With its strategic shipping ports and factories, the towns and cities dotted along the River Mersey soon became some of Hitler’s most heavily targeted sites during the Second World War. In August 1940 the German Luftwaffe attacked Birkenhead in what was to be the first of over 300 such bombing raids Merseyside sustained that year. Almost 4,000 people perished and many more were seriously injured as the streets and buildings of Liverpool and Wirral were destroyed and their residents left in turmoil. Featuring 45 vistas of bomb-damaged suburbia and city centre carnage alongside 45 photographs of the area as it is today, Merseyside War Years: Then & Now sensitively documents the changes and developments that have taken place in Merseyside since those dark days of war, demonstrating both architectural progress and Britain’s resilience and in the face of adversity.
