Plymouth played an important role as a port city before World War 2, serving as the departure point for many explorers including Francis Drake and Charles Darwin. During the war, Plymouth was heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe due to its naval dockyards. The bombings destroyed much of the city center and reduced the population. After the war, Plymouth was rebuilt in the 1950s with pedestrian shopping areas, and has since expanded through new developments while maintaining international connections through ferry links and sister city programs.

1. Plymouth
Before and after the
Second World War
Cerwyn Sambrook 5B

2. Before Second World War:
Role as a Port
• 1528 William Hawkins transatlantic trade originated.
• 1572 Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to sail into the Pacific
• 1768 James Cook left from Plymouth included three voyages to the southern
ocean and the Pacific .
• 1831 Charles Darwin left Plymouth for the Galapagos Islands, where he formulated
his revolutionary theories of natural selection and the Origins of Species.

3. Throughout the nineteenth century the population and physical size of
Plymouth increased dramatically.
In 1824 Plymouth Dock was renamed Devonport.
In 1928 Plymouth was granted City status, and the first Lord Mayor was
appointed in 1935.

4. Why it was bombed ?
• The royal dockyards at Her Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport were the main target
• They were important for the Battle of the Atlantic.
• Despite this, civilian casualties were very high and dockyards continued operating.

5. During the war
• The Plymouth Blitz was a series of bombing raids carried out by the Nazi
German Luftwaffe on the English city of Plymouth in WW2.
• Plymouth's and Devonport's centres were destroyed.
• Resident population fell from 220,000 at the outbreak of war to, at one point, only
127,000.
• In 1941 most of the children were evacuated and on any night that a raid was
expected thousands of people were taken by lorry into the countryside, usually to
the fringes of Dartmoor.

6. The black points are where they bombed

7. After the war
• Re-built in the 1950s.
• Plymouth's commercial heart was the first in England to incorporate pedestrian-
only shopping avenues.
• Since WW2 the city has expanded, with new housing and commercial
developments and absorption of neighbouring communities.
• Today Plymouth has strong links with several European cities, with ferry links to
France and Spain. Plymouth is twinned with Gdynia in Poland, San Sebastian in
Spain, Novorossiysk in Russia, Brest in France and with Plymouth, Massachusetts.