Fires rage across the city in this projection, which shows Liverpool targeted by the Luftwaffe in WWII. The city's docks, a vital passage to America and the west were a crucial supply line during the war, and the Battle of the Atlantic was masterminded from a bunker underneath Exchange Flags. Bootle to the north of the city, Wirral and Liverpool were the second most heavily bombed British targets outside London because of their strategic importance. Over 90% of war materials imported into the country came through the city's docks, without which Britain would have been unable to maintain the war effort.
More than 50 air raids hit Merseyside in the first blitz of 1940, while the May Blitz in 1941 was responsible for the bombing of StLuke's Church, the Bombed Out Church on the junction of Berry Street and Leece Street in the city centre. The church's walls survived intact, but the roof and windows were blown out. It remained standing, and today is a Garden of Remembrance for the city's thousands of war dead.
