Coventry Cathedral (St Michael's)
14 November 1940 · Coventry, West Midlands
View this record on the map →- Date
- 14 November 1940
- Record type
- Historic bombing site
- Bomb type
- incendiary
- Location
- Coventry, West Midlands
- Position accuracy
- Confirmed site (fixed, well-known landmark)
What happened
The fourteenth-century cathedral church of St Michael was gutted by fire during Operation Moonlight Sonata, the only English cathedral destroyed in the Second World War. The tower, spire and outer walls survived.
Casualty note
No casualty figure exists for the cathedral itself, and the famous 568 must not be read as one — that is the toll for the whole city across the whole night.
Also worth knowing
The ruins were kept as a memorial beside Basil Spence's new cathedral rather than cleared — a deliberate decision to leave the damage legible.