]]".

==See also==

* [[Aerial bombing of cities]]
* [[Urban renewal]]
* [[Air-raid shelter]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/246427349/ Photograph: Bristol's last Bomb Site]
* [http://www.enotes.com/destructors Summary of 'The Destructors' by Graham Greene (from enotes.com)]

==Further reading==
* {{Cite journal|last=Moshenska|first=G.|year=2009|title=Resonant Materiality and Violent Remembering: Archaeology, Memory and Bombing|journal=International Journal of Heritage Studies|volume=15|number=1|pages=44–56|doi=10.1080/13527250902746062|s2cid=144528743}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Mellor|first=L.|year=2004|title=Words from the bombsites: debris, modernism and literary salvage|journal=Critical Quarterly|volume=46|issue=4|pages=77–90|doi=10.1111/j.0011-1562.2004.00598.x}}
* {{Cite book
|last=Schofield|first=John
|year=2002
|chapter=Monuments and the memories of war: motivations for preserving military sites in England
|editor1-last=Beck|editor1-first=Colleen M.
|editor2-last=Johnson|editor2-first=William Gray
|editor3-last=Schofield|editor3-first=John
|title=Matériel Culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth-Century Conflict
|location=London, UK
|publisher=Routledge
|pages=143–158
|series=One World Archaeology
|volume=44}}
* {{Cite journal
|last=James|first=J.
|s2cid=84177597
|year=2006
|title=Undoing Trauma: Reconstructing the Church of Our Lady in Dresden
|journal=Ethos
|volume=34|issue=2
|pages=244–272
|doi=10.1525/eth.2006.34.2.244}}
* {{Cite journal
|last=Moeller|first=Robert G.
|year=2006
|title=On the History of Man-made Destruction: Loss, Death, Memory, and Germany in the Bombing War
|journal=History Workshop Journal|volume=61
|pages=103–134
|doi=10.1093/hwj/dbi057
}}

[[Category:History of Europe]]
[[Category:Urban planning]]
[[Category:Aftermath of World War II]]
[[Category:Bombs]]