It's been 77 years since the end of the Second World War and a lot has changed since air raids devastated parts of Cardiff. Places like Canton, Grangetown and Roath were hit, with shops, businesses and homes reduced to rubble. The death toll of the attacks on Cardiff from German air raids stands at 355 people. The attacks occurred from 1940 until the last raid in March 1944.
These air raids became known as The Blitz, from the German word blitzkrieg, meaning lightning war. Each time the planes were spotted, a warden on look out would sound an alarm or siren. During World War Two, the sirens were sounded 585 times in Cardiff. One of the most devastating took place on January 2, 1941, when at least 126 people died and 110 homes were destroyed.
It's still possible to identify where these attacks took place, even if the devastation of the time makes them look very different to how they look now. In some cases, other than rebuilding, the places have not changed too radically. In others, the pace of modern development has changed far more than the rebuilding of a bombed building. We've gone into our archives and matched up photographs showing the devastation from the raids and taken pictures of the areas as they look today.
