{"id":618921,"date":"2026-06-03T13:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618921\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T13:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:16:09","slug":"hundreds-evacuated-in-coventry-after-ww2-bomb-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618921\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds evacuated in Coventry after WW2 bomb found"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bomb likely dropped during November 1940 Blitz, historian sayspublished at 13:49 BST<\/p>\n<p>13:49 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A picture of building destroyed during World War Two. Three people can be seen walking in front of the rubble.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c5107c59-647d-4816-b5f0-35a3344c09ce.png.webp\"  width=\"1214\" height=\"681\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Coventry historian Pete Walters says he believes the bomb was most likely dropped during the November 1940 Blitz &#8211; the raid the Germans called Operation Moonlight Sonata.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He told BBC CWR: &#8220;The big site at Radford was targeted during that raid and I suspect, but I&#8217;m not entirely sure, that this probably happened at the same time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve no doubt, really, that this is one of the bombs that were dropped on that factory, which did not explode, [and it&#8217;s] been there all these years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Walters said the Sandy Lane site had a long history even before the war, having started life as a cotton mill in the 1860s before being destroyed by fire in the 1890s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was later bought by Harry Lawson and Frederick Simms &#8211; the men who introduced the first car factory to Britain &#8211; who converted the ruins into what they called the Motor Mills, where the first Daimler cars were made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a very historic site,&#8221; Walters said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bomb likely dropped during November 1940 Blitz, historian sayspublished at 13:49 BST 13:49 BST Image source, Getty Images&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}