The entire school from Bristol moved to Cornwall during the Second World War

Clifton College has been the home of General Bradley’s headquarters since 1942

As people around the world gather to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in 1944 that turned the tide of World War II, did you know that much of the planning was done at a school in Bristol?

In early 1941 all pupils and staff moved to Bude in Cornwall to avoid German bombs in the Blitz, at which point the Clifton site was taken over by the army. In 1942, the school then became the headquarters of US First Army General Omar Bradley.

General Bradley was tasked with planning how the US Army would land on the Normandy beaches, codenamed Utar and Omaha, including the role the Air Force would play in securing key land sites.

Hits Radio recently paid a visit to Clifton College to learn more about the history.

How did the school become a military base?

Simon Tate, history teacher at Clifton, gave us a tour of the site.

He said: “(In) the raids on Bristol at the end of 1940, part of the Blitz, Bristol was targeted because it was a very important dock and of course it had the aircraft factory at Filton.

“Those two things really made it a prime target for the Luftwaffe and they came over Bristol and dropped bombs over Bristol and bombs fell here on the school, two right here on the Close (a playing field next to the school) and then worse, two fell near two of our pensions.

“Being a boarding school, the students were actually in shelters that night and it must have really scared the authorities in the school management team.”

Within a week it was decided that the entire school should be evacuated from the town, at which point an exchange with the British Army was agreed, with the school taking over military facilities in Bude in Cornwall, while an officer training unit moved to Bristol .

Simon adds: “They were very welcomed by the local community, they had many pleasant reunions over the years, there is a memorial stone in Bude to remember that Clifton was there for that time.”

The following year, the school became a base for American units and eventually General Bradley’s headquarters.

Clifton and D Day

Planning for the Allied invasion of Europe began in 1943 as Nazi Germany was increasingly on the back foot as America entered the war.

The school library became the central basis of planning.

“They had clerks working here designing and planning every landing craft,” Simon said.

“The number of people that would be on board, the equipment that they would carry. That was all done in the last few months anyway when they got to that stage of the planning operation.”

Meanwhile, while this was happening, secret documents sent from Bletchley Park, where Germany’s Enigma code had been broken, were arriving at what is the school’s Wilson Tower.

“At the top, what’s called the Crow’s Nest, is where the top secret codes that were broken at Bletchley were put back here so the Americans could take that information and apply it to their planning.

Bradley’s “War Room”.

With all of this in mind, General Bradley set up his war room in what is now the entrance to the school library, where he and his staff would finalize the landing plans.

“Their key maps would be up on the wall and they would look at the broad plans themselves and then develop that work, the detailed work for all the different clerks who would be either in the main library area or in the classrooms in around us. now, Simon said.

“This is. This is the nerve center of the American landings on D-Day, 1944.

“This school was really the center of American planning for both Omaha and Utah….

Signs of history

Today the school still boasts various memorabilia from that time, for example the American flag that flew over the school while it was used as a military base was presented by General Bradley to the staff and is now framed on the wall in Clifton’s main school College Prep School. hall.

Meanwhile, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D Eisenhower, who became the 34th President of the United States, presented Clifton with a signed copy of his autobiography detailing his time during the war and the table that was used by General Bradley in his war room for Plan D Day, now in the upper school’s Newbolt Hall.

Covered with a white tablecloth, it is now used to serve tea and coffee during school meetings.

The importance of memory

This year, as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, many surviving veterans of the D-Day are over 100 years old.

As such, Simon says it is increasingly important to hear their stories while they are still with us.

He said: “I think we saw that with the last veterans of the First World War we lost that connection, that human connection with those who were there and fought in the war, but remembering that the war became even more important during the war. years that followed.

“I think we are about to enter the same phase as World War II…

“It’s probably the last time, the 80th anniversary, that we’re going to have those veterans actually be able to walk the beaches and talk to them and hear their experiences.

“So it’s even more important today that we record those memories, listen carefully to their stories, and then, once that generation is no longer with us, keep those memories alive.”

Nearly two and a half thousand American servicemen are believed to have been killed on D-Day, with approximately 2,000 casualties (killed and wounded) on Omaha Beach.

The other Allied nations are believed to have suffered a collective death toll of just under 2,000 on D-Day.

In total, the Battle of Normandy is believed to have caused approximately 425,000 casualties, killed, wounded or missing, in both the Allied and German armies.

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