The enemy's view: German target photo of GEC Witton, 1939
Annotated 8 June 1939; folder dated December 1939 · GEC works, Witton, Birmingham (south of Perry Common)
A Luftwaffe target sheet for the General Electric Company works at Witton ('Fabrik für Elektr. Ausrüstung'), with annotations dated 8 June 1939, from a folder issued in December 1939.
Sheet GB 84 4 bc from Luftwaffe target folder GB 84 4, 'Birmingham: Fabrik für Elektrische Ausrüstung General Electric Co. Ltd.'. A German aerial photograph at about 1:15,500 (Kriegsaufnahme 468 L 34) has the GEC works (A) outlined in red, with James Booth's aluminium works (B), Nechells power station (C) and the Saltley gasholders (D). Perry Barr, Aston and Gravelly Hill are labelled. Typed tables give the floor areas of each target's buildings.
Notes
Place: confirmed from the sheet: the GEC Witton works, about 2.5–3 km south of Kingstanding. Kingstanding itself is off the top of the photograph. Date: the sheet is marked 'Nachträge 8.6.39' (annotations 8 June 1939); IWM dates the folder December 1939. The photograph must be earlier, and was probably taken on a pre-war German survey flight. Relevance: many estate residents worked at GEC and at Kynoch/ICI next door. The target folders show why north Birmingham's factories, and the estates around them, were bombed. The companion Kynoch folder (IWM LBY LUFT 1853) was listed in an earlier hunt and is not repeated here.
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