MP demands Blitz report on "forgotten" city is published after 83 years

Hull has been described as the most devastated city in the UK per square mile in World War Two – even more than London – but a Government notice preventing its naming for reasons of national security was only lifted in the 1970s.

At least 1,200 people were killed in the Hull Blitz in 1940 to 1941, a casualty rate on a par with London. But bulletins referred to it only as a “North-East” town or “northern coastal town” and after WW2 its role was largely forgotten.

Hull North and Cottingham MP Dame Diana wrote to the National Archives about the final version of a report it holds, after meeting Professor David Atkinson from Hull University and archivists from Hull History Centre.

Preliminary drafts of research by Solly Zuckerman and J.D. Bernal about the effect of the bombing on the people of Hull, dating to 1942, are in the University of East Anglia Archive. However there is also an “all-important” final version that has not yet seen the light of day.

It was originally embargoed until 2020 but this has now been extended “indefinitely” and “for reasons unknown”, the MP’s letter states.

Dame Diana wants to know whether the decision can be appealed – or red tape dispensed with and the report published.

She said while areas that were heavily bombed like East London’s Docklands “have had their experience repeatedly and rightly documented in popular culture over the decades, including in highly influential landmark TV productions such as The World at War, Hull’s wartime story has been largely overlooked, obscured and ignored in national public life”.

She added: "This has fuelled the sense of Hull being the ‘forgotten city’.

Ironically, Hull has been used in recent years by filmmakers to stand in for 1940s London. In 2023 Steve McQueen’s Blitz, about how Londoners survived the German bombing campaign, was filmed in Hull.

And 2015's A Royal Night Out, about Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret's VE Day night out, was also shot in the city.

Dame Diana said: "To have had the name of the city glossed over in the earlier reporting from the wartime period and to be referred to, almost anonymously, as a ‘North East coastal town’ is to undervalue what happened to Hull. Other towns and cities do not seem to have been treated in this way.”

In the letter, Dame Diana contrasts Hull, which still has undeveloped bombsites, while London’s Docklands has seen “transformational” regeneration.

In her constituency, the National Picture Theatre, on Beverley Road, is finally being redeveloped as a memorial and educational facility – 80 years after its bombing.

Dame Diana said it is important “to remember the suffering, loss and sacrifice of Hull civilians in that World War alongside that of our servicemen and women from the city”, adding: “We can do this by releasing the 1942 final report into the impacts of the bombing of Hull. Doing so would refresh the historical records and, I hope, influence popular culture and its portrayal of Hull from now on.

"It would also provide context for our future aspirations for the city.”

The National Archives have been approached for comment.